| 1906 | 1907 | 1908 | |
| Revenue | £452,812 | £635,000 | £599,828 |
| Expenditure | 454,564 | 677,982 | 506,502 |
The budget for 1906 remained in force in 1907 and 1908.
Industry.—The principal industries are the cultivation and preparation of yerba maté (Paraguayan tea), cattle-farming, fruit growing, tobacco-planting and timber-cutting. Yerba maté, classified as Ilex paraguayensis, is a shrub. The leaves are stripped, withered, rolled and sorted, then packed in sacks and exported, chiefly to Argentina. Paraguayan tea is used in place of the ordinary tea or coffee in many parts of South America. Medical experts state that the beverage infused from the leaves has a stimulating effect, and is also slightly diuretic. The total amount exported from Paraguay in 1908 was 4133 tons. The majority of the yerbales (tea plantations) were formerly the property of the government, but have been acquired by private enterprise. An important feature about yerba maté is the small expense necessary for its production, and the cheap rate, notwithstanding the high tariff on its importation, at which it can be placed on the Argentine market as compared with ordinary tea or Brazilian coffee.
The cattle industry comes next in importance. The number of animals was estimated at 5,500,000 on the 31st of December 1908; an increase of about 45% since the census of 1899. The animals are small, but Durham and Hereford bulls have been introduced from Argentina to improve the breed. The increase in the herds has caused the owners of saladero establishments in Argentina and Uruguay to try the working of factories in Paraguay for the preparation of tasajo (jerked beef) and the manufacture of extract of meat. Both grasses and climate are against sheep-farming on a large scale.
Oranges are exported to Buenos Aires, Rosario and Montevideo, and are largely used for fattening hogs. The orange groves are often uncultivated, but yield abundantly; 10,700,000 dozens of oranges were exported in 1908. Pineapples are also exported, and sugar-cane, cotton, coffee and ramie are cultivated. Tobacco, although of inferior quality, is grown to a considerable extent; the quantity exported rose from about 35 tons in 1900 to 5014 tons in 1908. Tobacco is chiefly exported to Germany. The staple diet of the Paraguayans is still, as when the Spaniards first came, maize and mandioca (the chief ingredient in the excellent chipa or Paraguayan bread), varied, it may be, with the seeds of the Victoria regia, whose magnificent blossoms are the great feature of several of the lakes and rivers.
The forests abound in such timber as quebracho, cedar, curupey, lapacho and urundey. Some of these, such as the lapacho and quebracho, are of rare excellence and durability, as is shown by the wonderful state of preservation in which the woodwork of early Jesuit churches still remains. Fifteen plants are known to furnish dyes, and eight are sources of fibre—the caraguatay especially being employed in the manufacture of the exquisite nanduty or spider web lace of the natives. Rum, sugar, bricks, leather, furniture and extract of meat are manufactured.
Commerce.—The commercial situation of Paraguay has improved in consequence of the investment of foreign capital in industrial enterprise. The principal articles imported are textiles, hardware, wines, rice, flour, canned goods and general provisions; the exports are yerba mate, hides, hair, dried meat, wood, oranges, tobacco. Most of the export trade is with Buenos Aires or Montevideo. The values for the five years 1904–1908 were:—
| 1904 | 1905 | 1906 | 1907 | 1908 | |
| Imports | £713,146 | £935,703 | £1,253,439 | £1,572,255 | £814,591 |
| Exports | 639,252 | 566,602 | 539,028 | 647,222 | 773,419 |
Of the imports into Paraguay, 29% came from Germany in 1908, 21% from the United Kingdom and 19% from Argentina.
Communications.—Numerous ocean-going liners, most of which fly the Brazilian or the Argentine flag, ply on the Paraguay and the Paraná; smaller vessels ascend the tributary streams, which are also utilized for floating lumber down to the ports. Out of 1320 ships which entered Asuncion in 1908 and 1184 which cleared, none was of British or United States nationality. The Brazilian Lloyd S.S. Co. provides direct and regular communication between Asuncion and New York. The only railway in the republic is the Paraguay Central which was open in 1906 between Asuncion and Pirapó (154 m.). The completion of the line to Encarnacion was then undertaken (1906–1911), a train-ferry across the Paraná affording connexion with Posadas. These extensions, and the alteration of gauge to that of the Argentine North-Eastern, were carried out mainly at the cost of the Argentine government, which acquired a controlling interest in the Paraguay Central. They were intended to shorten the journey between Buenos Aires and Asuncion from 5 days to 36 hours. There are some fairly good wagon roads, and the government appropriates annually a considerable sum for their extension.
Post and Telegraph.—Paraguay entered the Universal Postal Union in 1884. Telegraph lines connect Asuncion with other towns, and two cables put the republic in communication with the rest of the world by way of Corrientes and Posadas.
Money and Credit.—The banks open for business in 1904 were the Mercantile Bank, the Territorial Bank, the Bank of Los Rios & Co., and the Agricultural Bank: the last named has a capital of £207,590, advanced by the government, and lends money to the agricultural and industrial classes. The Paraguayan Bank, with a capital of £600,000, was opened in 1905, and the state bank (Banco de la República), with a total authorized capital of £4,000,000, was opened on the 30th of June 1908. The Conversion Office, which is authorized to sell or lend gold, receives a fixed revenue of £30,000 from certain import and export dues; it was reorganized in 1903 for the administration of the public debt. In the same year the gold and silver coinage of Paraguay were legally standardized as identical with those of Argentina (5 gold dollars or pesos＝£1); but paper money is about the only circulating medium, and gold commands a high premium (1600% in December 1908). The normal value of the paper or currency dollar is about 4s. 8d. (For purposes of conversion the gold dollar has been taken at 5＝£1 throughout this article, and the currency dollar at 50＝£1.)
Weights and Measures.—The metric system is officially adopted, but the weights in common use are the tonelada (2025 ℔), the quintal (101·4 ℔), the arroba (25·35 ℔), the libra (1·014 ℔) and the onza (·0616 ℔). The unit for liquid measure is the cuarta (·1665 gallon); for dry measure the almud (·66 bushel) and fanega (112 bushels). The land measures are the legua (2·689 m.), the sino (6918 sq. yds.), and the legua cuadrada (1212 sq. m.).
History.—In 1527 Sebastian Cabot reached Paraguay and built a fort called Santo Espiritu. Asuncion was founded on the 15th of August 1535 by Juan de Ayolas, and his successor, Martinez de Irala, determined to make it the capital of the Spanish possessions east of the Andes. From this centre Spanish adventurers pushed east to La Guayra, beyond the Paraná, and west into the Gran Chaco; and before long vast numbers of the less warlike natives were reduced to serfdom. The name Paraguay was applied not only to the country between the Paraguay and the Paraná, but to the whole Spanish territory, which now comprises parts of Brazil, Uruguay and the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, Entre Rios, Corrientes, Misiones, and part of Santa Fé. It was not till 1620 that Paraguay proper and Rio de la Plata or Buenos Aires were separated as distinct governments, and they were both dependent on the vice-royalty of Peru till 1776, when Buenos Aires was erected into a vice-royalty, and Paraguay placed under its jurisdiction. The first Christian missions in Paraguay were established by the Franciscans—Armenta, Lebron, Solano (who was afterwards canonized as the “Apostle of Paraguay”) and Bolanos—between 1542 and 1560; but neither they nor the first Jesuit missionaries, Salonio, Field and Ortega, were allowed to make their enterprise a permanent success. This fell to the lot of the second band of Jesuits, Cataldino, Mazeta and Lorenzana, who began work in 1605. Though they succeeded in establishing a kind of imperium in imperio, and were allowed to drill the natives to the use of arms, the Jesuits never controlled the government of Paraguay; indeed they had nearly as often to defend themselves from the hostility of the governor and bishop at Asuncion as from the invasions of the Paulistas or Portuguese settlers of São Paulo. It was only by the powerful assistance of Zabala, governor of Buenos Aires, that the anti-Jesuit and quasi-national party which had been formed under Antequera was crushed in 1735. In 1750, however, Ferdinand VI. of Spain ceded to the Portuguese, in exchange for the fortified village of Colonia del Sacramento (Uruguay), both the district of La Guayra and a territory of some 20,000 sq. m. east of the Uruguay. The Jesuits resisted the transference, and it was only after several engagements that they were defeated by the combined forces of Spain and Portugal. The treaty was revoked by Spain in 1761, but the missions never recovered their prosperity, and the Jesuits were finally expelled in 1769. In 1811 Paraguay declared itself independent of Spain; by 1814 it was a despotism in the hands of Dr J. G. R. Francia (q.v.). On Francia’s death, in 1840, the chief power passed to his nephew, Carlos Antonio Lopez (q.v.), who in 1862 was succeeded by his son Francisco Solano Lopez. In 1864 a dispute arose between the younger Lopez and the Brazilian government, and Lopez marched an army through Argentine territory to invade southern Brazil.
