Norwich bulletin., 1914-07-23
THE CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES
Panama Canal Will be of Great Ben
 eft Says w. J. Showalter.

Washington. D. C.. July 22-The
 probable benefcent effect of the Pan-
 anna Canal on the countries or the Carribean is told by Wm. J. Showalter
 in communication 10 the Na.loaai
 Geographic Society, at Washington, D. C. He describes the wonderful
 changes that have been wrought Tn Porto Rico and Cuba since the advent of the United States government Tn
 those islands.
 Tt would require six Salvadors to make one Honduras, and yet Salvaoor
 has three times as much popuiatlon and three times as much foreign com merce as Honduras" he says. costa
 Rica is less than half as big as Nlca-
 ragua, and yet it has three times as
 much foreign commerce as NlcaraSud
 And yet, when Salvador and Costa Rica are compared with Porto Rlco
 they in turn seem to be slow Tn th.ar
 development. Porto Rico is so small
 that seven islands like it would be 'e-
 uuired to cover an area equal to that
 of Costa Rica, yet it has foreisn
 trade five times as great as that or
 the Banana Empire. Porto RICO IS
 less than half as large as Salvador, ySt
 it has foreign trade seven times as
 great.
 Little Porto Rico is so small that
 it could be buried in a single Central
 American lake; it would take 67 is-
 lands of it's size to equal Cenlfai
 America in area, and yet Porto Rico
 produces more foreign trade than all
 Central America together. The req
 son? Because Porto Rico has an ideal
 gcy yernment The trade of the islands
 has nearly quintupled since Uncle
 sam took possession there. The num-
 Der of children enrolled in the school
 has increased skiold. The wages of
 the laboring class has multiplied three
 fold. Porto Ricos prosperity is seen in the sugar fields, where four tons of sugar are produced where one was a dozen years ago. and where the Porto Rican people receive $6 for exported sugar where they received $1 only a dozen years before. Coffee production has quadrupled since the beginning of the century. The production Of or anges has increased seveRfold in ten years, pineappleS twenty-foid in four years and grapefruit twenty -hye-fold in three years"
 Similar comparisons are made be- tween Cuba and the six republics. With an area one-fifth as great, it's foreign commerce is three times that of the six. One might go on with these comparisons indefinitely, the les son of them all being that prosperity
 cannot exist where good government does not" continues the writer. With vast deposits of minerals. un- told thousands of acres of the fneot tropical fruit and vegetable lands in the world and vast areas of magnI- ficent grazing and coffee lands, Hon. duras is at our very doors. It is 700
 miles nearer to Chicago than that city 1 is from San F'rancico; it is closer to Washington than Denver is; it is | farther from New Orleans to Chicago | than it is from Puerto Barios to New York. A stable government for Hon. l duras, and it must become a kingdom 1 of plenty instead of principality oi i poverty; Nicaragua is in the same condition as Honduras.
 1 Tt is not unreasonable to assume 1 that if the people of Middle Ameri ca
 can secure fair and proper government
 conditions after the completion of the l Panama Canal they can do what Cuoa
 has done in the 13 years since the first American intervention Since
 that time the number of people able tc l read and write has increased 40 pel cent. The mortality rate has been cut down for 33.6S per thousand to 12.69 | The balance of trade has risen from 6 deficit of $27. .000. 900 a year to a sur plus of s30,000,000. Assuming that 1 Central America can be brought up tc Cuba's standard today, it's foreier 1 trade would amount to a full billior ! dollars year instead of beggarly 6E
 million today. It would have 10. 00C 1 miles of railroad where it has less thar 1000 miles today. It would have | 5000 miles of macadam roads as com l pared with a few hundred It would | have population of Il, 900, 900 as com | pared with $500, GOO today.
 This and more will certainly come i to Central America if good govern ment there comes apace with com l pleted Panama Canal