Weekly journal-miner., 1916-12-06
BRAZIL WORRIED OVER QUESTION
 OF NEUTRALITY
DR. LAURO MULLER, FOR EIGN M N I s T ER, DE- CLARES AGAINST CAST ING LOT WITH ALLIES.
Associated Press Correspondence.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec. ?. - Dr. Lauro Muller, the foreign minister of Brazil who has been absent in the United States for the past four months. has returned to this city and
 with him came the vexed question of neutrality and that of the attitude Brazil should assume in the present European struggle For some time nart tho Brazilian public has been agi- tated over the uttcranccs of Senator Ruv Barbosa, the eminent Brazilian jurist and statesman who has repeat edly counscled the Brazilian people to espouse the cause of the Allies in a warm and open manner.
 Or Muller in his reolv to the off, - r-occt- of vcicor'c rl-do at the ---.-' -~c~-.;--- 'o-,Io-od hin hv tho r,~r~,0 - R;o o1.:-ed ar adherence to .he e'ric+est rcu.ral;tv and told his 'or"r audience that the salvation of Brazil rested in the energy, courage ord initiative which Brazilians might have in the fight to restore the dam ages caused by the shock of the great war.
 No country in South America has suffered more from the effects of the war than Brazil Economically the war dealt all of South America a hcav-v blow. but particularly it hit Brazil IL cut off some of this coun- trv's best customs. 1t damned up the source of considerable of its supplies. frightened the purse strings of its bankers, and for a time threatened to paralyze all big public enterprises un- der construction. The story is told by the foreign trade reports of the past three years.
 The great mass of the people of Brazil have always been enthusiastic ally, and some aggressively, pro- Ally, So that when the eminent Ruy Barbosa counseled open allegiance to the cause of the Entente, he was warmly applauded. But there is large foreign element in Brazil which has done its best to stem this tide. Tn the southern States of Rio Grande do Sul. Santa Catharina, Parana and others, some 100000 Germans have for a long time lived and prospered. These people have given to Brazil some of its most modern municipal and port works, and through inter- marriage have supplied the govern mental ranks with some of its most able leaders. German influence has for years been strong in the larger cities where its merchants have led in trade, often, as in Rio, constructing and owning rows of business blocks on the main avenues that their wares might be more efficiently retailcd.
 As result the bitterness shown between the nationals of the various warning countries living here has been unDaralled in any other non-belligcr- cnt part. Each Sunday flags wave from hundreds of residences, the ban ncrs of the Central Powers being III the decided minority but always flying. German members have been uncerc- moniouslv expelled from information al clubs and some hotels here are now extensively advertising the fact that no Germans, Austrians or allies Of the Central Powers will be admitted as guests.
 Writers and speakers, in discussing this matter of neutrality, often point with condemnation to the United States because the northern republic failed to take a stronger stand on the occasion of the invasion of Belgium by Germany. These contend that the United States as the leading non belligercnt power might have estab- lishcd a precedent in this matter which would have done much to have saved future endorsements for all neutral nations.
 1 In a magazine article recently pub Eshed in one of the Brazilian reviews, however, the writer attributes the cause of the general pro-Ally senti- ment among the people of the south ern republic to the intellectual and | financial domination which France has exercised for the past five decades over Brazil and the rest of the coun' i tries of South America
 In Brazil as in the other countries ] of the southern continent. French IS ! taught to the children of the better 1 classes as a matter Of course. The dream of every young Latin-Ameri- can writer and thinker IS 10 finish off his course by sojOurn of year or two in Paris. French philosophy, 1 French psychology and French liter
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