In Parahyba State there is at least one considerable coconut oil extracting factory, on a sandy spit south of Parahyba city; several thousand people are said to be employed in this industry and the product is shipped as far south as Rio: in spite of the immense quantity of coconuts on the littoral of the northern promontory there is no copra or fibre industry yet established, apparently because the native consumption of the nut leaves little surplus for the one, and interest is lacking in the other. CHAPTER VI FINANCE _Brazilian Currency_ In common with other young countries whose gold reserves are insufficient to back the paper currency used to carry on the ordinary business of life within her borders, Brazil has been and still is faced with difficulties in regard to exchange, i. e., the gold value of her paper and its relation to the face value of that paper. Exchange in Brazil is the measure of the paper milreis (one thousand reis) with English money: this standard is the official one as a result of the preponderance of English finance. The par value of the Brazilian milreis is twenty-seven pence (fifty-four cents), but at the end of 1916 it was worth 12 pence, rose to 18 in early 1920, and later sank below 8 pence. In 1889 the milreis was actually above par by a fraction of a penny, but later on great fluctuations took place, almost invariably as the result of the issue of large quantities of paper money, which, unbacked by gold, are regarded as of diminishing value in comparison with the gold-backed currency of other countries.