That was to say, Brazil lagged at least thirty years behind East Africa. Yet the accounts could not be calculated that way. After all, East Africa had overtaken on the curve through the tremendous opportunities presented by several rounds of global economic crises, two Five-Year Plans, and this Great War. That process alone would have taken countries developing at a normal pace more than a century.
East Africa now viewed Brazil as an industrial power viewed a backward agricultural nation. Although Brazil's industrial scale was fairly respectable compared to other colonies or backward countries, it could only be called picking the tallest general from among dwarfs.
Take Brazil's industry, for instance. Most of it was light industry, while most of its heavy industry consisted of mining. Moreover, Brazil's economy was mainly controlled by foreign capital, so the lifeblood of Brazilian industry was not in its own hands.
Rhodes said, "If Mr. Pereira had visited other East African cities, he would understand that my words are not empty. Automobiles are astonishingly widespread in East Africa. So long as it is a city, one can basically see streams of traffic like this."
"Among East African cities, although Dar es Salaam city ranks first economically, the gap between it and other cities is not great. Such coastal cities as Luanda, Cabinda, Beira, New Hamburg City, and so on, as well as inland cities such as New Frankfurt, Mbeya, Kalale, and our capital, are all major cities with populations exceeding five hundred thousand."
Only Dar es Salaam city and Mombasa city had populations exceeding one million in East Africa, and both had only a little over a million. This was far behind such great cities as London, New York, and Paris, but East Africa had an outrageously large number of major cities with populations