The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-02-27
BUSINESS CHANCES IN MANILA.
Opportunities for Capital Are Numer-
Gus.

Gus.
Correspondence Leslie's Weekly.
| have received numerous letters from
Americans at home inquiring into the OPP
poftunltles for American capital and brains.
10 all these l would reiterate what I said
IN my last letter: What the English, Span
lSh and Germans have done, the American
can 90 ana so them one better; but capital
IS absolutely necessary to take advantage
OF the conditions in Manila and the Phil
ipplneS. Their natural resources are I'M
questioned, and the exporting market is the
whole world. Englishmen in HOng-Kong,
Singapore, and Manila are not slow to real
lie the pudding future of the Philippines,
and only the other day a new steamship
company with six vessels was incorporated
in Hong-kong, for the purpose of trading
with the United States. When Uncle Sam
shall have made terms with Aguinaldo and
the half dozen lesser Aguinaldos that are
springing up on the islands, the entire
country will be a safe place for investment.
Blu the investment must be a legitimate,
permanent one, and must lie well advised
and well established; not a sporadic boom
such as marred the commercial credit of
our southern States during the past ten
years. Mining companies, sugar refineries
and plantations. coffee farms. rice planta-
tons, saw and lumber mills, paper and cot
ton mills, can all be made remunerative in
vestments.
Government must take a hand in the
march of commercial success. Good roads
must be built. In the valleys of LuZOn the
country is fiat, marshy rlce-land, and the
present road system is only a peg above an
Indian trail, at the most mere bullock paths;
and the rivers, creeks, and swamps that
abound everywhere and give the soil its
richness and adaptability to tropical prod
ucts, make the country, as it is, Amos i'm
passable two-thirds of the year. To take
a trip 'cross-cOuntry now one has to resort
to a sled-like boat, resembling an American
farmers 'tStOne-bOat,' to which are hitched
two bullocks, tandem. The boat glides over
the marshy ground and through the half
submerged rice-paddies, serving equally as a
wagon, boat, and abode. This method suits
the %adventurer and occasional traveller. but
is entirely inadequate to the demands of
trade.
To depend, even for a temporary period,
upon this method of transportation to bring
to market the rice, tobacco. coffee, hemp,
sugar, indigo, cotton, timber, ore, and fruit
products of the Philippines would put a
damper upon American investment in the
interior. Increased railway facilities would
be the greatest step to industrial develop
the eastern part of LuZon has transformed
the country from a vast, luxuriant wilder
ness into q p%opulous and prosperous terri
tory, where native labor has achieved its
highest development and native character
it's most civilized advancement. Every day
in the year hundreds of these natives ride
back and forth to Manila or to the smaller
villages en- route, marketing with each
other their smaller wares and bartering the
necessities and commodities of lffe-per-
haps only a trayful carried along on their
heads, but sufficient in value to make a
days journey profitable after deducting a
railroad fare. Ten trains, and oIten more,
per day are required to accommodate the
demands of the travelling public, and the
passengers fill from a dozen to fourteen
cars on each train.