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but a man he is, and conscious of a man's rights. He is enduring, hardworking, temperate in his language, and except for occasional excesses, in his habits. In him is the promise of a strong people. Mingling of the Spanish and Indian bloods in the north has produced a laborer who is sought for his strength and endurance in the tropics, though he is quick to resent arbitrary control. In the southwest the Indian blood is of that indomitable race, the Auracanians, who resisted the Spanish soldier for centuries, and in Chile have won recognition as an important and valued element of the Chilean people.

Between the Argentines of the poorer class and the class that by virtue of intelligence, ability, education, and wealth rule the country, is a great gulf, to be filled in the future by the agricultural population that will occupy the immense estates now held by a relatively small number of great families. In the evolution of the people, the selection of that farming class is of the highest importance to the quality of the future race. The conditions are not now favorable for immigration is unrestricted, selection is not thought of. Neither is the number of smaller farms growing rapidly, for lands are expensive and their subdivision proceeds slowly. But there are forces working inevitably toward changes which in another generation will strengthen Argentina by establishing the prosperous middle class of citizens she now lacks.

Among the leaders of the nation stand the heads of those families who won their right to leadership in the long warfare for independence and national unity. That struggle ended when Mitre and Roca mutually relinquished their opposing aspirations to the presidency and placed the welfare of their country above party service and ambition. The generation which was then in its boyhood now governs and grapples with the problems of national develop nent that have assumed stupendous proportions. I do not refer to the political questions that divide conservatives and radicals of various degrees, but rather to those which relate to the development of the national domain by national or by private enterprise. Here we touch the conditions that will affect

the destinies of Argentina long after the factional strife of the hour is forgotten. There are in the counsels of the government far-sighted statesmen who are striving with intense devotion to meet the issues of the hour in the way that shall guard and promote the future greatness of the nation. Their difficult task is rendered more difficult still by conditions incident to the development of the young nation. The lack of knowledge of the country and its resources is one. Another is the lack of trained investigators of Argentine nationality, which is due not to want of ability but to disinclination of the able young men to enter on scientific careers, other than that of medicine. In the latter as in law they have demonstrated brilliant ability. It is to be hoped that they will soon prove themselves equally competent in engineering and the natural sciences. Argentina needs them.

SOME OF THE OBSTACLES TO NORTH

AMERICAN TRADE IN BRAZIL

By John C. Branner, LL.D., President of
Stanford University

I am not and never have been directly interested in trade. During the ten years of my travels in Brazil I have been in the employ of the Brazilian government as a geologist, or I have been otherwise engaged in the study of the geology and natural history of the country. My travels, however, have taken me into all parts of the country, into nearly every one of the Brazilian states, and among all classes of people. What I have to say therefore is based entirely on my own observations and on what I could learn from the people rather than upon hearsay or upon such information as one can pick up in the seaports and in the large cities.

I cannot undertake to discuss or even to mention all of the obstacles to North American trade in Brazil for the reason that I do not pretend to know what all of those obstacles are. In the brief time I can give to the subject I shall only ask your attention to such obstacles as have come to my attention and for which we North Americans are ourselves responsible.

I assume at the outset that it is generally known that Brazil exports the bulk of her products to the United States, and that she imports the bulk of foreign supplies from Europe.

These facts may be readily gathered from statistics, and they may be seen in process in the large Brazilian cities which are the ports of entry and distributing centers, such as Pará, Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, and Santos. But the impression that one gets in the large cities where the commission merchants are well supplied with samples, and stand ready to receive orders for American as well as for European goods, are not nearly as convincing as that

THE JOURNAL OF RACE DEVELOPMENT, VOL. 4, No. 4, 1914

which one gets on the frontier of trade, that is in the shops of the small dealers, in the homes of the planters and cattle growers, and in the humble cabins of the poor fishermen, or of the rubber cutters of the interior.

The shelves of the little retail shops through the distant interior of Brazil furnish the self-satisfied North American enlightening visions that cannot be seen or appreciated in the up-to-date shops of the Rua d'Ouvidor or on the fashionable avenues of Rio de Janeiro. For these little up-country shops are the distributing posts for everything of foreign manufacture that reaches the common people and the laboring classes all through the enormous interior of that country. The commission merchants of the coast cities keep all sorts of things, many of which may seldom or never be sold. But the up-country dealer cannot afford to pay the transportation on mule-back over a thousand miles of almost impassable bridle-paths upon things that there is any doubt about his selling. One may therefore be very sure that the goods in the retail shops of the interior are there because the dealer knows they will be sold that there is a sure market for them, however small the demand.

In such a place one usually finds the following articles of North American manufacture: kerosene oil, Singer sewing machines, cheap clocks, Ayres' proprietary medicines, and Lanman and Kemp's Florida water. Everything else is of British, German, French, Italian, or Portuguese manufacture. I have myself seen hundreds and hundreds of such stores.

It is my purpose to ask your attention to the reasons for this state of affairs as they appear to an uncommercial traveler, and in so far as we are responsible for it.

It is in the retail shops I have mentioned that one fully realizes what some of the obstacles are to our trade with Brazil, for it is chiefly in them that some of these obstacles are operative.

The obstacles to North American trade with Brazil that have attracted my attention on the ground are these:

1. Our ignorance and indifference to the language of the country.

2. Our ignorance of and indifference to the customs of the people, and consequently to the demands of the trade.

3. Bad packing or indifference to the methods of transportation in the interior.

4. Indifference to the credit system of the country.

5. Our lack of serious intention to build up and maintain permanent business.

6. Fatal and unscrupulous business methods, including the sale to the Brazilians of things the people cannot use and should not buy.

7. Our high tariff laws which render competition with other countries difficult.

8. Finally I shall refer briefly to what are often spoken of as obstacles to trade, namely the absence of American ships and American banks.

The language. The language of Brazil is Portuguese, but there is a wide-spread impression in this country that the language is Spanish. A great many people have the delusion that, even if the language is not Spanish, the Spanish will do just as well. I assure you that this is a serious and a fatal error. It is true that Spanish is generally understood along the frontier with Uruguay, Bolivia, and Peru, just as it is in this country along the Mexican frontier, but through the interior and over the great body of the country the Spanish language is as little known as it is in the United States. Over and over again I have seen efforts made to sell in Brazil articles that have to be accompanied by printed directions, as in case, for example, of medicines, and the directions were sent out in Spanish.

I venture the guess that if an American manufacturer wanted to send a traveling salesman to work up trade in Brazil for the first time, he would, in nine cases out of ten, supply him with catalogues printed in the Spanish language. I venture a second guess that the aforesaid manufacturer would instinctively look for a salesman who understood Spanish. And I venture a third guess that the Spanish speaking salesman with the Spanish catalogues would make a first class mess of any business he might attempt in Brazil. Persons who contemplate business with Brazil cannot

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