Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1921-06-30

were of equal density we would have
a population of 700000,000 in the con-
tlnental United States; and, although
tainous the people are normally able
to get their living out of what they
produce and still have a comfortable
balance of trade in their favor.
The Salvadorean people are differ
ent from those Of any other Central
American state. They have a middle
class. There are thousands of little
farms not much larger than a good
sized city block, and yet it is here that
the real prosperity of Salvador is
created. In no other way could mil
lion and a quarter souls find sub
sistence on 5000 square miles of ter
ritory, nearly half of it mountains.
Nicaragua and Revolutions.
Nicaragua is in much the condition Of
Honduras. There have been revolu-
tions there since the memory Of the
inhabitants runneth not to the con-
trary. Here one sees a thousand op-
portunities for the development Of
great wealth. Virgin forests of all the
precious woods in the category extend
ing for miles on end; coffee lands
where millions of pounds of splendid
coffee might be grown; sugar lands
which might yield hundreds of thou
sands of sacks of sugar; and yet all
stand idle. Why?
Ask the American coffee growers Of
the Matagalpa district; ask the
cotton growers Of Campo SantO. The
revolutions come along and leave their
coffee to spoil ungathered and their
cotton to go to waste unpicked. Ask
the financier from New Orleans who
| spent 20 years of hardships there try.
ing to gather together a competence,
and who finally found his business
wrecked and in the hands of the re.
| ceivers.
Given good governments, then, no
! countries on the map would afford
greater, opportunities for profitable in
vestments than those of Central Amer
| lea. With such governments as some
of them have had heretofore all their
natural wealth cannot offset the dis
advantages Of those governments, and
an investment at per cent in the
United States has often been preferred
to one yielding 100 per cent in some
of these countries.
When we come to Costa Rica, things
are beginning to be different, and
Costa Rica does not like to be reck
| oned in the same class with Nicaragua
Honduras and Guatemala. Until re
Gently she has had scarcely a revolution
in a generation.
Panama which is geographically g
part of Central America, though it ha:
not been politically so since independ
ence was gained from Spain, is bles
with some very fine farming and fruit
lands in the region next to COsts
Rica; but nearly all of the Panaman!
have gone down to the canal zone re
gion for the time being. Some of tn,
most beautiful terra templada lands
in America are to be found in the
Chiquirf country, and when the peopl,
Of the United States get acquainted
with the possibilities there, some O
them are going to settle in that re
gion and make it a splendid exampl,
of the possibilities of tropical Amer
lea.
1t is not improbable that one of tn
results of the completion of the Pana
ma canal will be the realization b,
the people of the United States tha
its safety depends in no small degre
upon the good conduct of the govern
ments of Central America. That vii
mean a demand for a new order o
things in these countries, which i
turn will mean safe investments TO
American capital.
Then will dawn an era of develop
ment in Central America comparabl
to that which has taken place in Port
Rico and in Cuba.