ABACA (MANILA HEMP) — EDWARDS 339 



THE TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM 



In order to make direct shipment of these plants it was necessary to 

 arrange for the routing of a ship from Davao to the Canal Zone, and 

 this proved to be a difficult problem. It was hoped that an Army or 

 Navy transport might be used for this purpose, but this was considered 

 to be impracticable. The matter was finally brought to the attention of 

 the vice president of the United States Shipping Board, who was most 

 cooperative and offered to furnish all possible assistance. It was tenta- 

 tively arranged that if sufficient commercial cargo could be obtained in 

 Davao to cover the expense of a call at that port, a ship would be routed 

 from Manila to the Canal Zone via Davao, and the Manila agent of the 

 Shipping Board was instructed to furnish assistance in making neces- 

 sary arrangements. One of the larger American cordage companies 

 that had an agency in Davao agreed to furnish the required cargo, but 

 the opposition of commercial interests in Manila together with changes 

 in the Shipping Board agency in Manila served to complicate this situ- 

 ation. In the end the Shipping Board in Washington cabled the neces- 

 sary instructions, and on August 20 information was received at the 

 plantation where the plants had been collected that the S. S. Ethan 

 Allen would arrive the following morning. In the meantime this large 

 shipment of plant material had been prepared with only a fair prospect 

 that it would ever leave the Philippine Islands. 



COLLECTION AND PREPARATION OF PLANT MATERIAL 



As statements had been published in the Manila press that the estab- 

 lishment of abaca production in Panama would ultimately ruin the 

 Philippine abaca industry, it was somewhat questionable what might 

 be the attitude of the Davao planters regarding this project. On 

 arriving in Davao, conferences were held with the two leading Ameri- 

 can abaca planters, and the reasons for the project were explained in 

 detail. No attempt was made to minimize the fact that the commercial 

 production of abaca in Tropical America might, in course of time, 

 adversely affect the Davao abaca industry. It is greatly to the credit 

 of these patriotic and far-sighted men, Henry Peabody and Charles 

 Harvey, both of whom had given the best part of their lives to the 

 development of their plantations, that first consideration was given to 

 the needs of their country rather than to their own personal interests. 

 They not only offered no objections to the shipment of abaca plants 

 from Davao, but furnished a full measure of assistance and cooperation 

 in the work of collecting and preparing this material. Both of these 

 men died 20 years later in Japanese prison camps, at a time when 

 millions of pounds of marine rope, made possible because of their 

 patriotism, were being used in the war with Japan. 



