Part 41 (1/2)
At 11:40 a. m., General Brooke, Admiral Schley and General Gordon, the United States evacuation commissioners, came out of the palace with many naval officers and formed on the right side of the square. The streets behind the soldiers were thronged with townspeople, who stood waiting in dead silence.
At last the city clock struck 12, and the crowds, almost breathless and with eyes fixed upon the flagpole, watched for developments. At the sound of the first gun from Fort Morro, Major Dean and Lieutenant Castle, of General Brooke's staff, hoisted the stars and stripes, while the band played ”The Star Spangled Banner.” All heads were bared and the crowds cheered. Fort Morro, Fort San Cristobal and the United States revenue cutter Manning, lying in the harbor, fired twenty-one guns each.
Senor Munoz Rivera, who was president of the recent autonomist council of secretaries, and other officials of the late insular government were present at the proceedings. Many American flags were displayed.
Acknowledgment has been made of the better condition of Porto Rico than of Cuba, but the trail of the serpent of colonial Spanish government appears. Mr. Alfred Somamon writes in the Independent:
”The internal administration of the island disposes of a budget of about $3,300,000, and is a woeful example of corrupt officialism. Of this sum only about $650,000 is expended in the island, the remainder being applied to payment of interest on public debt, salaries of Spanish officials, army, navy, and other extra-insular expenditures. But the whole of the revenue is collected in the island.”
An article of great value by Eugene Deland, appeared in the Chatauquan of September, on the characteristics of Porto Rico, and we present an extract, showing its admirable distinction of accurate information well set forth:
”The mountain slopes are covered with valuable timbers, cabinet and dye-woods, including mahogany, walnut, lignum vitae, ebony, and logwood, and various medicinal plants. Here, too, is the favorite zone of the coffee tree, which thrives best one thousand feet above sea level. The valleys and plains produce rich harvests of sugar-cane and tobacco. The amount of sugar yielded by a given area is said to be greater than in any other West Indian island. Rice, of the mountain variety and grown without flooding, nourishes almost any place and is a staple food of the laboring cla.s.ses. In addition to these products cotton and maize are commonly cultivated, and yams, plantains, oranges, bananas, cocoanuts, pineapples, and almost every other tropical fruit are grown in abundance. Among indigenous plants are several noted for their beautiful blossoms. Among these are the coccoloba, which grows mainly along the coasts and is distinguished by its large, yard-long purple spikes, and a talauma, with magnificent, ororous, white flowers.
”Of wild animal life Porto Rico has little. No poisonous serpents are found, but pestiferous insects, such as tarantulas, centipedes, scorpions, ticks, fleas, and mosquitos, supply this deficiency in a measure. All sorts of domestic animals are raised, and the excellent pasture-lands support large herds of cattle for export and home consumption, and ponies, whose superiority is recognized throughout the West Indies.
”The mineral wealth of the island is undeveloped, but traces of gold, copper, iron, lead, and coal are found. Salt is procured in considerable quant.i.ties from the lakes.
”Porto Rico carries on an extensive commerce, chiefly with Spain, the United States, Cuba, Germany, Great Britain, and France. In 1895 the volume of its trade was one-half greater than that of the larger British colony--Jamaica. The United States ranks second in amount of trade with the island. During the four years from 1893-96 Spain's trade with the colony averaged $11,402,888 annually, and the United States, $5,028,544. The total value of Porto Rican exports for 1896 was $18,341,430, and of imports, $18,282,690, making a total of $36,624,120, which was an excess over any previous year. The exports consist almost entirely of agricultural products. In 1895 coffee comprised about sixty per cent, and sugar about twenty-eight per cent, of their value; leaf tobacco, mola.s.ses, and honey came next. Maize, hides, fruits, nuts, and distilled spirits are also sent out in considerable quant.i.ties. Over one-half of the coffee exported goes to Spain and Cuba, as does most of the tobacco, which is said to be used in making the finest Havana cigars; the sugar and mola.s.ses are, for the most part, sent to the United States. Among imports, manufactured articles do not greatly exceed agricultural. Rice, fish, meat and lard, flour, and manufactured tobacco are the princ.i.p.al ones. Customs duties furnish about two-thirds of the Porto Rican revenue, which has for several years yielded greater returns to Spain than that of Cuba.
”The climate of Porto Rico is considered the healthiest in the Antilles. The heat is considerably less than at Santiago de Cuba, a degree and a half farther north. The thermometer seldom goes above 90 degrees. Pure water is readily obtained in most of the island. Yellow fever seldom occurs, and never away from the coast. The rainy season begins the first of June and ends the last of December, but the heavy downpours do not come on until about August 1st.
”In density of population also this island ranks first among the West Indies, having half as many inhabitants as Cuba, more than eleven times as large. Of its 807,000 people, 326,000 are colored and many of the others of mixed blood. They differ little from other Spanish-Americans, being fond of ease, courteous, and hospitable, and, as in other Spanish countries, the common people are illiterate, public education having been grievously neglected. The natives are the agriculturists of the country, and are a majority in the interior, while the Spaniards, who control business and commerce, are found mainly in the towns and cities.
”The numerous good harbors have naturally dotted the seaboard with cities and towns of greater or less commercial importance. San Juan, Ponce, Mayaguez, Aguadilla, Arecibo and Fajardo all carry on extensive trade. Intercourse between coast towns is readily had by water, but is to be facilitated by a railroad around the island, of which 137 miles have been built and 170 miles more projected. The public highways of the island are in better condition than one might expect. According to a recent report of United States Consul Stewart, of San Juan, there are about one hundred and fifty miles of good road. The best of this is the military highway connecting Ponce on the southern coast with San Juan on the northern. This is a macadamized road, so excellently built and so well kept up that a recent traveler in the island says a bicycle corps could go over it without dismounting. Whether it is solid enough to stand the transportation of artillery and heavy army trains we shall soon know. Of telegraph lines Porto Rico has four hundred and seventy miles, and two cables connect it with the outside world, one running from Ponce and the other from San Juan.”
Mr. Alfred Solomon, already quoted as an instructive contributor to the Independent, writes:
”The population of Porto Rico, some 800,000, is essentially agricultural. A varied climate, sultry in the lowlands, refres.h.i.+ng and invigorating in the mountain ranges, makes possible the cultivation of almost every variety of known crop--sugar, tobacco, coffee, annatto, maze, cotton and ginger are extensively grown; but there are still thousands of acres of virgin lands awaiting the capitalist. Tropical fruits flourish in abundance, and the sugar-pine is well known in our market, where it brings a higher price than any other pine imported. Hardwood and fancy cabinet wood trees fill the forests, and await the woodman's ax. Among these are some specimens of unexampled beauty, notably a tree, the wood of which, when polished, resembles veined marble, and another, rivaling in beauty the feathers in a peac.o.c.k's tail. Precious metals abound, although systematic effort has never been directed to the locating of paying veins. Rivers and rivulets are plenty, and water-power is abundant; and the regime should see the installation of power plants and electric lighting all over the island, within a short time after occupation. On the lowlands, large tracts of pasturage under guinea gra.s.s and malojilla feed thousands of sleek cattle, but, as an article of food, mutton is almost unknown. The native pony, small, wiry and untirable, has a world-wide reputation, and for long journeys is unequaled, possessing a gait, as they say in the island, like an arm-chair.
”Perhaps a third of the population of the island is of African descent; but, strangely enough, the colored people are only to be found on the coast, and are the fishermen, boatmen and laborers of the seaports. The cultivation of the crops is entirely in the hands of the jibaro, or peasant, who is seldom of direct Spanish descent, while the financiering and exportation is conducted almost entirely by peninsulares, or Spanish-born colonists, who monopolize every branch of commerce to the exclusion of the colonian-born subject.
”Coffee planting is largely engaged in, returning from ten to fifteen per cent. on capital. Improved transportation facilities, abolition of export dues and the consolidation of small estates would, doubtless, help toward better results. This crop is marketed in Europe--London, Havre and Barcelona--where better prices are obtainable than in New York. With the exception of a few plantations in strong hands, most of this property could be purchased at a fair valuation, and would prove to be a very profitable investment.
”Cocoa grows wild on the lowlands, but has not been cultivated to any appreciable extent. Small consignments sent to Europe have been p.r.o.nounced superior to the Caracas bean. The tree takes a longer period than coffee to come to maturity and bear fruit; but once in bearing the current expenses are less and the yield far greater. The same remarks apply to the cultivation of rubber, which, although a most profitable staple with an ever-increasing market, has received no attention whatever.
”Corn is raised in quant.i.ties insufficient for home consumption. Of this cereal three crops can be obtained in two years; sometimes two a year. The demand is constant, and the price always remunerative.
”In Porto Rico, as in most other West Indian islands, sugar is king. In the treatment of this product the lack of capital has been sadly felt. Planters possess only the most primitive machinery, and in the extraction of the juice from the cane the proportion of saccharine matter has been exceedingly small. Great outlay is necessary for the installation of a complete modern crus.h.i.+ng and centrifugal plant.”
A flattering picture of our new possessions is drawn in McClure's Magazine, by Mr. George B. Waldron.
”Here, then, are Cuba and Porto Rico in the Atlantic, and the Hawaiian and Philippine groups in the Pacific, whose destiny has become intertwined with our own. Their combined area is 168,000 square miles, equaling New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Their population is about 10,000,000, or perhaps one-half of that of these nine home States. The Philippines, with three-quarters of the entire population, and Porto Rico, with 800,000 people, alone approach our own Eastern States in density. Cuba, prior to the war, was about as well populated as Virginia, and the Hawaiian group is as well peopled as Kansas. What, then, can these islands do for us?
”Americans use more sugar in proportion to population than any other nation of the world. The total consumption last year was not less than 2,500,000 tons. This is enough to make a pyramid that would overtop the tallest pyramid of Egyptian fame. Of this total, 2,200,000 tons came from foreign countries, the Spanish possessions and Hawaii sending about twenty-five per cent. Five years earlier, when our imports were less by half a million tons, these islands supplied double this quant.i.ty, or nearly two-thirds of the nation's entire sugar import. But that was before Cuba had been devastated by war and when she was exporting 1,100,000 tons of sugar to other countries. Restore Cuba to her former fertility, and the total sugar crop of these islands will reach 1,500,000 tons, or two-thirds our present foreign demand.”
There is much more in Mr. Waldron's summary of the vast addition that has been made to our resources, by the occupation and possession of the islands that have recently been gathered under our wings by the force of our arms. It is enough to know that with the tropical islands we have gained, we have in our hands the potentialities, the luxuries, the boundless resources including, as we may, and must, Alaska, of all the zones of the great globe that we inhabit in such ample measure.
The following notes were compiled for the information of the army, and embody all reliable information available.