The Holbrook news. (Holbrook, Navajo County [Ariz.]) 1909-1923, 1912-10-04

l"N HE most curious thing about
Haiti is that it has managed to
escape American attention all
this time. Everybody knows
Cuba, or knows all about Cuba,
text door on the west, and Porto
Rico, across the Mona passage east
ward. But if you happen to mention
he fact that you have been spending
The winter in Haiti, most people will
remain a little vague in heir minds,
writes George Marvin, in Harper's
Weekly.
Quite naturally, in inverse ratio to
the lack of knowledge about Haiti, pre-
walls the misinformation about the
Black republic. If one were to believe
half the stories heard in West-Indian
ports or on the steamers that ply be-
tween them, one could only approach
the Haitian coast with the mingled
emotions of a missionary and a sui
eide.
But geographically Haiti is not a re-
mote place. The steamers stop there
egularly-German, French, English,
American and the puffy little Spanish
boats from Cuba. A French cable, very
useful in the Spanish-American war,
connects New York with the cape. But
British capital, which has developed
Jamaica, Cuba, Trinidad. Barbados and
other Caribbean lands less fertile, has
never sought investment in Haiti. The
United Fruit company, whose fleets
from Costa Rica and Jamaica steam by
through the Windward passage, never
calls at the ports of the island which
is said to be the most fertile of the
Greater Antilles. The Canadian banks
which have within the past decade
spread throughout the West Indies,
gradually overcoming Spanish-Ameri-
can opposition by their more liberal
terms and sounder finance, have passed
over Haiti. Yet this is an insular gov
eminent which, whatever it's other
shortcomings, has never defaulted in
its direct obligations and has, more
over, recently undertaken a railroad
enterprise, the completion of which
contemplates the expenditure of ten
millions Of borrowed dollars.
New Policy Adoped.
This reluctance, hitherto, Of ex-
PIO1lAN0 capital NC dAlOSClASA
attributable to unstable government,
for right next door San Domingo has
INDUCED herself in so general revolu-
lions, while temperate Haiti has con-
fined herself to ten. Venezuela, Co
lombia and the Isthmian lack-of-gov-
ernments have been more constitution
ally dissipated than the Black repub-
lie. And yet every one Of these Span
ish-American territories has been ex-
plotted by foreign capital. Race preju-
dice is the other obvious answer, a
race prejudice operative in two ways;
in the probable antagonism Of the ma
tive blacks to white intrusion, and in
the unwillingness of white colonists to
place themselves on an equality with
the black owners Of the soil or sub
ject themselves to negro authority.
Now the particularly interesting thing
about Haiti at the present moment is
that these two deterrents are being re-
duced to minimum. e., new gov
eminent, almost universally admitted
to be the most enlightened and COM
petent in Haitian history, has adopted
and put into motion progressive pol
icy in the working out Of which the
matter Of race prejudice is already be-
ing thoroughly tested.
The new government Of Cincinnatos
Leconte, which superseded that Of An
tome Simon by the revolution of June,
1911, has adopted an ambitious pro-
gram and started its regime on a high
plane.
By far the most important measure
to which the government is commit |
ted is the American railroad now in |
course Of construction. This is one Of
the most important projects ever I'M
dertaken in the West Indies and ranks |
with Sir William Van Horne's railway |
in Cuba. When completed the line will |
be $50 miles in length, joining all the |
more important cities of the country |
and bringing the most fertile agricul- |
tural districts of the interior into di- |
rect connection with the chief sea-
ports.
In addition to this comprehensive |
railway development project, the new
has either inherited from
the Simon regime, or undertaken on
its own account, an irrigation scheme
to reclaim the rich plain of the Cul de
Sac around Port-au-Prince and the dry
lands near AUX Cages, and has let a
municipal contract for the paving of
streets in the capital. Both of these
concessions are held by Americans
and both are now operative. To carry
out these and other Improvements,
such as electric light and power plants
and a reorganization of the currency,