Both the Government and the people of Brazil feel the necessity and the value of promoting immigration to the fullest extent. Experiments have been tried, and small colonies of Europeans founded in some of the southern provinces, all of which have been more or less successful.

In my account of the Province of San Paulo I have alluded to the settlement of Germans on the coffee plantations of Senhor Vergueiro, and to the desire of other large owners of property to follow his example. I also instanced the case of a little colony of Germans at Juiz de Fora, in the Province of Rio de Janeiro, which I had an opportunity of seeing, and there are besides in the same province other colonies on a larger scale. Various efforts have been made by individuals in other parts of the Empire to introduce foreign labour.

Slave labour is of course an impediment to the more general influx of Europeans, but where lands are set apart and arrangements made for the location of colonists there is no reason why the latter should not succeed, and form the nucleus of a large future population. The assistance and pecuniary co-operation of Government is of course required to effect any decided progress in this direction; and considering that every labourer brought into the country contributes to the national revenue, as well as to national production, the primary expense of passage money is soon repaid.

Many of the high table-lands of Brazil are admirably adapted to agricultural purposes, the climate, owing to elevation, being also favourable to European settlement. Enormous tracts of such land are at the disposal of the Executive, but it needs some outlay in order to prepare the way for emigrants, as they cannot be expected to pioneer as in the case of the United States, on account of their ignorance of the language and the difficulty of access from the port of debarkation.

The time is fast approaching when slavery must cease to exist in Brazil; and it behoves the Government to anticipate this event by the introduction of free labour. It is morally certain that the negroes, even if they settle down under their new condition, will not labour so constantly as when in a state of servitude. The Government ought, therefore, I repeat, to adapt itself to the exigences of its position, and encourage by every means the accession of European agricultural labourers of a suitable class. Large landowners, whose estates are now only partially worked, might devote a portion of them for new comers, and, in connection with the Central and Provincial Governments, attain the desired end. Financial difficulties, caused by the long war with Paraguay, may be pleaded as an excuse for neglecting this great question, but the very drain that has thus taken place of men and money only renders the case more pressing. I believe the Emperor entertains the most enlightened and practical views, both as regards doing away with slave labour and replacing it by the introduction of emigrants; but the trammels of a war expenditure, and the degree of attention the struggle demands on the part of the Ministers, prevent their inauguration of measures which all must see are inevitable, if the Empire is to prosper as heretofore.

In our own colonies the Colonial Governments have naturally been the chief promoters of emigration, from exercising, as they do, full control over their own revenues and over public lands; but in Brazil the impetus must first come from the action of the Central Government, which receives and distributes the provincial revenues after payment of provincial expenditure.

In the southern provinces of Brazil the cultivation of coffee and cotton offers the greatest scope for European labour, and the Province of San Paulo alone is capable of wonderful development as respects the growth of these two important articles if only proper means are adopted to provide augmented manual power.

The northern provinces present greater difficulties, from the nature of the climate, which is more adapted to a people like the Chinese than to Europeans. There is, however, an objection to this industrious race in consequence of their desire to return home when they have accumulated a little money. A further introduction of the African race as free labourers would be very advantageous. Though this might be a great gain to the negroes themselves, whose lives in their own country are at the mercy of such wretches as the sable King of Dahomy, philanthropists object to the removal of Africans from their native soil on any grounds, entirely ignoring the miserable existence they lead there and the barbarities to which they are subjected. But let slavery be once abolished in Brazil, and there could be no objection that I can see to their settlement in those provinces where their labour would be most useful, say from the River Amazon down to the Province of Bahia. This, however, is only a casual remark, and does not come within the scope of my present inquiry, namely, as to the best mode of introducing European labour into Brazil. As I have already pointed out to the Government, the passage money of emigrants must be paid, or advanced, the selection of them must be carefully attended to, and on reaching Brazil they should be sent on immediately to their ultimate destination, where suitable accommodation should also be provided against their arrival. Every necessary arrangement can easily be made if the Government and landed proprietors would take some trouble and show their practical earnestness in the matter.

There is an Emigrants' Home, or temporary abode in Rio de Janeiro, where proper attention is paid to them, and an officer (Dr. Galvao) is especially appointed by Government to look after this department. I quite intended to have visited this establishment, but was unable to do so. I had, however, a conversation with Dr. Galvao on the subject of emigration generally.