River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1902-05-01

new world. In the early stages OF
American development and settle
ment more lives and treasure were
sacrificed by the various European
nations in holding them than was
ever devoted to the holding of the
entire North American continent, and
while, judging from present cond1-
tions, the majority of them would
scarcely be worth the lives of hum
dred brave men, or even so much as a
small portion OF the treasure that
has been expended upon the conflicts
into which they have in the past
plunged the nations holding them
the reason for this past expenditure
is not hard to find.
Let us quote the reason from Mr..
Robert T. Hill as he gives it in his
volume entitled "Cuba and Porto
Rico with the Other West Indies" He
says:
sThese islands were the CONNER
cial paradise of the first three cen
turtles of American settlement, and
lands now gone back to jungle sold
as high as $1,000 an acre, in those
booming days when sugar was at 3D.
Here manufacturers found market
for all the weaves and notions of
their making. The West Indies
trade enriched the merchants of
Barcelona and London, and the
products of plantations established
MANY fortune in England, Spain and
France"
In that paragraph lies the reason
for the years of conflict in the early
history of the West Indies. 1t was
sacrificing lives and treasure for
treasure The little island colonies
were pouring into the Golfers of the
mother countries millions almost be-
fore the first settlers had planted
England's flag on the shores of the
Atlantic at Plymouth Rock. Before
the first consignment of Virginia to-
bacco had been offered in the mar
1lets of London cities had been build
ed in England's possessions in the
West Indies, and regular lines of
communication established between
them and the mother country. Judg-
ing by the present of that time they
were worth fighting for. Even half
way through the present century
they continued to pour their treasure
into the ever open Golfers of Europe;
their plantations were producing
wonderful crops that found ready
markets at advantageous prices; half
the ships that sailed the Atlantic
carried cargoes to and from their
ports, and the island planters lived
lives of extrayagant ease.
To-day there is different story to
tell; to-day the plantations are over
grown with the underbrush of the
Jungle; to-day the great sugar mills
of few years ago are closed and
falling to pieces for lack of use; to-
day not one in dozen ships that sail
the Atlantic stop at the island ports;
to-day the lives of extravagant ease
of the island planters have given
place to lives of Impeachment. The
islands industries are either crippled
almost beyond recovery or entirely
dead, and why?
There are several reasons. First
among them may be given the rise of
the beet-sugar industry in Europe. Eu-
ropean nations no longer pay fancy
prices for cane sugar they cannot tell
from the beet product that sells at
one-fourth or less the former price
of the cane product. To add to the
dilemma Germany and Austria, the
pr satest of the beet-sugar producing
countries, with no West Indian
colonial interests to protect added a
bounty on beet sugar which brought |
a further reduction in the price of
the commodity both at home and