50 COTTON TEXTILES IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 



chased by, perhaps, three-fourths of the people, than an article whose 

 actual value is greater than the other but is not as showy. Then if the 

 people, I say, want cheap things and showy and our manufacturers 

 want the trade, they must of necessity make what is wanted here, and 

 not what they think is wanted. 



Once having the trade, our manufacturers can control it, and if deem- 

 ing it necessary, can then throw a better class of goods upon the market, 

 provided they find a better class is required. But let them first make 

 an effort to get it. When it is considered that fully three-fourths of 

 the people of this province the same ratio will probably hold through- 

 out Brazil are negroes or Indians or both, with a dash of white-blood 

 here and there mingled and mixed, and that these three-fourths though 

 not possessed of a very large quantity of such treasure as is required 

 in order to eat and drink and be clothed more or less, to get married and 

 be buried must of necessity be the largest consumers, it may readily 

 be understood what they need, what they want, and what they can 

 buy. 



The other fourth is in circumstances to purchase our better and more 

 expensive manufactures for themselves and their homes. Apparently, 

 and perhaps in reality, the advantage for supplying this country with 

 what it requires for its people is with England, with Germany, with 

 France. These countries have their representatives in business here; 

 they have had long experience in commercial dealing with the people, 

 as before stated, knowing well their methods of transacting business ; 

 they have their banking houses, especially the English ; they have their 

 steamers, usually arriving and departing with well-timed promptness 

 and regularity. With this state of things in favor of those countries 

 our manufacturers and business houses must compete; against it they 

 must contend. We have no business houses here, we have no banks, 

 we lack experience in business relations with the people, and we have 

 only three steamers arriving here, after leaving New York, anywhere 

 from twenty to twenty-eight days. It is true we have skilled workmen, we 

 have genius, we have any amount of energy, we have untiring push, we 

 have brains, and we have money all necessary elements to build up and 

 develop our trade with all South America. With these requisites as a 

 foundation, why then can not these things be done which, it strikes 

 me, must be done to accomplish the building up and developing and 

 extending of this trade, viz, establish business houses here, establish 

 banking houses instead of having our business in this line go through 

 London, and construct steam ships that will give the United States 

 and all South American ports better mail facilities, enabling them to 

 communicate with one another much more frequently than now and in 

 the fastest time possible. 



A domestic manufacture is rising here with which we must compete 

 as well as with other nations. Not extensive yet, it is true, but it is 

 beginning to increase. It will doubtless increase more rapidly as soon 



