The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-05-27

ltthlh NJlRltANy FlNlO NO
Los Angeles. Cal, Letter in the sun.
Manley r. sherman, of this city, has
come home after q residence of sew
eral years at Manila. He has been for
four years in the employ Of trading
company, which has been buying in
digo, camphor sugar, spices and hemp
in the Philippine islands for thlrty
years. As agent for the company he
has Travelled over all the larger
islands. and has had unusual oppor-
tunities to learn much about the archl-
pelago. He says:
'If II United States should take the
Philippine islands as possession they
would have a most valuable piece OF
property. The possibilities of the Phll-
ippines as wealth producers can hard
ly be overestimated. The exports in
1897 amounted to about $3O,0O0,OOO, and
that in the face of the blghting op-
preston of the Spanish on every en-
terprise except tobacco and suga..
United States Consul Williams at Ma
nila and | have discussed many times
the agricultural pOssbilit' 8 or the
Philippines under American push ana
with Yankee invention. l believe the
exports from the islands might be IN
creased to $50 100000 annually in few
years, and to much higher figures in
a decade For instance, the coffee pro-
duction has for some occult reason of
the government at Madrid been kept
down by system of extra licenses
that one must obtain to plant coffee
beans, and by heavy import duties on
the machinery necessary in preparing
+la market / have been
among the famous coffee fincas Of Gen.
tral America, and l make the asser-
ton that there are nowhere in Central
America land and water facilities that
approach those of the island of Negros
for growing coffee. The expectation of
coffee in 1897 amounted to about $780,
900. 1t ought to have been ten times
that amount.
CHIEF PRODUCTS.
Tobacco, sugar, and hemp are the
chief products of the Philippines. The
government does foster these indus
tries so far as it's avarice for taxes
will permit. There are $4,000 cigar and
cheroot makers in and about Manila.
All the tobacco plantations and cigar
factories are run by Spaniards. Gem
eral Weyler's two brothers have the
largest factory in Escolta-a suburb
of Manila. They came over to the is
lands about eight years ago, when
their pompous military brother was
governor general of the Philippines at
a salary of $4,000 a year, and they
obtained concessions then that yielded
them immense annual returns. Sugar
is largely grown on the islands Of
Negros and Samos. There are large
tC1n
English sugar buyers over there say
that there is no cane so rich in sac
charne properties as that in the Phil
ippines. Notwithstanding the ridicu-
lously crude methods of cultivating the
cane fields and the expensive manner
of crushing the stalks and extra .ting
the sugar, the profit in tt : sugar in
dustry is incredible. The extreme rich
ness of the cane makes this profit. 1
know of several Japanese sugar cane
companies on the island Of SamOs that
have made as high as $3.50 for an acre
and a quarter every year for a long
time. Yankee invention could easily
reduce the expenses of a sugar planta-
tion one-fourth. No people but the
japanese in the Philippines have the
least idea of how to make machinery
do the work of man. Think of having
sugar cane crushed by several hundred
men with clubs, when simple machin-
cry wO j accomplish the same pur-
pose better, cheaper, and hundred
times quicker The indigo industry is
run in the same way as two centuries
ago.
NATURES PRODIGALITY.
wherever one goes into the rural
regions Of the Philippine islands, one is
constantly wondering at the extraor-
dinary prodigality of nature. cannot
tell you +he majority of the immense
tropical forests cf Negres and Samos.
Thousands of square miles there have
seldom been visited by a white man.
There are literally millions of dollars
in costly woods there. to say nothing
about the valuable herbs and barks to
be had in the same forests. The trav-
eller in the backWoods in the Philip
pines sees in the great forests ebony.
logwood, iron wood, sapan WOOD, and
cedar; between the forests and the gar
dens the frCiting trees, the orange,
mango, tamerind, guaVa, and cocoanut
in the cultivated area sugar cane, rice,
hemp, tobacco, coffee, cotton bananas,
vanilla, cassia, ginger, pepper, indigo,
cocoa, pine apples, wheat and corn.
The minerals in those regions include
gold, copper, iron, coal, quicksilver, and
saltpetre. From the sea there comes
mother-of-pearl, coral, tortoise shell,
and amber. The animal kingdom
keep pace with the vegetable and the
mineral. There are goats, sheep, swine,
and tough little ponies The Jungle
swarms with such a variety of fauna
that the naturalist finds there a para
disc. Strange TO relate, there are few
beasts of prey worthy of note. The
flora of the country is as rich as the
fauna.
THE CLIMATE.
Il am wondering in these days, when
Uncle Sam is about sending troops