Most of the coffee is grown in the mountains to the north, and comes to Santos from Saõ Paulo on a splendidly equipped British-built railway. The line is one of the finest in South America. It rises rapidly through a beautiful tropical valley by a gradient so steep as to necessitate the use of a cable and cogs for a large part of the distance. The powerhouses scattered at intervals along the line are models of cleanliness and mechanical perfection.
Notwithstanding the fact that America is by far the greatest consumer of Santos coffee, the greater part of the local enterprises are in British hands. The investment of British capital in Brazil is enormous. It has been computed that it amounts to over six hundred million dollars. Americans do not seem yet to have waked up to the possibilities of Brazilian commerce, or to the fact that the question of American trade with Brazil is an extremely important one.
It is only necessary to realize that the territory of Brazil is larger than that of the United States, that the population of Brazil is greater than all the rest of South America put together, and that Brazil’s exports exceed her imports by one hundred million dollars annually, to understand the opportunity for developing our foreign trade.
Brazil produces considerably more than half of the world’s supply of coffee, besides enormous quantities of rubber. The possibilities for increased production of raw material are almost incalculable. It is just the sort of market for us. Here we can dispose of our manufactured products and purchase what will not grow at home.
We have made some attempts to develop the field, even though our knowledge is too often limited to that of the delightful person who knew Brazil was “the place where the nuts come from!” We have
little conception of the great distances that separate the important cities of Brazil and of the difficulties of transportation.
A story is told in Rio of an attempt to go from Rio to Saõ Paulo by motor, over the cart-road that connects the two largest cities in the Republic. The trip by railway takes about twelve hours. The automobile excursion took three weeks of most fearful drudgery. Needless to say, the cars did not come back by their own power.
It is more difficult for a merchant in one of the great coast cities of Central Brazil to keep in touch with the Amazon, than it is for a Chicago merchant to keep in touch with Australia.
Furthermore, to one who tries to master the situation, the coinage and the monetary system seem at first sight to present an insuperable obstacle. To have a bill for dinner rendered in thousands of reis is rather confusing, until one comes to regard the thousand rei piece as equivalent to about thirty cents.
Another and much more serious difficulty is the poor mail service to and from New York. To the traveller in South America, unquestionably the most exasperating annoyance everywhere is the insecurity and irregularity of the mails. The Latin-American mind seems to be more differently constituted from ours in that particular than in any other. He knows that the service is bad, slow, and unreliable. But it seems to make little difference to him, and the only effort he makes to overcome the frightfully unsatisfactory conditions is by resorting to the registered mail, to which he intrusts everything that is of importance. Add to this fact the infrequency of direct mail steamers from the United States to the East Coast, and it may readily be seen where lies one of the most serious obstacles in the way of extending our commerce with Brazil.
A marked peculiarity of the Brazilian market is its extreme conservatism. Brazilians who have become accustomed to buying French, English, and German products are loath to change. American products are unfashionable. The Brazilian who can afford it travels on the luxuriously appointed steamers of the Royal Mail, and he and his friends regard articles of English make as much more fashionable and luxurious than those from the United States.
This is largely due to the lack of commercial prestige which we enjoy in the coast cities of Brazil. The Brazilians cannot understand why they see no American banks and no American steamship lines. Our flag never appears in their ports except as it is carried by a man-of-war or an antiquated wooden sailing vessel. To their minds this is proof conclusive that the American, who claims that his country is one of the most important commercial nations in the world, is merely bluffing.
Such prejudices can only be overcome by strict attention to business, and this attention our exporters have in large measure not yet thought it worth while to give. The agents that they send to Brazil rarely speak Portuguese, and are unable to compete with the expert linguists who come out from Europe. Frequently they even lack that technical training in the manufacture of the goods which they are trying to sell, which gives their German competitors so great an advantage.
Still more important than commercial travellers in a country like Brazil, is the establishment of agencies where goods may be attractively displayed. An active importer told me that, in his opinion, the most essential thing for Americans to do was to maintain permanent depots or expositions where their goods could be seen and handled. Relatively little good seems to result from the use of catalogues, even when printed in the language of the country, owing to the insecurity of the mails and the absence of American banks or express companies which would insure the delivery of goods ordered.
Finally, it is disgraceful to be obliged to repeat the old story of American methods of packing goods for shipment to South America. This fact has been so often alluded to in many different publications that it might seem as though further criticism were unnecessary. Unfortunately, however, in spite of repeated protests, American shippers, forgetful of the almost entire absence of docks and docking facilities here, continue to pack their goods as if they were destined for Europe.
At most of the ports, lighters have to be used. These resemble small coal barges, into which the goods are lowered over the side of the vessel. Often more or less of a sea is running, and notwithstanding all the care that may be used the durability of the packing-cases is tested to the utmost. I saw a box containing a typewriter dumped on top of a pile of miscellaneous merchandise, from which it rolled down, bumping and thumping into the farther corner of the barge. Fortunately, this particular typewriter belonged to a make of American machines whose manufacturers have learned to pack their goods in such form as to stand just that kind of treatment. The result is that one sees that brand of machine all over South America.
The American consul in Rio, Mr. Anderson, has been doing a notable service in recent years by sending north full and accurate reports of business conditions in Brazil, and our special agent, Mr. Lincoln Hutchinson, has written excellent reports on trade conditions in South America. To the labors of both these gentlemen I am greatly indebted for information on this subject.
CHAPTER III
BUENOS AIRES
We left Santos late on a Tuesday afternoon, and after two pleasant days at sea entered the harbor of Montevideo on Friday morning. It was crowded with ships of all nations, and we were particularly delighted to see the American flag flying from three small steamers. Could it be possible that the flag which had been so conspicuous for its absence from South American waters, was regaining in the twentieth century the preëminence it had in the early years of the nineteenth? Alas, no; the boats were only government vessels in the lighthouse service, towing lightships from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. They had stopped here to coal, for Montevideo is a favorite port of call for steamers bound through the Straits of Magellan. Ever since the days when it was the home of active smugglers, who were engaged in defying Spain’s restrictive colonial policy, Montevideo has been a prosperous trading centre. To-day, clean streets, new buildings, electric cars, fine shops, elaborate window displays, well-dressed people, and excellent hotels mark it as modern and comfortable.
It