The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-12-09


Il al island territories which
have come into closer rela-
tionship 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 sub-tropical products into the
United States during the ten months
of the present year compared with that
of the corresponding months Of the pre-
Ccding year. They amount, as the
Washington Star shows, to the surpris-
ingly large sum of $2S0,OOO,O 900 during
the 300 days in question. or an average
of over a million dollars for each busl-
ness day of the year. showing that
for the full year the total will reach
more than sS0OOO0,000,
This compilation, it is proper to add,
includes raw silk. tea and rice, and the
small proportion of our sugar impor-
tations which is manufactured from
beetsi but even if these be omitted the
total which would be clearly entitled to
be classed as tropical products would
exceed $3.50, OO,OOO annually. Sugar,
coffee, india rubber, fibers, tropical
fruits, spices, gums, indigo, dyewoOds
and cabinet woods form the important
features of this large importation, and
all of them articles for which the
United States is absolutely dependent,
with the possible exception of sugar
upon other parts of the world and for
the present at least for the large pro-
portion 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 our sugar impOrtations In the ten
months just ended Cuba has furnished
GS3OOOOOO pounds; other West Indies,
5l4OO0,00O pounds; the Hawaiian
Islands, 534000.0 900 pounds; the Philip
pine Islands, 50OOO,OOO pounds, while
the East Indies have in the present
year furnished larger share of our
sugar importations than any other
single part of the world, the total num-
Der of pounds from the East Indies
alone for the ten months ending with
October 1O1S,9O7. .54S out of a total OF
3,767,756,9Sl pounds. Coffee, of which
our importations are growing constant
ly and rapidly, amounting TO about
S50,00O,000 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 a very
important crop in Cuba as we'll as at
present in Porto Rico. Hawaii and the
Philippines. fiber. Of which the i'm
pOrtations in the present year will
amount TO s2O,OOO,OOO in value, can
readily be grown in all of the Islands,
the Philippines already supplying that
most important feature of our fiber
importations, manila hemp which
alone in toe present year will amount
TO about Sc 100000 in value.
While two or three of the larger
items of our tropical and subj tropical
imports, 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 eX-
pertinent. Even without these items
the list Of importations of tropical pro-
duets which II is well known can be
produced in these islands suggests the
possibility that fully s2OO,OOO,OoO which
the United States has been heretofore
eXpending outside her own territory
and population for products which hel
people must nave nd do not produce
can in no distant future be distributed
In these islands in exchange for thell
supplies, whose production will doubt
less be stimulated by the introduction