These figures show one or two points clearly—first, the vitality of Brazil, for as one industry has waned another has waxed, exportation values steadily showing increases in spite of the caprices of fortune; it is also plain that for the last fifty years Brazil has exported more than she has imported. In war years, this excess of exports was very much more accentuated, but, although this balance is useful in helping to steady exchange, to pay debts abroad, and to put money into shippers’ and producers’ pockets, it has the effect, when imports are greatly curtailed, of starving the Federal Government, whose revenues are mainly dependent upon import taxes. The famous “nine principal articles” of Brazilian export were coffee, cotton, sugar, rubber, cacao, hides (of cattle), skins (of goats and sheep), tobacco, and matte (“Paraguay tea”) up to 1916. Other items which displayed marked rises up to 1918 were lard, rice, Brazil nuts, carnauba wax, manganese ore, precious and semi-precious stones, and chilled or frozen beef. Prosperity over all Brazil depends much more upon volume and variety of goods exported than upon prices, for while soaring values put large profits into the hands of the few, great volumes of products mean employment for the field labourer or collector, for transportation companies, and a host of intermediaries. In addition to increased prices, the actual volume of Brazilian exports was larger in the five years 1916–1920, rising from seven million tons in 1911–1915 to nearly ten million tons. This prosperity was due to war calls, several new items appearing on the 1916–20 lists on page 319. _1915_ _1914_ _1913_ _1912_ _1911_ Coffee 17,061,000 11,270,000 13,267,000 12,080,000 11,258,000 bags Matte 75,885 59,354 65,415 62,880 61,834 tons Rubber 35,165 33,531 36,232 42,286 36,547 „ Sugar 59,074 31,860 5,367 4,772 36,208 „ Cacao 44,980 40,767 29,759 30,492 34,994 „ Hides 38,324 31,442 35,075 36,255 31,832 „ Tobacco 27,096 26,980 29,388 24,706 18,489 „ Cotton 5,228 30,434 37,424 16,774 14,650 „ Skins 4,578 2,487 3,232 3,189 2,798 „