ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS 37 



merely as a bait to hold the laborer permanently attached to the 

 plantation. 



On most of these small so-called homesteads little work is 

 done except occasionally by the women and children. The 

 time of the men is all required on the plantation and they have 

 no leisure nor energy for work on their own little plat of land. 

 As a rule, plantation laborers are expected to trade at the 

 plantation stores. At such stores their credit is good up to 

 the extent of their wages and the proverbial improvidence of 

 the coolie laborer usually keeps him either in debt to the plan- 

 tation store or with his head barely above the financial pool 

 in which he is forced to swim. Most of the labor employed 

 on the large sugar and other plantations succeeds in making 

 a bare living. Theoretically these laborers are free, but eco- 

 nomically they are slaves. 



The white man can work in the Tropics and it is better 

 for him to do so. On account of the fact that in most tropical 

 countries the best opportunities have already been seized by 

 large corporations it is sometimes difficult for the individual 

 farmer to find a location where he can make a reasonable living 

 without much annoyance and trouble. By means of coopera- 

 tive associations, however, many of the difficulties of destitu- 

 tion and financial embarrassment are overcome. In Porto Rico, 

 white men working cooperatively have developed a $3,000,000 

 fresh fruit industry from nothing in a period of ten years. 

 Moreover, white colonies of fruit and truck gardeners are 

 prospering in Cuba, particularly in La Gloria, Herradurra, 

 and Isle of Pines. The fruit raiser or truck gardener who 

 requires some additional labor to run his place will have 

 choice among various races. Of all the kinds of labor available 

 in the Tropics, the Chinese is probably the best, being willing, 

 tractable, and of unusual skill and endurance. 



Social groups in the Tropics are prone to split up along 

 racial lines with the assumption of inferior and superior races. 

 An endless amount of intermarriage between various races has 



