The Express.
London, England, 1847-09-21 00:00:00

share in their good fortune and prosperity, and hence
the present thinness of the white population. After
the revolution and the consequent establishment of
the imperial government, this exclusive policy was
in part relaxed. The Brazilians profess to encourage
immigration, and to invite settlers from Europe and
the United States to occupy their rich domains, but
with a stupid inconsistency refuse to grant them those
rights of citizenship which are necessary to the secu-
rity of their lives, liberties, and poesessions. The im-
migrants labour under legal and political disabilities
—constitute in point of fact an inferior population.
Few Englishmen or Americans would subject them-
selves to such a position, whatever material advan-
tages might be connected therewith. Again, the
import duties are so extravagantly high, and articles
of furniture, machinery, tools of every description,
which cannot be made in the country, except of an
inferior kind, and at great expense, if at all,
are so enormously taxed, that the duty amounts
to a virtual prohibition. But the greatest'
enemy to the prosperity of the country is the
export tariff—the radical bane of all enterprise.
Brazilian statesmen, in common with many of their
European contemporaries, imagine that the export
duty comes out of the pockets of the foreign pur-
-1 chimer. This mistake was an aphorism a few years
ago. It is to be hoped that the economic agitation
in Europe, and the experience of their own country—
where the tax has had the effect of decisively im-
peding cultivation—may have taught the govern-
ment of Rio Janeiro sounder principles of commercial
science. Mr. Edwards observes, that there is scarcely
a product raised in the two countries in which the
Brazilian could not undersell the American grower
in his own markets, were it not for this tax. In
addition to all these disabilities and liabilities, the
settler is required to pay a large tithe for the support
of the church. No wonder, then, that immigrants
are repelled from the shores of the Amazon: no
wonder that commerce and agriculture languish, in
despite of all that nature has done for that magni-
ficent country. There is perhaps no territory in the
world to which free trade would be such a boon as
to Para. Those mighty rivers ought to be crowded
with steamers, bearing the rich produce of their
shores to every port. At present the government of
Para does not pay its own expenses. The returns, up
to January, 1815, show a constant deficit. The gene-
ral revenue for 1814 produced only 142 contos de reis,
or 14,7911. British sterling : the expenses for the
same year amounted to 23,9581., leaving a deficiency
of 9,1671. to be made up from the imperial treasury.
Besides these several disadvantages, to which the
ruinous commercial policy of the Brazilian govern-
ment subjects the settler in any part of the empire,
the inhabitants of the province of Para suffer from'
political causes. Ever since the revolution of 1815
was suppressed, the jealousy of Rio Janeiro towards
the northern provinces has been incessantly mani-
fested, and has led to the most pernicious restrictions
on trade and intercourse. It has closed several ports
to foreign commerce altogether, and in various ways
prevented the national development of its commer-
cially-rival cities. This jealousy has also tended to ar-
rest the progress of the inland navigation of the Ama-
zon and its tributaries. Some years ago acompany was
formed at New York, for the expressohject of introduc-
ing steam-boats upon these magnificent waters. The
first boat was fitted up and sent out at considerable ex-
pense, but the enterprise failed for want of co-opera-
tion on the part of Brazil. A vast mine of wealth for
future adventurers lies in these waters; but not until
the government repudiates its present yolicy and
adopts the broad principles of free commerce can it
expect to see them covered with the ships of all na-
tions, bound on their mission of peace and civilisation.
The agricultural produce of the whole of the fertile
and thickly-populated slopes and plains on the east of
the Andes might be transported on their bosoms to
the Atlantic ; and the Amazon might become the
great highway from Europe to the important republics
of Peru and Equador, and even to Bolivia and New
Granada. The regulations of the government lie at
the root of all that impedes the growth and blasts the
prosperity of Para; let the blunders be retrieved, and
nature would soon assert her redeeming power. A
more active life and a better former civilisation would
soon find their way into so favoured a region,—and
the nation on the banks of the AM8.7.911 might gra-
dually become the centre of enlightenment for the
whole southern continent of America.