|
For instance,
in relation to the breaking off of relations between Brazil
and Great Britain and to the differences between the two
countries, the Irishman derisively condemned the exorbitant
demands of William Christie (ABT, 24 March 1865). On
the other hand, he soon manifested an even greater arrogance
than that displayed by the ex-Minister, filling his articles
with threats and warnings about what would befall Brazil if
his advice and suggestions were not followed immediately.
This can be seen in the ninth issue of the Anglo-Brazilian
Times (8 June 1865). Scully's lead article contains a
weighing up of the results of Brazilian governmental measures
aimed at the promotion of immigration until that point,
together with an appreciation of the possible results of the
delay in addressing appropriately the problem of manpower
scarcity created by the slavery crisis. After beseeching the
Brazilian readership not to be afraid or disdainful of the
European colonist ('foreign immigrants are not the
God-forsaken wretches that Brazilian ignorance and Brazilian
prejudice fain would deem them'), Scully reminds them that
'their tenure of the slave population is slipping rapidly from
out their grasp' and that 'their lands, though fertile and
productive, are valueless without the laborer.'
Demonstrating
affinity with the economic theories propounded by Adam Smith
(1723-1790), Scully then warns Brazilians that 'they must
consider that the laborer is of more value to them than they
to him, that he is the true wealth-creator of the world, and
the merchant, fazendeiro [rancher], and government are
dependent on his labor.' Further, Brazilians should:
remember that
with the European immigrant comes progress, wealth, and
empire; that he brings with him skill, knowledge, enterprize,
and advanced ideas, and has full right to demand, as a
condition of his advent, equal consideration with the children
of the soil he attaches his fortunes unto.
Scully also presents his precise considerations about Brazilian policies
regarding the admittance of immigrants:
Brazil
'tis true votes some 600:000$ annually for the encouragement
of immigration -cui bono? The general and the
provincial governments and individuals have established
'colonies' which they 'direct' and surround with regulations.
They waste their money on these exotic plants that barely
vegetate beneath the fostering care of Directors, Chefs
de Policia, and Juízes de Paz, while the independent
immigration that asks no subventions, no outlay for religious
or profane instructors, no agricultural schools to 'teach the
most improved modes of agriculture and grazing,' and no
salaried 'directors;' that would bring with it intelligence,
enterprize, new ideas, and improved appliances of agriculture,
is afforded no facilities, no information, no encouragement.
Scully then
plays up the threat of a general slave rebellion:
Do the
Brazilians not see that their whole prosperity is in danger;
that it now depends solely upon the retention in servitude of
some three millions and a half of negro population; [...] that
no reliance can be placed upon the uneducated slave when once
he is relieved from the stimulus of compulsion [...] that
their lines of railways and river navigation, though largely
subsidized by the national treasury, are commercial failures
from the absence of population along their courses [...] and
do they not see [...] the danger of a second Hayti looming in
the future, facile amidst the mountains, forests, and
unnavigable rivers of this vast and fertile, but almost
roadless region?
In
continuation, as well as pledging support for mass
immigration, his argumentation has aspects that anticipate the
geopolitical strategic thinking that underpinned policies
implemented by the Brazilian military during the twentieth
century:
in fine, do
[Brazilians] not see that, with the grasping and warlike
republics that envelop Brazil, each having to gain largely by
her dismemberment, her existence in her integrality requires
her to keep far in advance in population, wealth, and material
progress; a result attainable only with the concurrence of a
large and persistent immigration?
Therefore, he
states that
To arrive at this result, let the Brazilian government and
the Brazilian people extend a welcoming invitation to
foreign immigrants. Let them be afforded every possible
facility of settlement, and be relieved from the disabilities
and irritating surveillance that disgust them and prevent
development.
Finally,
Scully argues in favour of the North American model of free
immigration:
Let [...]
government lands be granted, or sold at moderate prices, in
tracts of 30,000 to 500,000 braças, each, to real
settlers only. Let a sufficient quantity of such tracts, of
easy access, be always kept surveyed and mapped. [...] Let
every encouragement be given [...] to the formation in Brazil
of Societies like the St. George in New York, to which
immigrants [...] could apply for assistance and advice; and
let means be taken to disseminate knowledge of Brazil in
British and Continental Europe.
He ends the
article with the following assessment:
With these
and similar measures, and perhaps, for a time assisted
immigration, together with liberality from the government and
the people, such a current of immigration might be induced as
would place the prosperity of Brazil upon the only sound and
safe basis -a free and intelligent producing population
warmly attached to their country, their constitution, and
their Emperor.
This line of
argument, taken in its totality, suggests the existence of a
strategy aiming at the extinction of slavery in Brazil by
means of the promotion of mass European immigration. Although
it may perhaps have proved historically inapplicable, the
greatest obstacle to the implementation of Scully's proposals
may have been the man himself. After the first editions of his
newspaper, and prior to 8 June of 1865, he published quite
disdainful analyses and comments on the political and cultural
life of the Brazilian elites. The interpretation of these
pieces lends itself to the perception that the aims of his
initiatives in relation to immigration were to promote an
extensive reform of Brazilian society under the tutelage of
the English. This is corroborated by the indications in
Scully's discourse of a fundamental inspiration for his
proposals: the radical thinker and reformer Jeremy Bentham
(1748-1832), one of the founders of the utilitarian
philosophical movement, also known as Benthamism.
Having in
mind the prospect of implementing this supposedly reformist
agenda, the practice of clientelism (patronage) was
emphatically deplored by Scully, since it inverted the
priorities of parliamentary and governmental activities.
According to him, the working hours of a Brazilian minister
were almost totally devoted to the task of finding posts for
friends, relatives and party affiliates, while legislative and
executive activities were relegated to
second place. This was undoubtedly true, and is attested to by
diverse sources. [11] Scully, though, used the rough edge of
his tongue: addressing the issue of patronage, and how
detrimental it was to the development of the country, one
reads in the editorial of the Anglo-Brazilian Times of
24 May 1865 that 'the life of a Brazilian Minister is a life of
downright slavery'. In other words, slavery was compared to a
cancer that afflicted all of society, from bottom to top,
including the elites. The Brazilian elites' Eurocentric
self-image of enlightenment, combined with their real, or
imagined, ties to the nobility to the Old World and with a
romantic ideal of indigenous ancestry, certainly would not
admit the perceived insolence inherent in this and other
denunciations.
Finally, these charges would not be complete without an appreciation of
the underdeveloped condition of education in
Brazil. Demonstrating yet again what seems to be a utilitarian academic background, the editor of The
Anglo-Brazilian Times believed that the Brazilian
patronage system unavoidably engendered indolence and low
productivity, stemming from the absence of competition for
positions within the public administration. If they were to
remain inactive, the new generations of the Brazilian elites
would be crushed under the wave of progress generated by the
arrival of European immigrants.
Scully begins a discussion by stating that 'true,
our Brazilian boy is not unlearned [...]
still, all his studies are without
an aim, his only view in life is towards the dolce far
niente of a government employment.'
Therefore,
the Brazilian educated classes have through indolence and
pride abandoned to the more utilitarian foreigner engineering,
mining, trades, commerce, and manufactures, and leave the
resources and the riches of their wonderful country
undeveloped until the educated science of some enterprising
foreigner finds out the treasure and turns it to his own
advantage.
Throughout
the article, published on 8 April 1865 under the title
'Education', the threat is reiterated from different angles.
Scully then resorts to a downright derogatory argument in
order to underline the likely outcome:
Again we repeat that mind and body react upon each other and
enervate together, and we warn our Brazilian youth that, if
they suffer to degenerate and become emasculated through their
indolence and contempt for usefulness, they will 'ere long
endure the mortification of being ousted even out of their
present stronghold of the public service, by those other
classes whose pursuits they affect so much to scorn, when once
the energies that win for these their wealth be directed to
the loaves and fishes of the government employ.
Finally, in defence of the incorporation of physical
education into the curriculum of Brazilian schools, Scully
argues that it, 'joined with Western utilitarian science,
makes two hundred thousand Europeans the arbiters of two
hundred millions of the inhabitants of Indian climes'
Brazilians
also had to remember that, thanks to discipline and physical
exercise, 'Waterloo was won at Eton and Harrow'. Eton and
Harrow are two very traditional fee-paying schools for boys in
the United Kingdom, founded respectively in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries.
Apparent in the three articles
cited is not only a Eurocentric and Benthamist
(Utilitarianism) tenor, but above all an uncontained British
hegemonic and colonialist vocation. Expressed in these terms,
this involves, paradoxically,
praising ideas of merit, competitive education, and approval
in exams. This naturally clashed with Brazilian social and
political customs, then almost exclusively founded on
privilege and the formation of clienteles. In the articles of
1865 in the Anglo-Brazilian Times it is possible
to perceive, with an antecedence of almost three years, who
was the real antagonist of Caxias.
In
Scully's discourse, then, British expansionism is articulated
along a liberal politico-economic axis, openly opposed to the
slavery system. The destruction of that system, according to
the newspaper, should be achieved by means of free European
immigration. Brazil, however, would ultimately have affirmed
her sovereignty by rejecting both that form of expansionism
and its proposals. As a result, an initiative in which Scully
was directly involved may have been sabotaged. To this end,
the Brazilian elites resorted to a practice similar to the
'spoils' system introduced by president Andrew Jackson
(1767-1845) in the United States in 1828, [12] according to
which only affiliates to the party in power could occupy
public office. In Brazil, that political system was known as 'derrubadas,'
or the wholesale change of occupants of public office, after
every general election. As soon as they were sworn in, they
were able to prevent their opponents' undertakings from
prospering. This was an immediate consequence of the removal
of Zacarias in July 1868, which concurred to produce the
failure of Colônia Príncipe Dom Pedro, in Santa Catarina,
to which Irish settlers had been sent (Marshall 2005: 78). |
