VOL. XV. 



CHCAGO, DECEMBER, 1899. 



NO 



THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN BMERICB. 



At first thought there would 

 seem to be no connection he- 

 Irrigation, tween the Transvaal War and 

 the irrigation industry, but upon close ex- 

 amination we find the one has a bearing 

 on the other after all. Should the trouble 

 between the Boers and the Brit- 

 ish continue, and other countries take 

 a hand in the affair it will 

 mean the suspension, for a time at least, 

 of a most stupendous irrigation enter- 

 prise the damming of the Nile and the 

 storing of the flood waters for use in re- 

 claiming arid land. The success of the 

 plan would mean the reclaiming of 

 2,500.000 acres of land which will be brought 

 under cultivation. England will have ''so 

 many other fish to fry" if the Transvaal 

 trouble continues and Russia, France or 

 Germany takes a hand, that she will not 

 be able to retain her hold in Egypt, but 

 will be forced to evacuate and thus the 

 great engineering feat which she has be- 

 gun will be abandoned for a time, perhaps 

 forever. This would be indeed a serious 

 calamity to the poor peasants of Egypt, 

 struggling under grievous burdens of 

 taxation and adverse agricultural condi- 

 tions. 



The commercial possibilities 

 The Four 

 Islands. which await the tropical island 



territories which have come 

 into closer relationship with the United 

 States during the past year, in supplying a 

 permanent and growing market in this 

 country, are sugges'ed by a compilation 

 just made by the Treasury Bureau of Sta- 

 tistics of the importation of tropical and 

 ub-trophical products into the United 



States during 10 months of the present 

 year compared with that of the corres- 

 ponding months of the preceding year. 

 They amount to the surprisingly large 

 sum of 230 million dollars during the 300 

 days in question, or an average of over a 

 million dollars for each business day of the 

 year, showing that for the full year the 

 total will reach more than 300 million 

 dollars. This compilation, it is proper to 

 add, includes raw silk, tea and rice, and 

 the small proportion of our sugar importa- 

 tions which is manufactured from beets; 

 but even if these be omitted, the total 

 which would be clearly entitled to be 

 classed as tropical products would exceed 

 250 million dollars annually. Sugar, coffee. 

 India rubber, fibers, tropical fruits and 

 nuts, cocoa, tobacco of the finer grades, 

 spices, gums, indigo, dyewoods and cabi- 

 net woods form the important features of 

 this large importation, and all of them 

 articles for which the United States is ab- 

 solutely dependent, with the possible ex- 

 ception of sugar, upon other parts of the 

 world and for the present at least for the 

 large proportion of our sugar. 



Curiously all of these articles can be 

 produced and are now produced to a 

 greater or less extent in the islands in. 

 question. Sugar, as everybody knows, is 

 produced in large quantities in Cuba, 

 Porto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines. 

 Of our sugar importations in the 10 months 

 just ended. Cuba has furnished tn3 million 

 pounds, other West Indies 51 1 million 

 pounds, the Hawaiian Islands 5^4 million 

 pounds, the Philippine Islands 50 mill- 

 ion pounds, while- the East Indies ha vein. 



