No. 72.
Mr. Hilliard to Mr. Evarts.
Rio de Janeiro, September 4, 1879. (Received September 29.)
Sir: The discussion of the scheme for an interoceanic canal has not only awakened interest in Europe, but I observe that it has attracted the attention of our own government. The scheme of M. de Lesseps for the construction of what is known as the Panama Canal, is presented by that gentleman in a way to make it seem both practicable and important.
It is remarkable that he has given to the scheme not only the sanction of his name, but he takes the responsibility of stating that the difficulties to be overcome are not so formidable as those encountered in making the Suez Canal.
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There is another statement understood to have been made that is not so well founded: that M. de Lesseps has applied to the Emperor of Brazil to supply him with laborers for service in the accomplishment of his great task. It is said that 15,000 negroes will be furnished to M. de Lesseps under this arrangement. The application may have been made, but it will lead to nothing.
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Independent of other considerations, the demand for labor in Brazil at this time is so great that one of the chief questions that now engross the attention of the imperial government is to determine upon some feasible plan for introducing foreign laborers into this country. At this very time the Brazilian Government proposes to induce laborers from China to emigrate to this country. The question is actually under discussion; it was the subject of debate in the Chamber of Deputies yesterday. One of the leading liberal members applied to me during the past week for information in regard to the policy of encouraging emigration from China, and, at his request, I was able to put into his hand some publications, made in the United States, bearing upon that question.
Some time last year Mr. de Sinimbu, the president of the council, called on me and discussed that subject with me. I gave him my views as to this question—an important one, not only in political economy, but in political science, as it seems to me—and I could not speak encouragingly of the scheme. I said, among other things, “If these people come into your country you will never get clear of them.” But such is the scarcity of labor in Brazil, compared with the vast extent of its territory, a scarcity heightened by the working out of the measure of the gradual abolition of slavery, wise and beneficent as that measure is, that the government will take some steps at an early day to induce emigration from China. It would be remarkable, then, if, in the presence [Page 87] of such a great problem as this, the imperial government should consent to send laborers out of the country. Of course there are other considerations which would make it simply impossible for M. de Lesseps to obtain laborers from Brazil.
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I thought it proper to make you acquainted with the information that has been conveyed to me in an authentic way, as to the proposed scheme of M. de Lesseps. He will draw no laborers from Brazil to aid him in the accomplishment of his great task, to construct an inter-oceanic canal.
I have, &c.,