The United States has been for many years the greatest single purchaser of Brazilian materials, generally taking rather more than one-third of all exports, Europe taking nearly all the rest, with South America also buying an appreciable share, amounting to about five per cent of the total. The coffee trade is that in which the United States is most largely concerned: for the last six years Brazilian exports of coffee have averaged over fourteen million bags, and of this the United States has been taking about one-third, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands accounting for another third, France taking from one to two million bags, and the rest of Europe absorbing the remainder. The United States, purchaser of a billion dollars of tropical and sub-tropical products in 1915–16, is an eager taker of Brazilian hides and skins, an export markedly stimulated since the European War began, important shipments coming from Rio Grande do Sul among other cattle states; she has, during the last two years, apparently been able to receive larger quantities of all Brazilian products, and perhaps the most salutary trend, for both the United States and Brazil, has been in the great quantities of raw materials taken by the northern country. These materials are the breath of life to the manufactures, and nothing is better for Brazil than increased volumes of such exports. During 1915 the United States bought, reckoning in dollars, nearly $107,000,000 of Brazil’s total exports of over $255,000,000, while Great Britain took $31,000,000, France $29,000,000, Sweden $23,000,000 (chiefly coffee, and, in view of the disappearance of direct sales to Germany, in all probability transferred to the Central Powers), and the Netherlands $16,000,000; sales to the Argentine were nearly $13,000,000, while Uruguay took about four and a half million dollars’ worth of goods. Apparently, trading between Brazil and her South American neighbours on the same side of the Andes has been greatly increased during 1916, Argentina buying unprecedented amounts of sugar, as well as maintaining her imports of matte. During 1915, the total sales of Argentina to Brazil were worth over 89,000 contos, or something like $22,000,000, of which nearly $20,000,000 were accounted for by wheat and wheat flour. At the same time Brazil sold to the Argentine 42,226 contos’ worth (say $10,560,000) of goods, of which nearly 70 per cent was accounted for by matte sales, with 15 per cent of tobacco.