beyond the tariff tables of the former, they nevertheless obtain 
freights and passengers which proportion them high profits, 
demonstrating thus that the tables of freight tariffs of the sub- 
sidized companies are still a long way from the maximum of 
reduction. 
The Commercial, Industrial and Agricultural Congress which 
took place in Manaos from the 22nd to 27th of February of 
1910, considering this position, resolved to recommend to the 
Public Powers the remodelling of the actual freight tariffs 
principally in that part of them which relate to alimentary goods, 
necessary to the sustaining of the extractors of rubber and in 
the sense of their being substantially cheapened. 
Even to-day one of the best businesses in the Amazonic 
regions consists in chartering steamers for trafficking on the 
rivers. 
If the freight rates on the sections served by the subsidized 
lines are high, greater still are these on the less favored sections 
where the rapids of the rivers flowing among the seringaes, 
make navigation difficult, because in these latter there being no 
freight tables, they make the price according to their judgment, 
such prices of transport being contracted directly according to 
the circumstances of the occasion with the shipper, who has to 
pay the price as the masters of the steamers are pleased or re- 
solved to charge. 
The owners of seringaes subject themselves to the heavy 
burdens which they are bound to put up with, in the hope of 
escaping the damage that the retention of their produce for 
waiit of transport would cause them . 
It is not only the fluvial navigation freights that are much 
too burdensome, for the freights for ocean navigation are also 
burdened with this grave defect and thus it is that despite the 
fact of the distance which separate Brazil from New York and 
from London, is only half that between the consuming mar- 
kets and the east, the freights for the latter are incomparably 
less. It behooves the Governments of countries producing 
rubber in South America to come to an arrangement so as to 
confer adequate premiums on the navigation companies to 
Europe and to the United States, who cheapen their freights 
and’ cut. down in a satisfactory manner the duration of the 
voyage. 
33 
