9 
well. It may prove best to divide the cane lands into lots of, say, 
ten or fifteen acres each and give the option of taking up one or 
two lots, thus enabling each person to decide for himself how 
much he needs and how much he can handle, and act accordingly, 
but with full knowledge that his success or failure depends upon 
himself, and that the provisions of the agreement and the law 
must be complied with. Such provisions will work no hardship 
to the bona fide homesteader and will be only what he would 
wish to do in any event, and at the same time they will take away 
the incentive of the fake homesteader, so that those who complain 
will by that very act brand themselves as against the bona fide 
homesteading of the public lands and in favor of a policy which 
will enable mere speculators and investors to obtain large values 
at the expense of the public interests. 
There are small as well as large special interests, and for many 
reasons they are far more difficult to deal with ; but special in- 
terests in all their forms, whether large or small, must be 
thwarted whenever they militate ag'ainst general interests. It is 
not conservation to give to one man an area of fifty acres on 
which to pasture a few horses or cattle when it might be divided 
among five who would maintain it in a high state of cultivation 
and make their living from it ; it is not homesteading to give a 
piece of public land to a person who proposes merely to obtain a 
sum of money or an income by selling or leasing it to others ; 
it is not right or just to the public, which owns the land or which 
is interested in good citizenship and good social conditions, to 
give land to a person for homestead purposes if it is to be diverted 
to other purposes. Cane land is commonly worth, say, one hun- 
dred dollars an acre. If a person takes fifty acres as a home- 
stead, and, as soon as be obtains his patent if not before, sells or 
leases it, he makes anywhere up to at least five thousand dollars 
according to the circumstances, without making the contemplated 
return of one additional family settled on the land and making- 
its living from it by its ow^n efforts ; that amounts to a dona- 
tion to that extent by the public to the individual. The Terri- 
tory might as well sell the land outright without homestead con- 
ditions or lease it and pay the proceeds as a subsidy or pension to 
the deceptive individual. The fake homesteader is in substance 
a mere agent of the government for selling or leasing the land 
and putting the proceeds into his own pocket, which is a profit- 
able commission business for him, but an expensive method for 
his principal, the Territory. The case is one, not of the sugar 
corporation against the homesteader, but of the public and the 
genuine homesteader against the spurious one. 
In this case also, that is, if the public lands are homesteaded 
in the interests of the people at large and of genuine homesteaders 
there will probably be an uproar from those who would get some- 
thing for nothing at the expense of others, and such opposition 
must be firmly met. 
