OUR NEW POSSESSIONS AND THE INTEREST THEY ARE 



EXCITING 



The intense interest which is felt tliroughout the United States re- 

 garding the islands which the events of the. i)ast year have brought 

 into closer relations with us is indicated in many ways, but especially 

 in the large number of inquiries which are being received by the vari- 

 ous departments of the government for information along these lines. 

 Two editions of the monograph, " Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Hawaiian, 

 Philippine, and Samoan Islands," issued by the Bureau of Statistics 

 of the Treasury Department, have been entirely exhausted, and a third 

 edition, containing much additional information received from gov- 

 ernment officials in those islands, as well as from other sources, has 

 just been issued and the statistics of their commerce brought down to 

 the latest possil)le date. The study of this latest information regard- 

 ing these islands leads the Bureau of Statistics to the conclusion that 

 their present consuming power is, in round terms, one hundred mil- 

 lion dollars — about equally divided l)etween agricultural products and 

 manufactures, but that this can and will be greath* increased by the 

 introduction of modern methods of production and by the creation of 

 roads and railways 1)}'^ which the uncultivated area can be 0))ened, 

 consuming ])ower being dependent upon producing power. Only 

 about two millions of the thirty-five million acres composing the 

 Lsland of Cuba have, it is estimated, ever been under cultivation, and 

 a considerable percentage of this is now uncultivated, owing to the 

 devastation of the recent wars. In Puerto Rico, while there is already 

 a dense population, the productive capacit}' of the island can, it is be- 

 lieved, be greatly increased by the construction of railways and roads 

 in the interior of the island, which has now few wagon roads at any 

 distance from the coast capable of use for transporting agricultural 

 products. In the Philippine Islands conditions are quite similar, and 

 the introduction of railways and wagon roads would enable the cul- 

 tivation of large areas of extremely productive land, which have not 

 up to this time been brought under cultivation. In the Hawaiian 

 Islands a considerable increase is being made in tiie productive area 

 by irrigation from artesian wells. In the Samoan Islands, which are 

 also discussed, the cultivable area is comparatively small, and espe- 

 cially so in the single island of Tutuila, which falls to the United 



