The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1910-10-21

Mining Co. 10 another paying venture.
The chief diniculty with the mining Is
the matter OF transportation.
Big Banana Business.
While the earnings OF the various
mines have proven satisfactory yet
II 10 in the banana business that the
figures presented by American ex.
perts prove amazing; they show pay
ment for land, cost OF clearing, plant
ing and harvesting at the end of the
second year with an additional profit
OF so per cent on the investment.
They are indeed startling, but the
men who make them point to the I'm
tied Fruit Company. having started
business on a shoe string, SO to speak,
a ew years ago. and being worth a
few dozen millions today.
They have tried rubber down here.
and made a failure; cocoanut planta-
tons bring forth fruit slowly; pine
apples 10Y large. as do grape fruit
and oranges, but they ripen so quick
ly and the import duty is SO heaevy
that expectation under present condi.
tons Is hardly considered. Rice does
fairly well while coffee on the west
coast reaches q high grade Of perfec-
ton. The coffee. diplomatic and 9TH
err officials assert, is the finest in the
world.
The chief trouble on the east coast
is finding a hillside level enough to
stand on and cultivate the product.
The labor question in Nicaragua
has the servant girl issue in the Tn
tied States beaten a nautical mile.
One man will tell you he has no trou-
BILE in getting labor. II he means real
work there is plenty to be done, but
from the stand point OF the employer.
the task Is no easy one. Money means
nothing to the average native.
How Natives Are Paid.
One plantation manager told your
correspondent he had so men work.
Ing for him and hat he transacted
business on 500 sols-monkey money,
they call it--a year. This plantation
conducts a store, as do the majority.
The men are paid in the national cur.
rency which just as steadily comes
back into the store. Paying of labor
In Nicaragua is much like taking a
dollar from one pocket and putting II
into another. That's all right, so far
as II goes, but when the laborer-gen-
orally an Indian or a jamaican
thinks he has too much to do, he
quits. He can live without work, and
works merely to please his foreman.
The foreman who IA get the good
will OF the Indian is the valuable man.
The superintendent of a coffee planta.
ton has been trying to get 800 men
to work for the last two years. At one
time he had f3O-and he is a man
the natives like too. T.
The anage OF a big banana plan.
tation Is having the same trouble. A
month or two Is frequently spent get.
ting half a hundred men together. In.
dams stay close to their villages and
the hope of the planter is the build.
ing of these conglomerations of huts.
Give the workers a bamboo covered
shed in which to live, build them a
church of the same material and Sc.
cure for them a preacher. even
though their morals seem lax. and the
natives will probably spend their
when they fee so inclined. Now and
then they wander away and get out.
side of all the bad whisky they can
buy, but they return in time to again
take up the machete, Good treat.
ment appears to be the only secret, II
there be any secret Of getting labor
in Nicaragua.