7 MAY 1927, Page 29

TILE CONQUEST OF BRAZIL. By Roy Nash. onathan Cape. 18s.

net.)-Brazil is larger than the United ites, but it has only thirty million inhabitants, mostly iterate, and vast areas of its surface are virtually unexplored. et it has enormous possibilities as a producer of foodstuffs (1 timber, rubber and iron and many other things that the orld needs. Mr. Nash, an American writer, who knows nail well, gives in this attractive and well-illustrated book unusually full account of the country, the people-white, egro and Indian-and the economic position. He points It that only the coastal belt is at all densely inhabited and at the interior offers unlimited prospects, provided that 'ways and roads are built and administration is improved. will be news to many readers that Brazil still continues the Id provincial custom-houses to hamper trade between the ruvinees. The United States owes much of its rapidly won sperity to the fact that trade between the States is abso- tely free, but Brazil has ignored the lesson. Moreover, she rives a large revenue from export taxes and is thus undersold, peeially in cacao, by competitors in Africa. Mr. Nash tells e story of a powerful American company which tried to tablish great rubber plantations in Matto Grosso but was reed by the devious ways of local politicians to abandon scheme and migrate to Malaya. Brazil obviously has a eat future, but she moves slowly towards it..