WCP6725

[1] [p. 24]

The policy of the Brazilian Government is to encourage immigration. To be naturalised it is only necessary to reside two years or to marry a Brazilian wife, to own real estate, to invent anything, to introduce a textile industry, or " to be remarkable by your talents or by your ability in any branch of industry". The Germans become naturalised to a man. But the Italians sigh for their fatherland.

It is an interesting speculation whether extreme cold or extreme heat will be most deterrent to the settler from Europe. Canada and Brazil are about the same size. One leans on the North Pole, the other is strung across the Equator. Both are [Image captioned "Professor Alfred Russel Wallace."] competing for the overflow of Europe. Canada at present, despite her bitter winters, is much more attractive to our people than Brazil. The fact that Canada is peopled by English-speaking folk is no doubt an immense attraction which Brazil lacks. But a few English, Irish, Scotch and Welsh colonies established here and there in Brazil would give the British emigrant the sense of being at home, even although they were but islets of English speech amid a wide ocean of Portuguese. The question whether Brazil is a tempting field which will attract settlers is one on which Professor Alfred Russel Wallace long ago expressed himself with the utmost emphasis. He spent some years in the valley of the Amazon half a century since. When he left that tropical region he put on record his deliberate opinion that the thought of "the glorious life" which might be lived in the tropical regions of Brazil made him "sometimes doubt whether it would not be wiser to bid England adieu for ever in order to come and live a life of ease and plenty in the Rio Negro". The following passages are decisive as to Professor Wallace's opinion:-

When I consider the excessively small amount of labour required in this country to convert the virgin forest into green meadows and fertile plantations, I almost long to come over with half-a-dozen friends, disposed to work, and enjoy the country; and show the inhabitants how soon an earthly paradise might be created, which they had never even conceived capable of existing.

It is a vulgar error, copied and repeated from one book to another, that in the tropics the luxuriance of the vegetation overpowers the effort of man. Just the reverse is the case; nature and the climate are nowhere so favourable to the labourer, and I fearlessly assert that here the "primeval" forest can be converted into rich pasture and meadow land, into cultivated fields, gardens and orchards, containing every variety of produce, with half the labour, and what is of more importance, in less than half the time that would be required at home, even [missing word?] there we had clear instead of forest ground to commence.

And then what advantages there are in a country where there is no stoppage of agricultural operations during winter, but where crop, may be had, and poultry reared, all the year round; where the least possible amount of clothing is the most comfortable and where a hundred little necessaries of a cold region are altogether superfluous. With regard to the climate I have said enough already; and I repeat, that a man can work as well here as in the hot summer months in England, and that if he will only work three hours in the morning and three in the evening, he will produce more of the necessaries and comforts of life than by twelve hours' daily labour at home. -Wallace "Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro".

Thinking that Dr Wallace might have something to add to this description, we wrote to ask for his latest ideas on the subject. He replied:-

Broadstone, Wimborne,

Oct. 24, 1907

Several people have ridiculed my statements at pp. 230-23 [page badly printed] of my "Amazon and Rio Negro," and have quoted the many failures of German, French, English, and other emigrants But in every case those migrants have set themselves to work to produce something for sale—crops, timber, rubber, cacao, coffee, sarsaparilla, etc., etc.; and, of course, doing this on a small scale taking their produce to towns, selling at the cheapest rate (in competition with capitalists) and buying at the dearest ([page badly printed] retail shopkeepers) they can barely live.

But if they are content to work at first wholly and solely to produce necessaries—, then, a little later, comforts—they will be able in a few years to obtain both luxuries and leisure! Of course, I take it for granted there must be some one of the [page badly printed] at least who has experience of the country, of the soil, climate, and of the people, both Europeans and natives, and who has either practiced or carefully observed the mode of cultivation of the various products I refer to. That is needed everywhere in the country. But given that experience—a careful selection of the site, securing an ample tract of ground, some eight or ten square miles of good soil, either partially cleared or with nearly all forest, and with the amount of clear capital mention (£.50 per family), besides the necessary outfit clothes and tools—then, I still feel sure that all I have stated could be realised [2] [p. 25] [Image captioned "The Railway Station at Rio."]

Of course if people go out direct from England who have never been out of it, even if they are fair gardeners or farmers, and go with the idea of making money, they will inevitably make a mess of it. They will then inevitably drift into trading which will excite the opposition and enmity of the Portuguese and Brazilians, and they will in a year or two drift into the towns or come back beggars" But the right people with the right ideas would certainly succeed!— Yours very truly, (Signed)

Alfred R. Wallace

Nor is Professor Wallace alone in this opinion. Mr. H.W. Bates¹, who spent several years on the Amazon, says

in his entertaining book, "The Naturalist on the River Amazon":—

The climate is glorious. During six months of the year, from August to Feburary, very little rain falls and the sky is cloudless for weeks together, the fresh breeze from the sea, nearly four hundred miles distant, moderating the great heat of the sun.

The problem, how to obtain a labouring class for a new and tropical country, without slavery, has to be solved before this glorious region can become what its delightlful climate and exuberant fertility fit it for— the abode of a numerous, civilised, and happy people.— Vol. 2 p. 340.

The superiority of the bleak north to tropical regions is only in their social aspect, for I hold to the opinion that although humanity can reach an advanced state of culture only by battling with the inclemencies of nature in high latitutes, it is under the equator alone that the perfect race of the future will attain to complete frutition of man's beautiful heritage, the earth.—Vol. 2 p. 417. [Image captioned "An Electric Car Travelling Over a Viaduct"]