Show CST i A ep w 00 X 11 al pt IM 7 jQ PU 1 AM I 1 WA W A ka 1111 4 3 z tv arx it I 1 r ell k scene in settled portion of Guate guatemala maia Pre prepared parel by alio national geographic society c ety D C the creation of it ii united tates states of central centi a america all and troubles be cartaina In Par nania taina and costa rica which almost led to war have di drawn anin attention to the countries south of the caribbean sea recently more strongly than at any an time sin since ce the completion of the panama canal nowhere else in the world lias has nature been more bountiful in lier her blessings blessing gs of natural resources than in the caribbean region everything that her treasure house holds has been bestowed with lavish nud and also with impartial liand hand someone has observed that it if you tickle the ground with a hoe it smiles back with a yani yam and certain it is that in III any ally one of these coun countries counti tiles ies the ground of natural resources may be tickled with the hoe of foreign capital and it smiles back with yarns of wealth these countries are nearly all favored alike in natural wealth but there is a vast difference in the development of that wealth a difference that may be attributed almost wholly to the character of the governments 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 gna gnawing ANing at their vitals day and night and yea in and year out in traveling through thes thesa a countries 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 demonstrated fact that there Is lery cry little difference between these countries in their natural resources it Is interesting in to look around and notice what a vast difference there Is in the use that is being made anade of this natural wealth one need not go out of the confines of central america to see this it would require six salvadora Salv adors 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 commerce la Is greater than that count rys 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 it would be required to cover an area equal to that of co costa t rica bet et it has a foreign trade more than fifteen times as great as that of the banana empire porto rico is less than halt half as large as salvador yet it has a foreign trade over thirteen times as great little porto rico Is so small that it auld yuld be buried in a single central american lake it would take 57 islands of its size to equal central america in area and yet porto rico enjoys about three times as much foreign trade as all gentral central america together from tehuantepec to colombia the reason because compared to these central american republics porto rico has an ideal government ern ment the trade of tile the island has increased sevenfold since uncle sam took possession there the number of children enrolled enrol leil lit in the schools has hag increased the wages of the laboring lili lab oring bring class has multiplied threefold even before the war honduras Is a laggard honduras in some ways lags behind its neighbors and yet it is ii rich in natural resources almost beyond imagination agi nation vast deposits of luller minerals als of all 11 kinds with untold thousands of acres of the finest tropical I 1 fruit antl anil vegetable lands in the he world I 1 and with yost areas of magnificent grazing and coffee lands honduras is at our nery ery doors it is miles nearer to chicago than that city is to san francisco it is closer to Washing washington toll than denner Is it is farther falther from new orleans to chicago than it Is from iver puerto barrios and livingston to new orleans with a stable government honduras must become a kingdom of plenty instead of a principality of poverty across the border Is prosperous prosper oui little littie salvador it la Is as different from tion honduras duras as night is front from day it lins has a i population so dense that it if ours were of equal density we me would have a population ot of lit in the continental tin united states and although nearly half of the countr country v la is rilo mountainous an talt ta ious the people are normally able t to u got get their ins out of 0 what the they y produce tind and still have a comfortable balance of trade in their faor the die salvadorian Salva dorean people are different froni from those of any other central american state they hane we 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 a million and a quarter souls fini find subsistence si on square miles of territory nearly half of it mountains nicaragua and revolutions nicaragua is in much tile the condition or honduras there hane hae been revolutions there since the memory of the inhabitants rut ineth not to the contrary here one sees a thousand opportunities port unities for the development of great ni wealth virgin forests of all the precious woods in the category extending for miles on end coffee lands W where here millions of pounds of splendid coffee might be grown sugar lands which might yield hundreds of thousands of sacks of sugar and yet all stand idle why ask the american coffee growers of tile the matagalpa district ask tile the cotton growers of campo S nto the revolutions come along and have li ive their coffee to spoil ind their cotton to go to waste unal col cd ask ask the financier from new orleans who pent 20 years of hardships there trying to gather together a cm m ipe pe tence ind who finally found lit hi business wrecked and in the hands bands us u the receivers ce ivers given good governments then no countries on the map would afford greater opportunities for pro table in than those of central america with such governments as some of them have had heretofore all their natural wealth cannot offset the disadvantages of those governments and an investment at 4 per cent in the united states has often been preferred to one yielding 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 reckoned in the same class with nicaragua honduras and guatemala until recently she lias has had scarcely a revolution in a generation panama which is geographically a part of central america though it has not been politically so since independence was anas gained from spain Is blest with some very fine farming and fruit t lands in the region next nest to costa rica but nearly all of the Pan ran amans hane liac diac gone down to the canal zone region for the time being some of the most beautiful flerra tem templado plada lands in III america are to be found in the Chi quirl country ind and when the people of the united states get acquainted with the possibilities there some ot of them are going to settle in that region ind and make it a splendid example of nf tile the possibilities of tropical america it is not improbable that one of t the he insults of tile the completion of the panama canal will NAM be the realization by the people leopie of the united states that its safety depends in no small degree upon pon the good conduct of the governments of central america that will mean a demand for it new order of bilings s in III these liese countries which in turn will mean safe investments for american capital then will dawn danan nn an era of development in central america comparable to that which has taken place in porto rico and ami in III 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