The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1899-12-23
TRADE WITH THE ISLANDS
PHILIPPINES, CUBA, HAWAII AND
PORTO RICO.
Uncle Sans Business With His En-
bryo States is Already over $1,OOO,OOO
a Day.

WASHINGTON, December 12.-rhe
commercial possibilities which await
the tropical island territories which
have come into closer relationship with
the United States during the past year.
in supplying a permanent and growing
market in this country, are suggested
by a compilation just made by the
treasury bureau of statistics of the i'm
portation of tropical and subtropical
products into the United States during
the ten months of the present year
compared with that of the correspond
ing months of the preceding year They
amount to the surprisingly large sum
of $3.50, 100000 during the 300 days in
question, or an average of over mil
lion dollars for each business day OF
the year. showing that for the full
year, the total will reach more than
$500 900, 900.
This compilation, 1t Is proper to add,
includes raw silk, tea and rice, and the
small proportion of OUR sugar importa-
lions 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
exceed $250000,0 600 annually Sugar,
coffee, india rubber, fibers, tropical
fruits and nuts, cacao, tobacco of the
finer grades, spices, gums, indigo, dye
woods and cabinet woods form the i'm
portant features Of this large importa-
ton, and all of them articles for which
the United States is absolutely depend
ent, with the possible exception of SUI
gar, upon other parts of the world and
for the presnt at least for the large
proportion of our sugar.
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 pro-
duced in large quantities in Cuba, Por-
to Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines. OF
Cur sugar importations in the ten
iilOnths Just ended Cuba has furnished
$500 pounds; other West Indies, 514,-
900, 900 pounds; the Hawaiian Islands,
534, ZOO, 900 pounds the Philippine ISL
ands $4,000, 900 pounds, while the East
Indies have in the present year fur
nished a larger share of our sugar i'm
portatiOns than any other single part
of the world, the total number of
pounds from the East Indies alone be-
ing for the ten months ending with
October 1,07S,9O7, 54S out of a total of
:, 1857, 756, 9S1 pounds. Coffee, of which
our importations are growing constant
ly and rapidly, amounting to about
5000 900 pounds annually, as against
an average of about $50, 900, 900 pounds
in the earlier years of the decade, is
successfully grown in all of the islands
in question, and at one time, was =
at present in Porto Rico, Hawaii and
the Philippines. Fiber, of which the
impOrtations in the present year will
amount to $20,000,000 in value, can read
lily be grown in all of the islands, the
Philippines already supplying that most
important feature of our fiber impor-
tations, manila hemp, which alone in
the present year will amount to about
$50 200 in value.
While two or three of the larger items
of our tropical and subtropical imports,
rubber, silk and tea, are not produced
in any considerable quantities in the
islands in question at present, expert
ments which have been made in those
islands, especially in tea and silk, indi-
cate at least that their production is
possible and may prove entirely practi-
cable with further experiment. Even
without these items the list of impor-
tations of tropical products which it Is
we'll known can be produced in these
islands suggests the possibility that
fully 5000, 100000, which the United
States has been heretofore expanding
outside her own territory and popula-
ton 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 doubtless be
stimulated by the introduction of Am
erican capital and American methods