312 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 APRI, 1900. 
COFFEE-GROWERS RUINED. 
Tue American Grocer gives the following :— f 
General Roy Stone, who has just returned fron Porto Rico, said toa Pe 
The story of the Porto Rican coffee-planters is short, but is ah Rf). | 
saddest in the history of misfortunes. ‘Two years ago they were T¢ iy 
prosperous, and their dependents, nearly two hundred thousand in ne 
were comfortable and contented. Their estates were worth 70,000,000 prt 
or over 40,000,000 dollars, and were paying them a high rate of income 0? iy 
yaluation. They owed a few millions of dollars, on which they were py ‘a 
from 10 to 24 per cent. interest to the Spanish money-lenders, but any io | 
the interest easily, and, as the business was so good, instead of payins OE yas | 
principal they constantly cleared more land and planted more coffee. This i 
unwise, perhaps, but it was enterprising and entirely human. 
The war came. It cut off their open Spanish market, and, largely, en q' 
European market, which had been reached through Spanish channels ie Hy 
off their Cuban market, and their coffee was unknown and unsaleabt ms 
America. The crop of 1898 was thus left on their hands, and when the sling 
of August last came it unroofed their warehouses, demolished their ore 4 
mills, and mazhinery, soaked and destroyed the old crop of coffee, and whipP 
the growing crop off the trees. In one night they lost 25,000,000 dollars: 
In view merely of their lost markets, General Henry, in January last 
decreed a year’s prorogation of their debts, but this naturally hurt ther i 
and after their hurricane losses they could not get a dollar to hire la i 
their plantations were neglected, and the rank tropical undergrowth has get 
them impenetrable jungles, wherein the next crop will be lost unless they, Me 
help immediately to put an army of labourers at work cutting away the 
and weeds. 
Meanwhile their creditors are preparing to foreclose next month, 
Spanish law, which only takes thirty days toa final eviction. General Dav ah 
not feel authorised to grant another extension. There is no one to ae nes 
the property will pass into the hands of the creditors unless Congress inter 6 
and the creditors are sending agents here to prevent that, while the Pp i . 
have no money to pay agents and no one to plead for them. They are aan g 
to the care of Congress and the American people, who know little or N° 
about their distress and danger. What the result will be no one ¢? 
Hundreds of well-to-do families will be turned penniless on the Weitere is 
their ignorant and excitable dependents left to their own devices. T ie 
wild talk of destroying everything rather than have the Spaniards get pone not 
But there is no danger of that. The planters love their island, and woo t 
ruin it for their own revenge. The situation, however, is very ae i 
involves half the agriculture of the island and the support of more that 
the rural population. 
. ore 
Just what should be done is not easy to say. It must be something a ng 
than a further extension of payments. It must provide the means for va 
the cultivation of plantations, and must assure a demand for the product 
“0 a ce 
This will be “paternalism” of the plainest type, but if we are not to i 
the islanders full Americans we may,certainly give them every other ben the 
oe . se 05 
our power, and not be frightened at our own beneficence. In any ch pis 
problem is a pressing one and a fit subject for study by thinking me? 
season of leisure and goodwill. 
