Arizona republican., 1899-12-08
|mpOrtations of Tropical
 Products.
CHANGED CONDITIONS
Instead of Having to Buy These Things From Foreign Countries They Are Now Obtained Within the Broadened Boundaries of the United States-The Future Fossil bilities.

Washington, Dec. 7.-(Special)- The commercial possibilities which await the tropical island territories which have come into closer relation ship with the United States during the past year. in supplying a perma- nent and growing market in this coun- try, are suggested by a compilation just made by the treasury bureau of statistics of the importation of tropical and subtropical products into the United States during ten months of the present year compared with that of the corresponding months of the preceding year. They amount to the surprisingly large sum of $2SO, 900 900 during the 300 days in question, or an average of over a $1,00O, ,000 for each business day of the year. showing that for the full year the total will reach more than s3OO,OOO,OOO. This compil- ation, it is proper to add includes raw silk, tea and rice, and the small pro- portion of our sugar importations which is manufactured from beets; but even if these be omitted, the total which would be clearly entitled to be classed as tropical products would ex- ceed $25O,0O0OOO annually. Sugar, cof- fee, India rubber, fibers, tropical fruits and nuts, cocoa, tobacco of the finer grades, spices, gums, indigo, dye woods and cabinet woods form the important features of this large inn portation, and all of them articles for which the United Stages is absolutely dependent, with the possible exception of sugar, upon other parts of the world and for the present, at least, for the large proportion of our sugar.
 Curiously all of these articles can be produced and are now produced to a greater or less extent in the islands in question. Sugar, as everybody knows, is produced in large quantities in Cuba, Porto Rico. Hawaii and the Philippines. Of our sugar importa- tions in the ten months just ended, Cuba has furnished 6S3 ,00O 900 pounds. Other West Indies 514,0OO, 900 pounds. the Hawaiian islands 534, ,000, ,O00 pounds. the Philippine islands 5O,O0O, 900 pounds, while the East Indies have in the pres ent year furnished a larger share of our sugar importations than any other single part of the world, the total num- Der of pounds from the East Indies alnna haiDo fIa ing with October, 1,O7S, 9O7, ,54s, out of d total of S,767, 756,9S1 pounds Coffee, of which our importations are growing constantly and rapidly, amounting to about $50 000, 900 pounds annually as against an average of about $50, ,000, 900 pounds in the earlier years of the de- cade, is successfully grown in all of the islands in question, and at one time was very important crop in Cuba as well as at present in Porto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines. Fiber, of which the importations in the present year will amount to s2O, ,OOO. 900 in value, can readily be grown in all of the islands, the Philippines already
 
 of our fiber importations, manila hemp. which alone in the present year will amount to about $6,0O0, 900 in value. While two or three of the larger items of our tropical and subtropical i'm ports. rubber, silk and tea are not produced in any considerable quanti- ties in the islands in question at pres ent. Experiments which have been made in those islands, especially in tea and silk. indicate at least that their production is possible and may prove entirely practicable with further experiment. Even without these items, the list of importations of tropical pro- ducts which it is we'll known can be produced in these islands suggests the possibility that fully s2OO, ,OOO, 900 which the United States has been heretofore eXpending outside her own territory and population for products which her people must have and do not produce can, in no distant future, be distributed in these islands in exchange for their supplies whose production will doubt less be stimulated by the introduction of American capital and American methods.
 PALACE CAR COMBINE.