BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1904-06-22
IHB VAY or SALVATION
THE LAST CALL
Menace e rain and destruction

Nothing has been done even to-
check the progress of the crisis though
so widespred is our suffering now
that no one can escape its banetul
effects.
Even those who have work, even
the employees in the tobacco factories
and bakeries, all who earn good wages
feel the disturbing influence of the
situation and are obliged to pay
unheard of prices for articles indjs-
pensible for every family.
Since free trade has caused the
marvellous change by which we are
forced to pay for everything double
the prices that we paid before, it is
impossible to maintain an equilibrium
between the earnings of the work
man and the outlay that he makes
for the absolute necessities Of life.
And this state of affairs is the cause
of the suffering. the empty and at
times most miserable life that our
humber classes lead when they have
work for their arms. But if they are
without employment, as often hap
pens these days in the case OF men
engaged in the labors of the farm,
then weak are all words, all compari-
sons fail to describe their condition.
Yet we have no need to speak OF the
unhappy life of these tillers OF the
soil or their painful efforts to gain
merely enough to sustain the uretched
life that this class of laborers has been
leading the past few years; for all that
we said would not s. flee to reproduce
the frightfu1 scenes of abject poverty
amid which the peasant without work
lives.
1t requires no study to understand
how the increase in the price of all
articles and the loss of our coffee
markets are sufficient causes more
than sufficient to force as into the life
of torpor that threatens Our annihila-
ton.
Everything is more expensive; we
are paying for things we buy twice as
much as We did before and all that we
het in return is the loss of our coffee
market. What outlook more diScou-
raging!
What hope for the future if the
brutality Of the present had not dulled
our feelings and the sel6shness in
which our misery finds its stimulus
had not closed our eyes to all save the
stern actuality of the present moment.
We cannot consider calmly anything
else. We are pliving for the day
alone, because the future fills us with
terror.
We avoid reflection SO horrible are
the logical deductions we are forced to
make.
Ali what CONSERVATION marks the
days that go by, passing with the
speed of the hurricane in its paths of
unbridled Juror. IF thoughts of the
future terrify us what reasons we
have to dread the morrow.
But it is not with futile fears that
the victims of adversely which at
times pursues an individual. family,
. nation or race can be saved. 1t is
by making bold front to it, BY firm
opposition to the fatal policy Of absorp-
ton which is cushing US. Happiness
and fortune delight in fierce assault;
they confer their favors only on the
firm, the strong the energetic.
And here we are in the complete
objection which results from inaction.
We know that it is not possible to
continue living thus; that even if it
were, such resignation would be cri-I
minal. However situation similar
to ours cannot endure because eyery |
day becomes more painful and unen-
durable the agonizing conditions under
which we live. Although we resign
our selves to live in poverty and mi
sery, to suffer pangs of hunger, such
cowardice on our part would be useless
and in vain, unasmueh as the memory
of our former wealth will always be
with us while we strangle while we
perish in an environment of restitution
that is lacking in every thing.
We are unable to become poor
ountry for the simple reason that we
have been a veal hy one. We need
no more to confirm the proof of this
assertion than the lamentations COM
plants and protests which our present |
condition calls forth. Yet we have
remedies at hand. We have already |
pointed out how we can extricate
ourselves from the depths in which
we are sinking; we have proposed the