BRAZIL. T HE fuller news from Brazil, imperfect and meagre as
it is, completely confirms the view we expressed upon receipt of the official telegrams. There never was any solid strength in the Empire of Brazil, and there will be no strength in the Federal Republic. The Monarchy fell, not by a revolution, but by a military revolt which a resolute Sovereign, with even five thousand soldiers or armed police behind him, would have put down in an hour. Not only was there no uprising of the people even of the capital, but the idea of making a revolution was adopted in a moment, and as it were by accident. The Emperor and the Ministry, with a packed Parliament behind them, had ascertained that the officers of the Army were becoming Republican, and resolved to disperse the garrison of Rio over the provinces of the interior, and to create, or rather strengthen, the gendarmerie as a coun- terpoise to military influence. Marshal da Fonseca, re- senting this decision, on November 15th, the day for the departure of the troops, made a pronunciamiento, in Spanish fashion, against the Ministry ; shot the Minister of Marine ; ordered the Cabinet to resign, an order which was com- plied with ; and shipped the Premier, the Viscount Preto da Ouro, in a steamer bound for Hamburg. He intended only to be Premier himself, and to gratify the desire ex- pressed by the Army of becoming more important in the State ; but many officers and students of the University having raised a cry for the Republic, the Marshal, aware that he was seriously compromised by the supposed death of the Minister of Marine, suddenly joined in the cry, and issued a proclamation declaring the Monarchy abolished. No one resisted, the only genuine Royalists in the country, the slave-owners and great proprietors, having been irritated to disaffection by the decree of emancipation; but the revo- lutionary leader could hardly believe in the completeness of his success. He fancied that defenders would appear even at the last moment, distrusted the population, and surrounded the Imperial family with soldiers. He refused to allow any communication between the Emperor and his friends ; and finally, by open threats of employing force, compelled the whole Royal party, almost without clothes sufficient to keep off the cold of the Atlantic, to go on board the Alagoas, which at once steamed away for Europe, under the guns of an ironclad. There was no popular commotion what- ever, except among the students, who obtained boats and threatened the Imperial party as they crossed the harbour to the ' Alagoas ;' and in Rio there has been none since, it being well understood that the garrison of four thousand men would shoot or deport any who refused to acknowledge the Provisional Government. Republicans were at once ap- pointed to all important offices, the civil Governors of pro- vinces were superseded by soldiers, and a Convention was called to settle the Constitution. It cannot meet for months, the distances being so vast that the members from the interior cannot assemble ; and until it meets, the Pro- visional Government is practically absolute, and issues decrees of the last importance,—especially one, which we predicted a fortnight since, directing each of the twenty Provinces or States to organise the " State Militias " neces- sary to ensure order.
It is at this point, and in regard to finance, that the weak- ness of the new Government will probably first appear. The assent of the provinces to the revolution means, as yet, nothing at all. The adhesion of the majority is not announced, though the official telegrams affirmed it, and when announced, will imply only that the official world in each State controls the internal telegraphs, and does not intend to resist. Indeed, resistance is in a sense out of the question, for there is no force anywhere, except the few soldiers in the widely separated cities ; and the better-class Brazilians could not struggle with the soldiers, and so run the risk, as we believe a most grave and per- manent risk, of a desperate rising from below. It is after the Militia has been formed, and society is compara- tively safe, that separatist feeling will betray itself, probably at first by insisting in the Convention that the " States " shall possess the most complete con- trol of all provincial funds. • It is this separatist action which is dreaded in the capital, and that so keenly, that the Provisional Government at once arrested Senhor Martins, the popular leader of the most dangerous province, Rio Grande do Sul, lest he should, as he had repeatedly threate'ned, advise that province to declare itself independent, and to form an alliance with Uruguay, whose chief city, Monte Video, is already the virtual capital of Southern Brazil. Uruguay has an organised army ; Rio Grande do Sul, with the number of German and Italian emigrants it has absorbed—all, be it remembered, passed soldiers, trained under a harder discipline than that of the Brazilian Army—can defend itself ; and the force at the disposal of Rio to suppress any movement is hope- lessly insufficient. That Brazil, while she can raise loans, can raise forces among her blacks and the lower popula- tion, was proved by the events of the Paraguayan War; but the Army has for years been systematically neglected ; a young Republic of limited means and a standing deficit cannot begin its career by borrowing fifty millions ; and with the State Militias once organised, the Federal Govern- ment will be dependent upon the voluntary adhesion-of the States. It may possibly be given, because Brazilian Isave hitherto been proud of the vast extent of their dominion; but why the lash of opinion should drive unwilling men to the experience of Spanish America shows that the separatist labour inadequately paid. The country has not accepted impulse is strong, and the Brazilian Provinces have the Socialism yet ; and labourers, whether gas-stokers or coal- additional motive of a passionate desire to spend all their porters, or ordinary unskilled workmen, are as much taxes upon their own development. They have the greatest entitled to benefit by the principle of freedom for the difficulty, with their thin population and disorganised individual as the masters are. Nor are we prepared to say labour market, in raising enough money for themselves, that it is right to strike for wages, and wrong to strike and they grudge all that is sent to Rio as Melbourne for Unionism in general as against division of profits. The would grudge taxes to be expended in London on troops latter is, as we think, the better system ; but if the men supposed to be intended to keep Melbourne in order. The honestly believe the former to be either the nobler or the separatist feeling will, we feel confident, break out some- more expedient plan for the majority to follow, their where, probably on the Plate, and the first example of action is not made bad by its comparative unselfish- impunity will be fatal. ness. Where the right of the public comes in in such The Central Government, however, retains, it is said, strikes, is not at this point, but at another. The com- • one dangerous but, it may be, tremendous weapon. It munity, being the whole, has not only the right but may divide the soil. A great portion of the interior, the duty of defending itself against injury caused by the indeed all the settled portion, belongs nominally to the action of a part ; and if that injury is grave, may employ Church—one clerical estate is described as the largest on its reserved powers in a way which in other cases would earth—or to individuals who own, though they cannot be inexpedient. If, for instance, as is quite possible, the really cultivate, estates as large as provinces in our cramped want of labourers to make gas suddenly increased crime Old World. It is suspected that the rumour of the expul- in London, the community would have a perfect right to sion of the Jesuits means that the central power will seize hire temporary labour out of rates ; to put down illegal the incredibly large estates of the Church, and that the picketing, if it took soldiers to do it ; and to insist that great lay proprietors will also be compelled, by heavy Magistrates should in all proved cases of intimidation give taxation upon their unoccupied lands, to effect forced sales. the highest sentences allowed by law. Those are mere The new freeholders of all colours will then, it is supposed, expedients of self-defence, and not only allowable, but in support the Government of Rio. That is conceivable, and the event of grave danger, imperative. It is perfectly according to European analogy, probable ; but in Brazil possible, again, that a strike of coal-porters in winter, if sus- we hold it to be most unlikely. Each State will be tained by the ordinary labourers, should so reducethe supply sovereign on such matters ; each will be ruled, like the of coal, that not only would London be plunged in darkness, Federation, by its own popular Assembly ; and there is as has. occurred in parts of Manchester, but that weakly no reason whatever why, if confiscation is popular, con- children in poor houses might begin to die as if an fiscation should not be decreed by each State, which would epidemic had struck them. In that case, no good man thus attract to itself the loyalty desired by the central would hesitate for an instant to support Government in power. Even, however, if the plan succeeded in the end, renewing the usual supply of coal by convict labour, or in it must at first make all the rich the deadly enemies distributing it at the expense of aid from municipal funds. of the Republic, must involve most serious danger of con- Gas-stokers and coal-porters are not to be enslaved filets between the colours, exasperated to fury by the because their idleness injures the community ; but the emancipation quarrels, and must produce that disorganisa- State and the Municipality are not at liberty, while they tion of industry which in the tropics always follows the can prevent it, to suffer the injury to be done. change from associated labour on vast estates growing There are two deductions to be drawn from the present produce for a foreign market and not for consumption, prevalence of the strike-impulse which are important, but into cultivation by scattered groups of freeholders, with which are almost totally forgotten. One is, that the no labour to be hired. The little men, without railways, solidarity of labour of which we heard so much during without roads, and without ability to wait for merchants' the Dock Strike, is not an unmixed blessing to the coin- remittances, have not the means to grow the articles munity. The power of organising rapidly, like every other which will yield the largest returns in coin. • They power, is bad or good. according as it is used; and if it falls will grow food, and the interior of Brazil, except into unwise hands, may prove an unmitigated curse to in the mining districts, will produce for a time little society. A combination of all labourers in England, for wealth and no revenue for anybody. The gain in the end instance, could, while the Poor-Law remains in existence, to the country may be enormous, for the Empire was really extort for a short time almost any wages they pleased, at a vast expanse covered with properties which could. not be the price of destroying, possibly for ever, but certainly cultivated by the thin population; but the old system must for years, the industrial capacity of the country, upon perish first, probably amidst temporary anarchy, and the which the power of paying wages depends. With a new one cannot establish itself outside the towns until the rate of wages universally demanded at which profit arrival of masses of emigrants, who will not be Portuguese, ceased, or was lower than the profit from investment and who, whatever their destiny, will care nothing for the abroad, production would. cease at once, and the whole centralised nationality of Brazil. That, whether useful or population would be thrown upon the rates. Manufacturing the reverse to Brazilians and the world, owed its existence would. be impossible, building would be suspended, and all to the ascendancy of the House of Braganza, and although mines would be closed. all over England. So low is now the materials may be used for a far better and more the rate of profit in some trades, that there is danger, as comfortable structure, or series of structures, we are Mr. W. H. Smith pointed out a few weeks since, of this confident that with the Monarchy the supporting arch of actually occurring, such danger that we may doubt whether the grand, though no doubt ruinous, old fabric crumbled the comparative shortness and bloodlessness of modern into dust. industrial wars is an unmixed advantage. Formerly
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