[739] Chambers of commerce were the main pressure groups serving as intermediaries between the business elite and the governent in Great Britain and Brazil in the nineteenth century. The most important problem they faced in both nations was promoting a legal and institutional framework that would facilitate economic expansion. In both nations, the critical factors affecting this task were the need of the state for the expert advice that business pressure groups could offer, the tradiotional relationship between business and governent and especially the attittude of a historically dominant landed elite.