Diário de Lisboa
- Foreign Capital and the Merchant Marine
- WHEN, in the last war, Brazil
- A telegram from Chatham
Diário de Lisboa’s maritime articles connected investment, remembrance and armed power. The prominently displayed letter defended minority foreign investment in Portuguese shipping, questioned the repeal of Law 1787 and invoked other countries’ ownership rules. A Brazilian naval report anticipated the return from Dakar of sailors’ remains aboard the Baia and ceremonies in Rio. The notice of Oberon’s launch turned sharply ironic, treating British submarine construction as preparation for another war amid public celebrations of peace.
Translation
Foreign Capital and the Merchant Marine
Foreign capital coming to the aid of our merchant marine would, if nothing else, have the virtue of encouraging an inflow of domestic capital. How can one understand this rejection of financial assistance from foreigners, when it is proclaimed from the rooftops that major undertakings in Portugal fail to develop for lack of money?
Such conduct is paradoxical.
The repeal of a law is understandable only when its application produces disastrous consequences. But since Law 1787 has not even had an opportunity to be applied to any considerable extent, why was its repeal pursued?
Let us not exaggerate our patriotic pride to the point of making it counterproductive.
Law 1787, amending Article 4 of our Navigation Act, permitted foreign capital to account for 49% of the capital of shipping companies, thus remaining a minority interest.
Let us see what is done abroad on this same question.
Spain admits foreign capital in the proportion of 4/5, with Spanish management and headquarters on Spanish territory.
In England, all the capital may be foreign, with only the management and headquarters required to be English.
Italy, Austria and Denmark require 2/3 domestic capital, with the same other conditions as in England and Spain.
In Italy, Austria and Denmark, 2/3 domestic capital is required, with the same other conditions as in England and Spain.
In France, Greece and Sweden, any shipping company may be established provided that half its capital is domestic.
In view of the foregoing, we are moved to ask whether patriotic feelings in any of the countries cited are weaker than ours. Yet there, financial assistance from foreigners is not feared; on the contrary, it is desired.
It should be stressed that the Spanish government, in drawing up the law authorizing 4/5 foreign capital, declares that this measure is intended to develop its merchant marine.
It seems that the Spanish government was right, since its merchant marine has recently undergone considerable development under that legal provision.
WHEN, in the last war, Brazil
The “pneumonic influenza” that ravaged part of the world at that time also spread among the crews of Brazilian warships cruising between Africa and America, claiming numerous victims. Many of the sailors who died were buried in Dakar, and in Brazil, where the death toll caused profound grief, there was repeated talk of transferring the remains of these soldiers of the sea to their homeland. Only now is that idea to be realized. It is taken as certain that the light cruiser Baia, which weighed anchor some time ago to visit various foreign nations that had sent warships to Brazil for the celebrations of the Centenary of Independence, will call at Senegal on its return and bring back the bones of the Brazilian sailors. In Rio, imposing religious and patriotic ceremonies will be held.
A telegram from Chatham
A telegram from Chatham informs us that a super-submarine, Oberon, has been launched.
As its construction was secret, the public was not admitted to witness the spectacle.
From what the newspapers say, one gathers that this is a terrible engine of war—that future war which the peoples await while they go on celebrating peace.
The English know that their dominion rests on the worldwide power of their fleets. The stronger those fleets, the greater the respect commanded by their prestige.
The super-submarine Oberon, like others of the same type, has its assigned role in England’s growing greatness: it will be one more addition to the many instruments employed to make peace receptive to arguments… of weight.
Context
Foreign investment and the stakes of a Brazil service
The central article is a letter signed by José dos Santos. Its argument distinguishes Portuguese control from exclusively Portuguese financing: a 49% foreign share would preserve a domestic majority while helping attract scarce capital. Elsewhere in the letter, Santos explains the difficulty of financing an industry with initial losses and limited returns, and warns that services to Brazil might remain an insoluble problem if dependent solely on domestic funds. A separate notice on the page reports merchant-marine engineer officers petitioning ministers to establish that service quickly. These were practical questions about ships and routes as well as patriotic principles. A later historical study examines negotiations for a state–shipping-company contract to operate the Portugal–Brazil route, beginning in 1928. That subsequent project places the letter’s concern within the continuing relationship between government policy and shipping-company investment.
Epidemic deaths as naval and national remembrance
The sailors’ burial in Dakar arose from Brazil’s wartime naval deployment. A history published in Revista Marítima Brasileira records that the ships suffered a severe influenza epidemic there and needed replacement crewmen from Rio. The newspaper places the proposed recovery of their remains on a voyage reciprocating foreign naval attendance at Brazil’s independence centenary. Bringing the dead home would thus connect a diplomatic courtesy mission with religious and patriotic mourning in Rio. Later commemoration gave the wartime losses a permanent place in the city: a naval historical study records that a mausoleum built there in 1928 holds the remains of 156 servicemen of the Naval Division for War Operations, or DNOG, transferred from Dakar. The report’s anticipated ceremonies and the later monument show how deaths overseas became part of national remembrance.
Oberon and peace backed by naval force
Oberon’s launch was an immediate news event: the US Naval History and Heritage Command’s photograph identifies the launch at Chatham on 24 September 1926, three days before this issue. The Portuguese item turns that event into an argument about power. It first links British dominion and prestige to the strength of the fleet, then presents another submarine as an addition to the means of making peace yield to force. The closing phrase, arguments “of weight,” gives the language of persuasion a military meaning. Together with the image of peoples celebrating peace while awaiting another war, it makes the launch a pointed example of the tension between public professions of peace and continued naval armament.
Original
Os capitais extrangeiros e a Marinha Mercante
---- Os' capitais: extrangeiros: que viessem ao encontro da nossa Marinha
Comercial teriam, quanto mais não fosse, o condão de estimular a afluencia
dos capitais nacionais. Como se compreende que assim se repudiem os auxitios. financeiros : de. estrangeiros; quando se-apregoa'aos quatro ventos que, :
grandes iniciativas em Portugal se não desenvolvem por falta de humerário ?-
Tal proceiimiento é paradoxal:
Só se compreende a revogação duma lei, quando da sua aplicação resul-
- tam consequencias desastrosas: mas como a lei 1787 nem sequer teve ainda
fórma consideravel, porque se promoveu então a
ocasião de ser aplicada de
sua revogação ?
Não exageremos os nossos brios patrioticos ao ponto de os tornarmos
contraproducentes. :
A lei 1787 alterando o artigo 4.º do nosso Acto de navegação, permitia a”
entrada de capitais extrangeiros na constituição de companhias de nategação na proporção de 49 .]º, ficando, portanto, em minoria.
Vejamos o que lá por fóra se faz com referencia ao mesmo assunto.
A Espanha admite capitais estrangeiros na razão de 415, sendo a direcção nacional e a séde em territorio espanhol. : .
Na Inglaterra todo o capital póde ser extrangeiro, e sómente direcção e '
séde inglesas. g &
A Italia, Austria ce Dinamarca exigem 213 de capital nacional e restantes condições da Inglaterra e Espanha.
Na Italia, Austria e Dinamarca, exigem 2/3 de capital nacional e restantes condições da Inglaterra e Espanha.
Na França, Grecia c Suecia, qualquer' companhia de navegação se poderá
constituir desde que metade dos capitais sejam nacionais.
Em face de exposto ocorre-nos perguntar se em qualquer dos paises citados os sentimentos de patriotismo serão inferiores aos nossos. Contudo
ali não se receia, antes pelo contrario se deseja o auxilio financéiró do estrangeiros. E e o uam -
Convem frisar que o governo espanhol, ao elaborar a Lei que autoriza a
entrada de 415 de capitais estrangeiros, atesta ser cessa medida têndente au
desenvolvimento da sua Matinha Mercante.
Parece que o governo espanhol tinha razão, porquanto a sua marinha de
comercio, à sombra daquela disposição de Lei, tomou ultimamente um .consideravel desenvolvimento. : z “ N
QUANDO, na ultima guerra, o Brasil
“pneumonica”, que naquela altura assolou parte do murído,- tambem-se propagou entre as tripulações dos navios de
guerra brasileiros que faziam o cruzeiro entre a Africa v a Ameriva, causando
numerosas vitimas. Grande parte dos
inarinheiros mortos foram sepultados
em Dakar, e no Brasil, onde a mortandade causou funda impressão de desgosto, varias vezes se falou na trasladação dos restos mortais dos soldados do
mar para a-terra da Patria. Agora é que
essa ideia vai ter realização. Dá-se como
certo que o cruzador ligeiro “Baia”, que
ha tempos levantou ferro, em visita a
varias, nações estrangeiras, ás que enviarám navios de guerra ao Brasil, por
ocasião dos festejos do Centenario da
Independencia, passará, no seu regresso, pelo Senegal, levando as ossadas
dos marinheiros brasileiros. No Rio, serão levadas a ofeito imponentes cerimonias religiosas e patriotiças,” E:
UM telegrama de Chattam
1 telegrama. de - Chattam sihfornia- +
nos de-quefoilánçado ão mar bm
super-submar o *Oberón,.
Como a Sua constéução +foi:-secreta, o
publico não foi admitido a presenciar o
espectaculo. o asEiE
- Peloque:cs jornais. dizem, deduz-se
.jque setráta dum terrivel engeúho de
guerra—essa futura guerta—que os" po!
vos aguardam, enquanto vão celebrando
apaz se
* Os ingleses sabem que o seu-dominio”
assenta no poder universal das suas esquadras. Quanto mais fortes for, tanto mais acatado será o seu prestigio.
O super-submarino “Oberon, ' como
outros, do mestno tipó, tem o seu papel
marcado no engrandecimento da Inglaterra: será mais um' elemento a juntar
a tantos outros gue se 'empregam* para
tornar a paz permeavel aos argumentos... de peso.