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Show I With the Fleet. I It is expected that the battleship fleet will reach Rio Janeiro today if all has gone well with I it. The visit will be worth more to the United I States than all the cost that it has yet been to I on the voyage. There is nothing that so impresses I men as an exhibition of power, and never was I there a fleet in the harbor of Rio Janeiro as that of Admiral Evans. Those ships with their 14,000 I fighting men would be an impressive spectacle I in any port. They will be warmly welcomed, for I in every looker-on will be the thought that those, ships and guns and fighting men are all under a I bond to come to Brazil's rescue, if ever her in-I in-I tegrity is assailed by a foreign power. I We said above that the spectacle would bo I worth to the United States all the cost. It cor- I tainly will if congress will but rouse itself and I provide for a fleet of merchant steamers to make I regular visits to that same port, such steamers B as would become the country they hailed from. B Our indirect commerce with Brazil Is very great, it should be direct and should grow In magni-I magni-I tude every year. It is true that Brazil would I buy all the flour, cornmeal and salt meat and I fish that we could send her, if we would but take I in return her sugar and coffee and other tropl-I tropl-I cal plants of which wo consume immense quan-B quan-B titles. Then Brazil wants no end of household B furniture, automobiles, pianos, carriages. That B wo do not have all that trade Is the fault of our B government, our manufacturers and merchants. B After leaving Rio, the next stopping place will B probably be Buenos Ayros. That is a city which B we believe is No. 7 in commerce among the ports B of the world, while behind it is a country which B in area, in the richness of its soil and in navl-B navl-B gable water ways, Is the only country on earth B that threatens in a few years to be a rival of the B United States. There will be another warm wol-B wol-B come for the fleet, and the Impress! the fleet B will make upon those people, will bo quite as im-B im-B presslve as at Rio. That people will want no B food from this country, but agricultural imple-B imple-B ments, the vehicles, the household furniture, are B almost limitless. And there as in Brazil, moro B railroads are wanted more oleotrlo power is to B be generated, more cities are to be built, more B lands reclaimed. It Is a great empire in extent; B it Is a shame that practically the United States B has no part In the transformation that is begln-B begln-B ning there. B Around through the tsraights and Valparaiso B will be the next calling station. There, too, is B another empire as great almost as all our Paoific states with rich lands, rich 'mines and scattered over the whole are are but some 4,000,000 people peo-ple and half of those are but peasantry. We hope the eastern great newspapers have correspondents corre-spondents with the fleet that can draw for the people of this country now pictures of the opportunities oppor-tunities they are losing in the southland. |