BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1904-08-20
The Planters and the Taxes


1t is not that the planters wish to
sadoen the days of the Governor, the
question is that they will be unable to-
pay the taxes, because luke is against
them, and even the progressing coffee
crop will turn out smaller this year
than the later, only to make them feel
the situation the harder.
On the strength of such poor pros
poets, the victims, have petitioned the
Government, for redemption of ta-
xes this year, and indeed they cannot
ask for less.
They are looking at their properties
ruined by excessive rains, and near to
become the prey of the auctioner, lea
wing their families without shelter nor
bread They are hearing already the
noise of the hammer, beating their
property away, and become afraid Of
being dispossessed the eliminating
point of series of misfortunes, not in
their powers to, control.
The sad condition of the coffee plan
ters ought not to be hidden for the
governor and it was for him to antici-
pate the action of the administration,
freeing them of the taxes, and avoid
ding thus that men used to live in
cenfort should come to the extreme
point sof begging for mercy.
The planters have to be helped and
as the question is of the most serious
nature the opportunity must not be al
lowed to pass unoticed without trying
to mend the situation for them in
some permanent way.
Once, when the crisis was not SO
grave, when credit was not SO much
extended, and money was not SO p1en.
liful, the fathers of the actual planners
needed not to reach an extreme point
of misery, because they had ready
aid from the government, and agricul-
ture recovered and became opulent and
exuberant.
And it is an historical fact, that ma
ny time, when the D'1ch colonies of
the East, have felt the need of help,
the Ouch government has come for
ward and masterthe situation, saving
the planters by sound and good help,
of certain ruin. The yearly sales of
coffee in the market of Amsterdam are
memorable, they decided the price of
the coffee for one year, and the go
vernment was ready not to allow of
combinations to make it drop 10 the
benefit of some and injure to the inte
rest of many.
But here the unhappy planter can
not rely on any sort of protection, not
hing of the kind.
They have been abandoned to their
fate, while the Foraker Act, was
SLOWLY crushing their hopes.
The rich, few and prosperous sugar
planters are indeed no consolation to
the poor coffee grover. And this has
to come to and end, those that still
sustain hope, are those that subscribe
the petition to the government, those
that have seen their properties Sucumb
to the hammers of the auctionerS,
those, the writer will swear to it, are
earning their bread when they can,
working at the rate of thirty cents a
day in the roads, have know fami-
1y of eleven in this conditionmust of
all famels.
When Governor Winthrop came to
the island, he was well posted about
the sad condition of affairs and the
causes of the crisis of our chief pro-
duct, he learned that before that, such
poor conditions of things were unk
nown to Pto Rico, and he must have
been felt painfully and deeply for the
credit of his nation as a colonizing ma
tion, and of course the petition must
not have come as a surprice to MIN he
had expected it. and was waiting for
it, as the planters need very few
words to justi6 their situation, all they
need is to say that they are the owners
of coffee plantations and that their CO.
flee is grown in Porto Rico.