136 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 
the past year, in consequence of the poor financial condition of the 
natives, half of this has heen remitted, The proceeds of this tax go 
for the benefit of the schools and roads of the island, and the natives 
do not complain of the taxation. 
PRESENT CONDITIONS.—From a letter recently received from one 
of the most intelligent and enterprising of the residents of the island 
the information in the following three paragraphs is taken: 
Government employees receive salaries twenty times greater than 
under the administration of the Spaniards. Simple laborers receive 
more than a dollar a day (silver) and carpenters and masons $3 a day. 
Servants will not work for less wages than 20 pesos (silver) a month. 
Notwithstanding these high rates money is by no means plentiful in 
the island. Employees of the island government are paid from the J 
island funds. In cases where work is performed for the naval author- 
ities they are paid from federal funds, but these cases are rare. The 
only money coming to the people from the outside, in addition to that 
paid in wages to servants and laundresses, is what they receive 
from visiting ships and officers stationed on the island for fruit, 
eggs, and fowls. No other money is brought to the island; for 
copra, the only article of export, is paid for in clothing, sugar, flour, 
rice, candles, and kerosene. On the other hand, the Japanese and 
American trading companies collect all the money of the island and 
send it home. 
In March, 1904, rice was $25 per sack; flour, $13 per barrel of 100 
pounds; corn, 87} cents a ganta;” chickens, $1.25 apiece; eges, 64 
cents each; meat, 25 cents a pound. The result is that the natives are 
compelled to depend more and more upon the island products for their 
subsistence. 
In the civil hospital the sick are cared for by medical officers of the 
Navy, and medicines are dispensed free of charge to all those need- 
ing them. A number of marriages have taken place between Ameri- 
cans employed by the government and native women. Most of these 
marriages have proved happy, but there are several cases in which 
American marines have abandoned their native wives and left the 
island at the expiration of the term of their enlistment. The natives 
are very anxious for the establishment of a civil government on the 
islind, citizenship for themselves, and public schools for their chil- 
dren, A supply of pure drinking water is sorely needed in Agafia, 
where all the wells are polluted, and a system of sewers is necessary 
for the health of natives and officials. 
STATISTICS OF COMMERCE, POPULATION, ETC. 
FOREIGN COMMERCE.—From the report published by the United 
States Treasury Department for the year ending June 30, 1903, the 
following information is taken: 
“See Measures, p. 139, 
1 
