The external debts of the Brazilian States and Municipalities have varied very little since 1913–14. Loans became difficult to obtain from the beginning of Balkan troubles, while since the outbreak of the great European War there have been no additions to cash advances and in only a few cases has there been substantial reduction of debts. On the contrary, most debtor States and cities found it necessary to make funding arrangements by which specie payments were suspended for a number of years—measures which gave temporary relief, but seriously increase the amount of money to be paid annually when the funding period comes to an end. Certain states, as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Paraná (paid up until the autumn of 1917), Espirito Santo, and the Federal District, have made gallant efforts to avoid piling up debt in this way, and by severe economy have continued to pay interest on their foreign obligations. The sacrifice has not been small, for with depressed exchange it has taken an unusually large number of paper milreis to buy sterling, and at a time when it has not been easy to collect even paper revenues. The effort is all the more creditable. With the worst part of the 1921 crisis past, state finances have been materially eased by calls for Brazilian products at enhanced prices, and there is a perceptible restoration of confidence, at the end of 1922. In some districts the post-war boom proved an undisguised blessing, bringing profits that could not have been looked for under normal conditions: coffee, hides, rubber, cacao, frozen meat, sugar and manganese, have all brought stimulated prices, and many home industries, such as coal mining and cotton spinning and weaving, have been greatly encouraged. In round numbers the external debts of the separate states of the Brazilian Union appear to amount to about forty-seven million pounds, with the municipalities adding another twelve or thirteen million pounds. The British interest in these loans is largely dominant, but important sums of French money have also been invested. Brazil’s direct debt to France includes £10,400,000 for three loans with which the Bahia, Goyaz, and Corumbá railways were constructed; there are also state debts, that of the State of Pará being held by Meyer Frères of Paris, while the Société Marseillaise holds the bonds of the big Amazonas debt. Part of São Paulo’s debt is owed to the Société Générale, and the State of Espirito Santo owes nearly two million pounds to the Banque Française et Italienne, as well as large sums about which a dispute rages, advanced by the French Hypothecary Bank established at the port of Victoria.