reality as obtaining the first quality at a very much lower price. 
Such is the desideratum of the process of Dr. Carlos de Cer- 
queira Pinto, a Brazilian doctor who has lived for a great num- 
ber of years among the rubber districts where he has made 
a most accurate study of the subject. The results hitherto at- 
tained are very satisfactory, the Government of Brazil having 
aided the inventor with a view to spreading his invention once 
its advantages have been definitely proven. 
At the same time, the process of extracting the rubber from 
trees disseminated in the interior of the forests at a considerable 
distance one tree from the other, is against all principles of econ- 
omy. The planting on a large scale, on the margin of the 
Amazon river, or of its big affluents, but in places of easy 
access, is an essential measure, especially seeing that the 
Government aims at maintaining for Brazil in future, the promi- 
nent position it now occupies in the trade. Therefore, whilst 
considering all the complex elements of the question thoroughly, 
a study had to be made of all the solutions presented. We shall 
now see what procedure was followed: 
In August, 1909, a Congress of seringueiros (rubber gath- 
erers), assembled in Acre with a view to studying and discuss- 
ing the situation of the rubber trade. In a message addressed 
to the President of the Republic at the closing of the proceedings, 
the members of the Congress suggested, as chief measures, easy 
communications, roads, railway lines, subventioned lines of 
steamers, colonization promoted by the Government and a. re- 
duction in the export duty. ; 
Later on, in the same year, the Para Government enacted 
Laws Nos. 1,100 and 1,109 of the 5th and 6th of November, both 
of which have great bearing on the solution of this most im- 
portant problem. 
The first of said laws gives authority, in article 1st, to the 
State Government, to enter into agreements with one or more 
native or foreign companies, in regard to the plantation and ex- 
ploitation of the seringueira (hevea brasiliensis) against the 
concession of the following favors: 
'a. The concession of vacant lands up to twenty thousand 
hectares with proper demarkations for the Company’s plantings. 
b. Reduction in the export duty of planted rubber to the ex- 
tent of 50 per cent in the first 10 years as from the date of the 
first exportation; of 40 per cent in the second decade; of 30 per 
cent thenceforward until completion of twenty years. _ 
'_c. Reduction of 30 per cent in the tariffs of the Braganca 
railway and in the freights of the line of steamers subventioned 
by the State, during a term of twenty years, for planted rubber 
produced by the Company. 
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