BRAZIL 147 



An Australian, now resident in Brazil, writes to me : " Brazil 

 with her vast extent of excellent cattle-raising lands, abun- 

 dantly watered and easily improved, offers opportunities not 

 to be met with in any other part of the world. No other 

 country is so lavish in Government assistance to pastoralists 

 or farmers ; but still progress has been slow in both these pur- 

 suits, mainly on account of the lack of initiative of private indi- 

 viduals. The average Brazilian likes politics better than 

 work, so there is plenty of room for the man who wants to 

 work intelligently. To the Australian who has a little capital, 

 I can truthfully state that, comparing the two countries, I 

 prefer Brazil, that is — there is no domineering Government 

 whose one idea seems to be to invent new taxes for those who 

 keep the country going, no labour unions whose one idea seems 

 to be the ruining of the honest working men by not allowing 

 them to do enough work to keep them physically fit. I will not 

 claim that the Brazilian Government is a model one ; it makes 

 no pretence to be perfect, but to its credit may be said that it 

 helps those who are engaged in either of the industries referred 

 to, realising that the future of the country depends on them. 



" As to the railway communications, they are much better 

 than in Australia. One can travel comfortably, and at a reason- 

 able rate, anywhere, if the Central Railway— a Government- 

 owned and controlled concern — is dropped out. It is a remark- 

 able thing that Government -controlled railways in any part of 

 the world are usually failures (especially is this so in the Com- 

 monwealth of Australia, where you have one of the worst of 

 services, and yet many Australians have asked me if we have 

 decent railways in South America). The ' Central ' (Govern- 

 ment owned) Railway costs the country the small trifle of 

 about a million pounds sterling yearly in dead loss, yet lately, 

 an English company offered the bagatelle of £12,000,000 

 sterling for the ' concern ' as it stood. Naturally, the offer was 

 refused, because there are a lot of ' political friends ' to be 

 protected ; and so it goes on losing money for the country, 

 instead of being a ' paying concern,' as it would be were it in 

 the hands of a private company. 



"I do not wish to paint everything the colour of roSes as 

 regards Brazil, and I am sure that any Brazilian who may 



