AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES, ETC., OF PORTO RICO. 11 



$12.80 (gold) for an ox load — distance, 21 miles. To relieve the most 

 important rural sections and to furnish labor to the peasants, deprived 

 of labor by the destruction of the coffee plantations, the insular gov- 

 ernment has undertaken to construct about 125 miles of first-class 

 roads in the island. (See map. ) The construction of these roads will 

 cost about $1,000,000. In addition, large sums have been expended 

 in repairing the old military roads injured by the floods at the time 

 of the hurricane. When these are completed and dirt roads con- 

 structed in sections not liable to torrents, nearly all portions of the 

 island will be accessible. 



Lack of Manufactures. 



There are very few manufactures in Porto Rico, except such as are 

 the necessary adjuncts of a farm crop, to fit it for market — as coffee 

 and sugar mills. Manufactures other than these are not sufficient to 

 produce any material efl:ect upon the general industrial situation. At 

 the time of the American occupation they were limited to cigars, ciga- 

 rettes, macaroni, chocolate, ice, matches, and rum. The cost for the 

 initiative, or the privilege of starting the enterprise, was high; the 

 permit was slow in coming, and sometimes never granted ; an enormous 

 tax was placed upon the importation of all kinds of machinery, and, 

 finally, the laws were so framed as to favor the Spanish merchant. 

 For example, wheat and wheat flour had to pay a high duty when 

 imported directly from the United States into Porto Rico, but they 

 could be shipped to Spain and thence to Porto Rico free or at a nomi- 

 nal duty. This benefited the millers of Spain and the manufacturers 

 of biscuits, soup paste, and other products of flour. The following 

 statement from the report of Dr. Henry K. Carroll (U. S. Treasury 

 Dept., Doc. 2118), is in point: 



As between Spanish and Porto Rican producers and manufacturers the latter 

 had no chances. Nor were the needs of Porto Eican consumers, however urgent 

 they might apj)ear from the insular point of view, treated as worthy of serious 

 attention. Indispensable articles of food not produced in the island had to come 

 in a roundabout way through the hands of the merchants in Spain or pay enor- 

 mous duties if imported direct from other countries. The Porto Eicans thought 

 that some of the many streams of the island might well furnish power to mills to 

 grind wheat from the United States or Canada Into flour, but the Government at 

 Madrid punished these aspirations by making the duty on wheat almost as high as 

 that on fiour. Flour paid $4 per sack of 93 kilos (about 300 pounds) and wheat 

 ?)3.15, and Hour paid also, for municipal purposes, a consumption tax of §2.30. 

 There were mills in Spain, and by importing wheat for them from the United 

 States they could be kept going. The millers of Spain profited; the people of 

 Porto Rico suffered. 



Attempts were made in the island to manufacture soup paste and crackers. 

 The result is graphically described in the report of the manulacturers of Ponce, 

 drawn up in 1898 for the use of the colonial minister at Madrid and presented to 

 the commissioner of the United States without change, as the best statement pos- 

 sible of the needs of the island. The cracker manufacturers had to pay the high 

 duty on flour and compete with crackers from the Peninsula entered free of all 

 duty. Those who invested largely in the manufacture of soup paste saw their 

 business killed in the same way. Their petition to the liberal minister, from 

 which they hoped so much, is pathetic in its pleadings for simple .justice. Appeal 

 after appeal was made, they say, but all " slept the sleep of the just " (are pigeon- 

 holed) , for if ever a minister intended to cast a pitying glance upon such injus- 

 tice and relieve so much misfortune by some saving measure this intention never 

 materialized, but was strangled in Its birth by the Influences brought to bear by 

 Spanish manufacturers. 



The shoe manufacturers have the same story to tell; shoes imported free from 

 Spain, shoes of the poorest quality — -'pasteboard soles, badly made, unsightly, 

 coarse, and without durability "—while Porto Rican manufacturers were heavily 



