The Wrangell sentinel., 1921-10-20

(Prspared by the National Geographic So
 ciety, Washington. D. e.
 The creation of United States of Central America" and troubles be- tween Panama and Costa Rica which almost led to war, have drawn atten- tiOn to the countries south of the Caribbean sea recently more strongly than at any time since the completion of the Panama canal. Nowhere else in the world has Nature been more bountiful in her blessings of natural resources than in the Caribbean re- zion. Everything that her treasure house holds has been bestowed with lavish, and also with impartial, hand. Someone has observed that If you tickle the ground with hoe 1t smiles back with yam and certain it Is that in any one of these countries the ground of natural resources may be tickled with the hoe of foreign capital and it smiles back with vans of wealth.
 These countries are nearly all fa- vored alike in natural wealth. but tHClC lS q Nuol diilCiSiNC III liC tS velopment of that wealth-a differ ence that may be attributed almost wholly to the character of the govern ments in the respective countries.
 In some of these lands the milk and honey of plenty flows in a bountiful stream. Others are in wretched poverty, where the masses never have enough to keep the gaunt wolf of hunger from gnawing at their vitals day and night and year in and year out. In travelling through these coun- tries, one is impressed with the fact that prosperity abides with good rule and poverty dwells with misrule.
 Differences in Development.
 Starting out with the easily demon strated fact that there Is very little difference between these countries in their natural resources. 1t is interest ing to look around and notice what a vast difference there Is in the use that is being made of this natural wealth. One need not go out of the confines of Central America to see this. It would require six Salvadors to make one Honduras, and yet Salvador has twice the population of Honduras and a larger foreign commerce. Costa Rica is less than half as big as Nicaragua, and yet its foreign com merce is greater than that country's.
 And yet, when Salvador and Costa Rica are compared with Porto Rico, they in turn seem to be slow in their development. Porto Rico Is so small that seven islands like 1t would be re- quired to cover an area equal to that of Costa Rica, yet 1t has a foreign trade more than fifteen times as great as that of the Banana Empire. Porto Rico is less than half as large as Salvador, yet 1t has a foreign trade over thirteen times as great.
 Little Porto Rico Is so small that it could be buried in a single Central American lake ! 1t would take 57 is- lands of its size to equal Central America in area and yet Porto Rico enjoys about three times as much foreign trade as all Central America together from Tehuantepec to Colombia. The reason? Because compared to these Central American republics Porto Rico has an ideal gov. ernment. The trade of the island has increased sevenfold since Uncle Sam took possession there. The number of children enrolled in the schools has increased skiold. The wages of the laboring class has multiplied three fold even before the war.
 Honduras Is . Lasoard.
 Honduras in some ways lags behind it's neighbors. And yet it is rich in natural resources almost beyond i'm agination.
 With vast deposits of minerals of all kinds, with untold thousands of acres of the finest tropical fruit and vegetable lands in the world and with vast areas of magnificent grazing and coffee lands, Honduras Is at our very doors. It is TOO miles nearer to Chi cago than that city Is to San Fran cisco; 1t is closer to Washington than Denver is; 1t is farther from New Or leans to Chicago than 1t is from Puer- to Barrios and Livingston to New Or leans. With stable government, Honduras must become a kingdom of plenty instead of principality of poverty.
 Across the border is prosperous lit- tie Salvador. It is as different from Honduras as night is from day. It has population so dense that if ours