Arizona republican., 1902-09-17
The Black Republic.


 The interminable disturbances in Hayti, the apparent necessity of inter vention by the United States in order to restore order, and the suggestion heard frequently within the last week that We should annex the island, have directed public attention to one of our least known neighbOrs. Beyond the knowledge that Hayti is g. negro Ire public" in which anarchy is the normal condition, the average American pos sesses little information concerning the island or its people. It is quite cer- tain, however. that the whole situation will be very carefully studied, and an- nexation will have few supporters un- less it can be clearly shown that this country would be the gainer thereby. By accounts of all observers, Hayti is in almost the last stage of political and social anarchy. This is one of the re- gions which fits Bishop Hebers poet ical description where every prospect pleases and only man is vile" Near the beginning of the last century what is now the republic of Hayti had net less than 10000 French planters and other settlers, with numerous large plantations and 500, 900 slaves. whose labor supplied nearly all France with coffee and cotton. Now the plantations are reverting to the wilderness, and while insurrection reigns in the towns agriculture has fallen into a lament able condition. Yet generous and prolific is the soil that in spite of neg lect the country still yields enough cof- fee. sugar indigo. lumber and tortoise shells to make Port au Prince, Cape Haytien and one or two other towns considerable ports of trade.
 As evidence of this, the total foreign trade of Hayti is estimated at not less than s20. .O0e. 900 annually. The principal | commerce of the republic is with the United States. Great Britain and France. But the coffee is in great part in the hands of Germans and has Ham, burg for its chief European market. The banking business of the republic is also largely under German control. The North German Lloyd and Ham burg American lines have regular con neetions with Hayti. It is estimated that the trade of Germany with Hayti fiuctuates between s3.OOO, 900 and 5000 900 annually, in which fifty German mercantile firms are employed, with a capital oi about s3,5OO,OOO But the trade of the United States with the negro republic, by reason of propin- quity and the enterprise of American merchants. is larger than that of any other nation. In this is enc of the causes of interest of the American peo- pie in all that is now occurring in that country.
 Mudh is said of the incapacity of the negroes. of their inaptness and indo- lence, and of their passionate devotion to politics. to the neglect of all needful pursuits, but the whites are by no means free from responsibility for the unto ward conditions in Hayti. As the ne- groes say truly. the whites go to the country to squeeze out of it all the money they can get by hook or crook, and then leave with their gains While the whites despise the negroes and make no effort to conceal the fact the latter reciprCoate with an inappeasible hatred of the whites, whom they re- gard as having no interest in Hayti ex- cept to exploit them and their lands. In this mutual i'll will it is creditable to the negroes that the present insur- more acts of violence toward the whites. Their warfare appears to be wholly confined to themselves.