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Streetcars and Politics in Rio de Janeiro: Private Enterprise versus Municipal Government in the Provision of Mass Transit, 1903–1920*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Christopher G. Boone
Christopher G. Boone
Affiliation:
a Post-doctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography at McGill University.
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Abstract

This paper examines the relationship of the Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Company and the municipal council in the provision of streetcar services in Rio de Janeiro, 1903–1920. Using archival materials collected in Brazil and Canada, it demonstrates that the utilities company lost the contest for control of Rio de Janeiro's mass transit system to the municipal authorities. Although it had the advantages of capital, technology and skill, this Canadian enterprise did not dictate its demands to an acquiescent municipal council. Rather, the municipal council and prefecture managed to extract an expensive streetcar system from the company to service its growing city.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , May 1995 , pp. 343 - 365
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

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3 The Light has been the subject of two recent books: McDowall, Duncan, The Light: Brazilian Traction, Light and Power Company Limited, 1899–1945 (Toronto, 1988)Google Scholar; Armstrong, Christopher and Nelles, H. V., Southern Exposure: Canadian Promoters in Latin America and the Caribbean, 1896–1930 (Toronto, 1988)Google Scholar. McDowall's business history, commissioned by Brascan, focuses more on the operations of the company than its relations with the local council. Armstrong and Nelles consider the question of Canadian enterprise in Latin America (pp. 272–3, 276f., 287–91) but their analysis is limited by the fact that they did not examine sources in Latin America. For a review of these two works in reference to the question of imperialism, see Lutz, John, ‘Light and Shadows: Canadian Capitalists in Latin America and the Caribbean’, Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 28 (1993), pp. 192–7Google Scholar.

4 It is not my intention to summarise the particulars of the Passos Reforms. Detailed treatments of these important reforms can be found in: Benchimol, Jaime L., Pereira Passos: um Haussmann Tropical (Rio de Janeiro, 1990)Google Scholar; Abreu, Maurício de A., Evolução Urbana do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, 1987)Google Scholar; Needell, Jeffrey D., ‘Making the Tropical Belle Époque Concrete: the Urban Reforms of Rio de Janeiro under Pereira Passos’, Journal of Urban History, vol. 10 (1984), pp. 383–422Google Scholar.

5 The Rio de Janeiro City Improvements Company contracted with the city of Rio in 1857 to provide water and in 1862 to provide sewerage and drainage. Baron Mauá, a wealthy Brazilian entrepreneur, founded the first gas lighting company in the 1850s but sold it to British interests. A Belgian firm, the Société Anonyme du Gaz, later took over the right for public lighting in Rio de Janeiro. See Graham, Sandra Lauderdale, House and Street: The Domestic World of Servants and Masters in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro (Austin, 1992), p. 24Google Scholar; Graham, Richard, Britain and the Onset of Modernisation in Brazil, 1850–1914 (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 116–18Google Scholar, 188.

6 Brazilian census of 1890. See Hahner, June, Poverty and Politics: The Urban Poor in Brazil, 1870–1920 (Albuquerque, 1986), p. 167Google Scholar for a description of living conditions for the working class and poor. Also see Edmundo, Luiz, O Rio de Janeiro do Meu Tempo (Rio de Janeiro, 1957)Google Scholar.

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8 Ibid., 198f.

9 Ibid., pp. 214–15.

10 President Alves borrowed the funds for the reforms from the Rothschilds of London, secured against custom receipts from the port of Rio de Janeiro; Ibid., pp. 212, 251.

11 Ibid., p. 255. Also see Richard Graham, Britain and the Onset.

12 For a good summary of Oswaldo Cruz's career, see Stepan, Nancy, Beginnings of Brazilian Science: Oswaldo Cruz, Medical Research and Policy, 1890–1920 (New York, 1979)Google Scholar. The federal government granted Cruz and his department of public health 5,500 contos (£275,000) for necessary improvements in sanitation; Benchimol. Pereira Passos, p. 212.

13 Correio de Manhã, 6, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18 Nov. 1904. For published accounts of the riot against mandatory vaccination (Revolta Contra Vacind), see Meade, Teresa, ‘“Civilizing Rio de Janeiro”: the Public Health Campaign and the Riot of 1904’, Journal of Social History, vol. 20 (1986), pp. 301–22Google Scholar; and Needell, Jeffrey D., ‘The Revolta Contra Vacina of 1904: the Revolt Against “Modernization” in Belle-Époque Rio de Janeiro’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 67 (1987), pp. 233–70Google Scholar. For an interpretation of the politics of yellow fever control in Rio de Janeiro in the 1850s and 1870s, see Chaloub, Sidney, ‘The Politics of Disease Control: Yellow Fever and Race in Nineteenth Century Rio de Janeiro’, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 25 (1993), pp. 441–63Google Scholar.

14 Meade, ‘Civilizing Rio de Janeiro’; Needell, ‘The Revolta Contra Vacina’. Needell argues that the revolta was more than an anti-modernisation riot; it was grounded in a struggle between two groups of the elite: radical republicans and positivists on the one hand and traditional elite with loyalties to the plantation/agricultural-export economy on the other.

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16 Jeffrey Needell, ‘Making the Carioca Belle Epoque Concrete’, pp. 400–1, agrees on the ‘centrality of Haussmann’ in the Pereira Passos Reforms.

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19 Bodstein, ‘Práticas Sanitárias e Classes Populares do Rio de Janeiro’, 35.

20 Benchimol, Pereira Passos, pp. 244f. Measures to valorise the downtown continued after the Passos Reforms. The Morro do Castelo, the sixtenth century site of the city and home to an extensive favela in the twentieth, was torn down in 1922 to make way for higher-valued land use.

21 Minutes of the Municipal Council, 28 September 1908, 12th session, Assambléia Legislativa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (ALERJ). To compensate for the loss of collective dwellings, the federal government built 120 houses on Salvador de Sá, Leopoldo and Campos Mendes Streets; Reis, Oliveira, O Rio de Janeiro e Seus Prefeitos: Evolucão Urbanística da Cidade (Rio de Janeiro, 1977), p. 26Google Scholar.

22 Hahner, Poverty and Politics, pp. 157, 160–71.

23 Correio da Manhã, 5 April 1906.

24 See Padilha, Sylvia, ‘Da “Cidade Velha” á Periferia’, Revista Rio de Janeiro, vol. 1 (1985), pp. 15–24Google Scholar.

25 Minutes of the Municipal Council of Rio de Janeiro, 29 Oct. 1906, ALERJ.

26 James Mitchell to DrRibeiro, Miranda, 11 08 1905, Arquivo Geral da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro (AGCRJ), 54–4–5Google Scholar.

27 Cited in Padilha, ‘Da “Cidade Velha” á Periferia’, p. 20.

28 As early as 1889, the Minister of Agriculture, Industry and Public Works had suggested a unification scheme but the streetcar companies could not come to a consensus. See Dunlop, C. J., Apontamentos para a História dos Bondes no Rio de Janeiro: a Companhia Ferro-Carril do Jardim Botânico (Rio de Janeiro, 1953), vol. 2Google Scholar.

29 The unsanitary and unsightly mule droppings motivated some municipal councillors to encourage the adoption of electric traction. Minutes of the Municipal Council, 26 April 1894, 22nd session, ALERJ.

30 Between 1908 and 1911, the Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Company spent more than $6,000,000 to convert the mule-drawn system to electric traction. Pearson to Huntress, F., 16 02 1907Google Scholar, Arquivos da Light S.A., Rio de Janeiro (ALRJ), Unsigned letter to Huntress, F., 24 07 1908, National Archives of Canada (NAC) MG 28, III 112Google Scholar, 4.

31 For a summary of the career of Wm. Mackenzie, see Fleming, R. B., The Railway King of Canada, Sir William Mackenzie, 1849–1923) (Vancouver, 1991)Google Scholar.

32 The company changed its name the following year to the Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Company after it secured the streetcar concessions. The company left out ‘tramway’ from its title to disguise its intentions to purchase the streetcar companies. Anonymous, , 30 05 1905, Brascan Archives, TorontoGoogle Scholar.

33 Frederick Stark Pearson was a very successful electrical engineer and utilities manager. A native of Massachusetts, he worked extensively on electricity generation and electric traction for the Boston West End Street Railway, Halifax Electric Tramways Co. and Metropolitan Street Railway Company of New York before he became president of the Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro Light companies; McDowall, The Light, pp. 60–6; Oglesby, J. C. M., Gringos from the Far North: Essays in the History of Canadian-Latin American Relations, 1866–1968 (Toronto, 1976), pp. 127–9Google Scholar. On the fascinating career of Percival Farquhar, see Gauld, Charles A., The Last Titan: Percival Farquhar 1864–1953, American Entrepreneur in Latin America (Stanford, 1972)Google Scholar.

34 See Greenfield, Gerald Michael, ‘Lightin g the City: a Case Study of Public Service Problems in São Paulo, 1885–1913’, in Alden, Dauril and Dean, Warren (eds.), Essays Concerning the Socioeconomic History of Brazil and Portuguese India (Gainesville, 1977), pp. 118–49Google Scholar.

35 Pearson (New York) to Mackenzie, A. (São Paulo), 9 04 1903, ALRJGoogle Scholar.

36 Early correspondence between Pearson and Alexander Mackenzie indicates that they planned, from the start, to take control of the gas company and the streetcars and to purchase the rights to monopoly control of hydroelectric power in Rio de Janeiro. As negotiations dragged on, Pearson encouraged Mackenzie to keep up the fight, reminding him that ‘if we can obtain the tramways that with this and the power business, we shall have a great enterprise.’ Pearson to Mackenzie, 28 Feb. 1905; 5 July 1904; 5 October 1903; A. Mackenzie to Pearson, , 10 11 1903, ALRJGoogle Scholar.

37 Pearson to Mackenzie, A., 5 07 1904, ALRJGoogle Scholar.

38 Pearson (New York) to Mackenzie, A. (São Paulo), 9 04 1903, ALRJGoogle Scholar.

39 A. Mackenzie to Pearson, , 10 11 1903, ALRJGoogle Scholar.

40 The dam was built 90 kilometres inland at Rio das Lajes and by 1909 had a power capacity of 56,000 h.p. Annual Report of the Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Company, 1910.

41 A. Mackenzie to Pearson, 10 Nov. 1903, ALRJ.

42 Mackenzie, A. to Pearson, 4 01 1905. ALRJGoogle Scholar.

43 Guinle was allegedly ‘on e of the wealthiest men in Brazil’ wh o along with Gafrée, also a very wealthy man, represented General Electric and other large American firms in Brazil. Mackenzie, A. to Messrs. R. G. Dun & Co. (New York), 11 02 1906, ALRJ, 3–49Google Scholar.

44 Gauld, The Last Titan, p. 68.

45 James Mitchell to DrRibeiro, Miranda, 11 08 1905, AGCRJ, 54–4–5Google Scholar. Mackenzie, A. to Pearson, 7 03 1906, ALRJ, 3–49Google Scholar. Huntress, to Pearson (New York), 13 01 1906, NAC, MG 28, III 112, 4Google Scholar. Mackenzie, A. to Pearson, 10 11 1905, ALRJGoogle Scholar.

46 A. Mackenzie (Rio) to Smith, J. M. (Toronto), 3 11 1905, NAC MG 28, III 112, 5Google Scholar. Memorandum from the Office of the Prefect, 11 08 1905, AGCRJ, 54–4–5Google Scholar. Armstrong and Nelles, Southern Exposure, p. 67 state $2 million as the sum requested by the prefect.

47 A. Mackenzie to Smith, J. M. (Toronto), 6 11 1906, ALRJ, 3–49Google Scholar.

48 Prefecture of the Federal District (Department of Works and Transport) to Rio Light, 25 04 1908, AGCRJ, 54–4–5Google Scholar.

49 From Paris, Passos wrote a scathing editorial on the unification contract, proposed by the Light during his administration and carried over to his successor's (Aguiar) term as Prefect (A Notícia, 24 Aug. 1907).

50 See Needell, ‘Making the Carioca Belle Epoque Concrete’, p. 418, n. 36.

51 Correio da Manbã, 21 Jun e 1901.

52 The São Paulo Light also pushed to maintain the 200 reis fare as long as possible. Only in 1909 did the company offer 100 réis fares. See McDowall, The Light, p. 92.

53 Minutes of the Municipal Council, 9 Sep. 1907, 5th session, ALERJ. In a later case concerning the possibility of an elevated railway in the city, one municipal councillor was explicit regarding the intentions of improved transportation: ‘The question of easy, abundant, rapid and inexpensive conduction from the centre of the city to the periphery is an important case.… it will vehiculate, channel, the working class outside of the centre of the city, as is done in all great Capitals, and will aid towards a solution for the worsening problem of workers' housing.’ Minutes of the Municipal Council of Rio de Janeiro, 27 June 1916, 15th session. ALERJ.

54 Mackenzie, A. to Pearson, 17 11 1906, ALRJ, 3–49Google Scholar.

55 Mackenzie, to Pearson, 4 01 1905, ALRGoogle Scholar. Minutes of the Municipal Council, 28 October 1901; 2 April 1902, ALERJ.

56 Pearson (New York) to Mackenzie, A. (São Paulo), 3 01 1905, ALRJGoogle Scholar.

57 In a later case, the company made an outright payment to a newspaper to ease the criticism: ‘We arranged with Mr. J. de Souza t o pay 20 contos to persons connected with Jornal do Brazil if they would cease their anti telephone campaign. This they have done. He has advanced the money and we should now repay him. Understanding is we shall not press Jornal for higher rates for current.’ Mackenzie, A. to Huntress, 13 03 1922, National Archives of Canada (NAC), MG 28, III 112, 309Google Scholar. In other cases, payments to newspapers were more inventive. In 1927, Alexander Mackenzie agreed to pay £200 on behalf of the Jornal do Brasil to Mr. Rudyard Kipling for publication rights to articles related to Brazil o n the condition that ‘it no t be known that we are making any contributions to the “ O Jornal” in this matter’. A. Mackenzie to MrRyan, , 30 11 1927, NAC, MG 28, III 112, 309Google Scholar. The influence of the company over the newspapers was substantial. As Mackenzie explained to Lash, Miller in 1928, ‘We have the greater part of the Press muzzled’. 29 05 1928, NAC, MG 28, III 112, 309Google Scholar.

58 A. Mackenzie to Pearson, 17 Nov. 1906, ALRJ, 3–49.

69 Correio da Manbã, 5 Feb. 1906.

60 Correio da Manhã, 2 March 1906.

61 Correio da Manhã, 20 Oct. 1906; 7 Nov. 1906.

62 Mackenzie, A. to Percival Farquhar (London), 21 08 1907, ALRJ, 3–49Google Scholar.

63 Mackenzie, A. to Pearson, 1 08 1907, ALRJ, 3–49Google Scholar.

64 Mackenzie, A. to Pearson, 1 08 1907, ALRJ, 3–49Google Scholar. The Jornal do Comércio (28 June 1907) also accused Aguiar of signing the contract against the opinions of the Inspector of Streetcars, Miranda Ribeiro.

66 A. Mackenzie to Lash, Z. A., 5 12 1906, ALRJGoogle Scholar.

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68 Ibid.

69 Municipal Council to Prefect, 1 10 1907, Resolution of the Municipal Council to approve ad referendumGoogle Scholar the contract of 25 June 1907 celebrated between the Prefecture and the São Cristóvão, Carris Urbanos and Villa Isabel companies for the unification, electrification and development of its respective lines, AGCRJ, 56–4–5. Mackenzie, A. to Pearson, 30 09 1907, ALRJ, 3–47Google Scholar.

70 Mackenzie, A. to Pearson, 30 09 1907, ALRJ, 3–47Google Scholar.

71 Mackenzie, A. to Pearson, 18 09 1907, ALRJ, 3–47Google Scholar.

72 News of the difficult negotiation must have reached the Toronto Stock Exchange where the bid price for the Rio Light stock dropped from 36½ at the beginning of October to 31 ½ on 6 Nov. 1907. By the end of November, however, the bid price had rebounded in a modest gain to 32⅞. The Globe (Toronto), 2 Oct. 1907, 6 Nov. 1907, 30 Nov. 1907.

73 Between 1907 and 1914, the average return per car mile was 14.8 cents for the Rio de Janeiro Tramway Light and Power Company and 12.9 cents for the Toronto Street Railway Company. Figures for Toronto from Christopher Armstrong and H. V. Nelles, ‘Suburban Street Railway Strategies in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, 1896–1930’, in Stelter, G. A. and Artibise, F. J. (eds.), Power and Place: Canadian Urban Development in the North American Context (Vancouver, 1986), pp. 206Google Scholar, and for Rio from various issues of the Annual Report of Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Company.

74 See Doucet, Michael J., ‘Politics, Space and Trolleys: Mass Transit in Early Twentieth Century Toronto’, in Stelter, Gilbert A. and Artibise, Alan F. J. (eds.), Shaping the Urban Landscape: Aspects of the Canadian City–building Process (Ottawa, 1982), pp. 356–81Google Scholar; and Armstrong and Nelles, ‘Suburban Street Railway Strategies’.

75 Memorandum from Mackenzie, A., 1924, NAC, M G 28, III 112, 309Google Scholar.

76 A. Mackenzie (Rio de Janeiro) to Hon, Rt.. Montagu, Edwin S. (Glória Hotel, Rio de Janeiro), 10 01 1924, NAC, M G 28, III 112, 309Google Scholar.

77 In none of the volumes of documents regarding the unification contract did the issue of fixed fares to the end of the concession arise. The company was either very short sighted in not taking into account inflation or they understood that the fares could be raised in consultation with the prefecture and municipal council. I suspect that Mackenzie expected he would be able to raise the fares with little difficulty.

78 A. Mackenzie (Rio de Janeiro) to Hon, Rt.. Montagu, Edwin S. (Glória Hotel, Rio de Janeiro), 10 01. 1924, NAC, MG 28, III 112, 309Google Scholar.

79 McDowall, The Light, p. 351.

80 Prefeitura da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, O Bonde na Paisagem Carioca: Exposicão de 12 de Junho a 12 dejulbo, Arquivo Geral da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, 1984 (Rio de Janeiro, 1988), p. 40Google Scholar. Farquhar, like Mackenzie, did not foresee that streetcars would become unprofitable, particularly after the First World War. See Gauld, The Last Titan, p. 71.

81 In the United States, the five-cent fare had similar restrictions on the operations of transit companies. In public disfavour and unable to raise the rates, many streetcar companies were forced to declare bankruptcy before the First World War. See Chudacoff, Howard and Smith, Judith E., The Evolution of American Urban Society (Englewood Cliffs, 1988), p. 87Google Scholar.

82 Mackenzie, A. to Percival Farquhar, 18 09 1909, ALRJGoogle Scholar.

83 In the private correspondence of the Light, there are several references to ‘bringing officials into the fold’, ‘joining the company’, ‘purchasing stock at favourable rates’, etc. One of the best examples is a confidential letter in which Pearson grants Mackenzie $1 million for use in Brazil ‘without accounting for it’. Pearson to Mackenzie, A., 5 07 1904, ALRJGoogle Scholar.

84 Armstrong to Nelles, Southern Exposure, p. 289, concur that bribes by the Light signify the strong discretionary powers of the government administration.

85 For a review of the ‘new dependency’ writing, see Haggard, Stephen, ‘The Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America’, Latin American Research Review, vol. 24 (1989), pp. 184–208Google Scholar. Also, Packenham, Robert, The Dependency Movement: Scholarship and Politics in Development Studies (Cambridge, Mass., 1992)Google Scholar and Walton, John, ‘Small Gains for Big Theories: Recent Work on Development’, Latin American Research Review, vol. 22 (1987), pp. 192–201Google Scholar.

86 I thank the anonymous reviewer for helpful and thoughtful comments on dependency and imperialism.

87 See Bradford, E. Burns, Nationalism in Brazil: A Historical Survey (New York, 1968), pp. 61–79Google Scholar.

88 Platt, D. C. M., ‘Dependency and the Historian: Further Objections’, in Abel, Christopher and Lewis, Colin M. (eds.). Latin America, Economic Imperialism and the State: The Political Economy of the External Connection from Independence to the Present (London, 1985), pp. 29–39Google Scholar; see p. 37. Two studies that refute the notion of business imperialism are Eakin, British Enterprise in Brazil, and Charles, and Jones, Linda and Greenhill, Robert, ‘Public Utility Companies and Transport’, in Platt, Business Imperialism (Oxford, 1977), pp. 77–118Google Scholar.

89 M. H. J. Finch, ‘British Imperialism in Uruguay: the Public Utility Companies and the Batllista State, 1900–1930’, in Christopher Abel and Colin M. Lewis (eds.), Latin America, Economic Imperialism and the State, pp. 250–66.

90 In 1890, at the peak of the horsecar era, operating revenues generated average dividends in excess of 11 per cent in the United States. Jones, David W., Urban Transit Policy: An Economic and Political History (Englewood Cliffs, 1985), p. 30Google Scholar.

91 Wilcox, Delos F., Analysis of the Electric Railway Problem: Report to the Federal Electric Railways Commission (New York, 1921)Google ScholarSaint-Cyr, J. F., An Economic Viewpoint of the Montreal Tramways Contract (Montreal, 1922)Google Scholar.

92 Jones, Urban Transit Policy, chapter 3.