THE PIvANT WORLD 219 



of a family dies, even though it be the father, the others continue self- 

 supporting, each capable of producing sufficient food and clothing to 

 sustain life, and possessing the requisite skill to build a dwelling. This 

 would be very different if each family should depend for its support upon 

 the skilled labor of one person. Death in his case would mean poverty 

 and suiferiug for the rest. Poverty and suffering would most certainly 

 come to this island with the monopolization of the land by a few people 

 and the abandonment of individual farms owned by the farmer for the 

 daily wages of an employer who would reap the greater part of the fruit 

 of the laborer. The beneficial effect of occupying ownership of small 

 farms has been commented upon by many writers, who have contrasted 

 the happy, prosperous condition of the Swiss peasant proprietors with the 

 misery of wage earners in other countries. In Switzerland, as in Guam, 

 though the conditions of climate are very different, and provision for the 

 winter renders forethought and the storing up of food necessary, the 

 natives of many districts live entirely upon the produce of their land, with 

 the exception of a few articles of foreign growth. In Guam the natives 

 have the advantage of producing their own coffee, and many of them even 

 get the salt necessary for their families by evaporating it from sea-water. 

 On the other hand they are ignorant of the art of weaving, and depend 

 upon imported fabrics for their clothing, but their dress is simple and 

 sufficient cotton stuff to last for a year can easily be gotten by each mem- 

 ber of the family in exchange for a small proportion of the fruit of his 

 toil. Even the children work in the corn-fields, gather coffee, as we 

 gather blackberries, and assist in preparing copra from the meat of the 

 coconut. All labor is performed freely and joyfully, and there is no 

 restraint. The father and mother begin to provide for the future of each 

 child in its earliest infancy, clearing the forest, planting coconuts, and 

 tenderly caring for the plantation, which nothing will induce them to sell. 

 An English traveler in describing the conditions in one of the rural dis- 

 tricts of Switzerland, where the whole of the land belongs to the peasantry, 

 states that " in no country in Europe will be found so few poor as in the 

 Engadine." In other countries peasant proprietors sometimes combine 

 to construct irrigating ditches. So in Guam owners of adjacent rice fields 

 cooperate for the advantage of one another. When such conditions are 

 contrasted with those of more highly organized social communities, accom- 

 panied by chronic starvation and widespread pauperism, who can hesitate 

 to offer a prayer that the people of this island may continue to hold on 

 to their homes and farms, and to resent any effort on the part of grasping 

 men to monopolize large tracts of land.* 



* Whatever General Wheeler's opinion may have been regarding the advisability of the steps we 

 had taken for the protection ot the natives, he has given us credit for good intentions. " There is no 

 question," he says, " but that the Governor and his aid, Lieutenant Safford, have used their best judg- 

 ment in framing the orders which have become thelawsof the Island of Guam."— OflBcial report, p. 35, 

 1900. 



