In the matter of railway communication there is very much to be desired still. There are in the entire republic to-day about twelve thousand miles of railway in operation. These lines are being extended at the rate of a few hundred miles each year. For the year 1909 the increase in mileage amounted to about six hundred miles. These extensions are being pushed out by a number of different lines into regions hitherto untouched by railway communication. These new lines have nearly all had a certain return, generally six per cent., guaranteed upon the capital invested by the federal or state governments. It speaks well for the condition of the country when one finds that many of these guarantees have never been called upon, for, almost from the very start, the traffic received has paid the running expenses, and even greater returns than those guaranteed to the company. The great need of the country is a longitudinal railway, so that there will be continuous communication between Pará, at one extreme, and Rio Grande do Sul, at the other. In this respect better progress has been made in southern Brazil than in the northern part. It will not be many months, after this book is issued, until there will be an all rail route from Rio Grande do Sul to Rio de Janeiro, and from there for a considerable distance up into the state of Minas Geraes. This does not cover more than half of the distance, however, and it will be necessary to construct many hundreds of kilometres of the parallel iron rails before the project reaches completion. Pará, Camocim, Fortaleza, Pernambuco, Bahia, and other ports, have railroads which run inland for a greater or less distance, but are not connected up with the other systems. This makes it necessary for the passenger to take ship in going from one port to another, and for freight to be loaded upon steamers in order to reach the other than local markets of the country. The local freight rates are so high, too, that it is often cheaper to ship freight from a European port to the capital, for instance, than to ship the same amount of freight from another part of the republic. This excessive charge for railway haul is a short-sighted policy, and does not tend to build up a local interchange between the different sections of the country. On the government railroad, the Central, the freight rates are so high between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, a distance of only three hundred miles, that it is cheaper to ship goods from the former city to Santos at high rates, transship them to a steamer, and pay port dues as well as loading and unloading charges at each end, than to forward over the railroad. It is a condition that the government could and should regulate, and it has been talked about many times; but, like many political projects, it has ended in talk. At the present time a commission has this matter in charge, and it remains to be seen what they will do.