LIFE IN BRAZIL

Hokitika Guardian, 18 October 1930, Page 6

LIFE IN BRAZIL

■—— SIDELIGHTS ON 'REVOLUTION. Although she has been out of the country for some eighteen months, and says she knows nothing definite about the present crisis, Mrs A. Reese, a missionary fronv Brazil, who is in Auckland, is a t ble to give some interesting sidelights on the revolution in Brazil. Mrs Reese and. her husband- are missionaries under the American Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. “The trouble’” she said, “has been brewing for. some time. There has been some agitation to have the capital, Rio. de Janeiro, shifted from the coast inland. The Government has not been able to trust the navy, and if the capital was away from the coast the navy would not bo. able ,to do so much damage if it decided not to support the Government. Recent cable news has proved the weight of the argument. There has been discontent, but the present trouble is more than a merely local affair. One reads in such scanty news as is available of towns affected from tlie south to the extreme north of Brazil. Of course, as is usual, when grievances come to a head they form the opportunity for resentment against other smaller wrongs, quite disconnected with the original cause, which would not have been voiced but for the unexpected opportunity.” The political system in the country was not advanced, Mrs Reese said. In the back country law and order was represented, by what the Americans called “political bosses,” who, though governing great areas, had •no legal standing. To all intents and purposes they' were great fendal barons, and their power was almost as great. They were the sole authority, and because the populated coast was so far away they were recognised by the coastal city officers. >

Often these “middle-age lords” disagreed as to the party they intended to support, and then there was trouble for the whole areas under the respective 'jurisdiction. There was no election system, as New Zealand understood it; The political “boss” merely nominated the candidate who was to be voted for, and he was elected.

The Latin-American temperament was admirable in many respects, but it was not as stable as was the Nordic. Once a runiour got bruited abroad, it spread like wildfire,.and assumed dimensiens out of all proportion to Its truth or importance. Knowing nothing of the real truth, the inhabitants of the’up-country villages merely took to the bush and hid in little huts, where they could' not be found by the troops of either party. , FEDERATION OF STATES. :■ Thus, everything was’ disorganised. She did not expect to get any letters from her husband, because the mail carriers siniply would, not work.. All the letters were carried by mules, and if the partisans of the belligerents came across the ’ “ postman,” whose circuit was some hundreds of. miles-, they looted his baggage, and the letters never got to their destination. , Brazil, she explained, was somewhat akin to Australia in its constitution. It was a Federation of States, each of which possessed a separate Government and a separate Governor. Then there was the Federal or Central Government, which legislated for the whole country. Thp trouble appeared to be between the State and the Central Governments, hut she knew no more than had appeared in the Press already.

“Nevertheless,” emphasised Mrs Reese', “it must not be thought that South America is a place of revolutions. It has long since- became stable, and the people are well capable of looking after their own interests. Moreover they are a most hospitable nation. I am speaking particularly for the Brazilians—and . the Europeans living under their protection have nothing of which to complain. It is the accepted thing when one is travelling to journey thi'ough the day, and to pull up at the nearest house at nightfall. The owner will receive in the measure of his means.” The whole of the back country was undeveloped. Until a few years ago, there 1 were ho roads, and all travel had to be done on mule hack. fi l have travelled many hundreds of miles by that means,” said Mrs Reese, “and over the roughest of tracks. I have forded rivers and crossed arid moors, and done all the rest of the hard work connected with pioneering.” Most people thought of the north of South America as a land of the Amazon and the Orinoco', but she had trekked 300 miles, with her husband and- all her baggage, and in that distance had crossed only one river. ISLAND VILLAGES. “The back villages are the queerest places, and their roughness is matched only by the hospitality of their dwellers,” said Mrs Reese, who described one little village as a collection of a dozen or two huts, with a. haphazard road going somehow crazily between two rows of .huts, and a pig walking across the main street. “And yet many is the cup of coffee we have enjoyed there,” she added. The Brazilians, who were of Portuguese extraction, made all their implements, from wheels to the mills, where they ground their “mandioca”’ —native flour—-of wood. In the south they might speak proudly of their iron mills, hut in the north they were still of wood. .; Respite the present trouble, she was convinced of the future of South Amer-