AMERICAN TRADE OPPORTUNITIES
The great development of the southern part of the New World, extending
from the Rio Grande to the Strait of Magellan, certain to take place
as a result of the opening of the Panama Canal, spells opportunity for
American commercial expansion. This vast territory, covering an area
nearly three times as great as that of the United States, has a
population of only 50,000,000. Its resources have been merely
scratched on the surface. Its potentialities, acre for acre, are as
great as those of the United States.
Porto Rico will serve for a criterion by which to measure the future
possibilities of this Empire of the South. In Porto Rico one may see
the benefits of the institution of a really good government, and the
success which attends a proper effort to develop natural resources in
tropical America. If American opportunities in all Latin America may
be measured by American successes in that island, then, indeed, the
future is rich with promise. During a single decade the external
commerce of this little gem of the West Indies was more than
quadrupled. It now amounts to some $80,000,000 a year, and only about
12 other countries in the world buy more goods from the American
manufacturer.
The expansion of internal business has kept pace with the growth of
external commerce. In seven years taxable values increased from less
than $90,000,000 to more than $160,000,000. In a single year the
amount of life insurance written in the island nearly doubled, and
fire insurance increased nearly half. The exportation of sugar
increased fivefold in 10 years, and the exportation of cigars 14
times. The population of the island has increased by half under the
beneficient policies of the United States, going up from 800,000 in
1898 to 1,200,000 in 1912. During a single year Porto Rico buys about
$35,000,000 worth of goods from the United States, and ships
practically the same amount to this country.
Should all Latin America prove as good a customer in proportion to
area as Porto Rico, our trade with Latin America alone would be many
fold greater than the entire foreign trade of the United States
to-day. Should all Latin America, even with its present population,
buy as liberally from the United States as Porto Rico does, we would
sell annually to it nearly $2,000,000,000 worth of products.
The most necessary step in developing the potentialities of Latin
America is to provide good and stable government. Commercial
statistics show how prosperity flourishes where good government
reigns, and of how poverty dwells where misgovernment exists. One may
go to Porto Rico, to Jamaica, to Curacao, or to St. Thomas, and in
each of these countries may behold the wholesome rule of northern
Europeans and their descendants. The people have at least those
substantial rights which are necessary to the peace, happiness, and
well-being of humanity; and equally without exception trade statistics
show a greater foreign trade, in proportion to area and population,
than is enjoyed in any country where misrule prevails. Porto Rico
could be buried in a single lake of Nicaragua; it is only
one-fifty-seventh as large as Central America; and yet Porto Rico has
a foreign trade greater than all the territory from the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec to the Isthmus of Panama.
How to improve governmental conditions in those countries where
misrule prevails is a most serious problem. Had it not been for the
Monroe doctrine it is safe to say that not one of the Republics of
tropical America would be in existence today. Instead, their territory
would be colonial possessions of the several powerful nations, and
their people would be living under the comparatively wholesome rule of
those nations. As it is, in a majority of the Republics south of the
Rio Grande there is a state of affairs which makes against the
development of resources and the best interests of the people. The
whole theory under which these countries are governed is that
primitive one: "Let him take who has the power, and let him keep who
can." The result is that they are Republics only in name, and that the
only way to change administrations is to have a revolution.
Revolutions mean poverty; poverty means undeveloped resources, and so
in some of these countries conditions were as bad in 1913, after
nearly a century of so-called republican rule, as they were when the
yoke of Spain was thrown off in 1821. How to bring about those
conditions of peace and amity essential to national growth and
development in these countries is the problem that has vexed more than
one administration in Washington.
Some have answered that the best way to do it is to abrogate the
Monroe doctrine and to let every Latin American tub stand on its own
bottom, a proposal that might benefit these countries vastly, but
which contains many possibilities of evil to the United States. Others
have suggested that our experiment in Porto Rico offers the solution
of the problem, at least so far as tropical North America is
concerned. They assert that the end would justify the means, and that
the planning of the same character of government in this territory
that exists in Porto Rico today, would be the greatest godsend that
the masses of the people of these countries could have. Still others
have advocated a "hands-off" policy so far as the rule of these
countries is concerned, allowing them to fight whenever, and in
whatever way, they wish, but at the same time adhering rigidly to the
Monroe doctrine against European interference.
Whatever the ultimate conclusion, it seems useless to hope for
prosperity and expansion in countries whose industries constantly
suffer from the galling blight of ever-recurring revolution. The great
problem that lies before the American people, if the Latin America of
the future is to become like the Anglo-Saxon America of today, is that
of devising a policy which will insure conditions of peace and good
will in the several sword-ruled countries south of the Rio Grande.
As matters stand today in the majority of the countries of Latin
America, although their Governments owe their very existence to the
United States, there is a feeling of antipathy against Americans,
which places the American exporter on an unequal footing with his
European rival. There is a prejudice against Americans, partly the
result of a widespread feeling that the United States is the great
land-grabber of the Western world, but mostly the result of the
attitude of a large number of Americans who go into these regions. For
instance, for years one could not go about the streets of Mexico City
without hearing some American berating the "blankety blank greasers,"
and asserting that the United States could take 5,000 men and capture
Mexico City in a two-month campaign. It happens that the Mexican is a
proud individual and naturally he bitterly resents such asseverations.
The same is true elsewhere, and by personal contact prejudice rather
than a feeling of friendship has been aroused. The European usually
goes into these countries because there are few opportunities at home.
He is usually representative of the best citizenship of his homeland,
and quite as much the gentleman in Latin America as at home. While
there are a great many splendid types of American citizenship
scattered throughout Latin America, a greater number of people have
gone there because they could not get along in the United States, and
their hostile attitude toward the natives excites by far more
prejudice than the better class of Americans can counteract by
sympathy and good feeling. Americans who visit these countries
expressing contempt for everything they see, and everything the people
do, are the greatest hindrances to the realization of the commercial
opportunities which the United States possesses in Latin America.
If the manufacturers of the United States are to realize to the full
the benefits which may be derived from the opening of the Panama Canal
they will have to reform their methods of dealing with the Latin
Americans. It is just as effective to send to buyers at home catalogs
written in Greek or Sanscrit as to send to the majority of Latin
Americans catalogs printed in English. In traveling through these
countries, endeavoring to ascertain wherein Americans have failed in
their efforts to get a proper share of their foreign trade, one hears
on every hand the complaint that the American manufacturer seldom
meets the conditions upon which their trade may be based. No
satisfactory credits are given, and no effort is made to manufacture
machinery fitted to their peculiar needs. Agricultural machinery, for
instance, which may serve admirably in the United States, is wholly
out of place in many of these countries; and yet the Latin American
customer must either buy the surplus of these machines or go elsewhere
for machinery built to answer his requirements.
The European traveling salesman in these countries carries a line of
goods immediately answerable to local requirements. Furthermore, the
European exporter understands that the system of credits in Latin
America is not the same as prevails in Europe and the United States,
and he complies with their requirements. Of course, his prices are
placed high enough so that he is nothing out of pocket for the seeming
concessions he had made. The result is that in traveling in these
countries, one meets three or four foreign "drummers" where he meets
one American traveling man, in spite of their nearness to the United
States. It will take years, even with the Panama Canal in operation,
to overcome the disadvantage which bad business policy has placed upon
the American manufacturers.
If the opening of the Panama Canal spells new American commercial
opportunities, it also develops a new field of international politics
in which the United States must make itself the dominant factor, and
in which it will have a transcendental interest. It will
unquestionably give to the Monroe doctrine a new importance and render
its maintenance a more urgent necessity than ever. Prior to this time
the breaking down of the Monroe doctrine would have been greatly
detrimental to the interests of the United States, but from this time
forth the domination of the Caribbean by some other strong nation
would likely prove most disastrous to American welfare. It might even
lead to the loss of the canal itself, and we then would witness that
great waterway transformed from a military asset of immeasureable
benefit into a base of operations against us.
Probably the chief danger to which the Monroe doctrine is exposed is
from those countries whose rulers profit most by its enforcement.
While the United States can control its own affairs in such a way as
not to bring into question this doctrine, it is not so certain that
the rulers of some of the Latin American nations will always do as
well. In fact, some of the countries have conducted their affairs in
such a way as might have involved the United States in a war with a
foreign power. The knowledge that a small tropical American republic
might act so as to force the United States into a critical situation
has resulted in a desire on the part of the responsible authorities at
Washington to exercise over the Republics of the Caribbean such a
guiding control as would serve to prevent them, through any
ill-considered or irresponsible act, from exposing the United States
to dangerous controversies with foreign nations.
For instance, here is a country which owes a large debt to British
bondholders. It defaults on the interest for a period of years.
Efforts to collect are futile. Finally it is decided by the President
that he needs additional funds. He reaches an agreement with the
representatives of the bondholders, by which they agree to refund the
debt and to lend him an additional half a million dollars, upon the
condition that he hypothecate the Government's export tax upon coffee
to secure the amortization of the refunded debt. He does so. Matters
move along quietly for a little while, but soon he needs additional
funds. He negotiates with New York bankers, getting from them the
funds he needs, and hypothecates with them the same coffee tax that he
had hitherto hypothecated with the British bondholders. Of course, the
British bondholders protest at this impairment of their securities.
He laughs at their protest. England sends a warship to his ports. He
appeals loudly to the United States for the maintenance of the Monroe
doctrine; but the United States does not hear him, so he decides to
treat the British bondholders fairly. If he had not done so, and
England had been seeking to break down the Monroe doctrine, an ideal
opportunity would have been afforded.
It is to prevent such situations as these that many Americans hope
that the Government may devise some plan that will at once protect the
United States from such menaces, and at the same time allow the people
of these countries to work out their own destiny in their own way.
The situation in tropical America today, with a few exceptions, seems
to be that the republics have the form of liberty without its
substance, and the shadow of civilization without its realities. Some
of them have had over fifty revolutions in as many years. Some of them
have been in the grip of tyrants who were as heartless in exploiting
their people as was Nero in ruling Rome. The masses have received
nothing from the Government except oppression, and they live in that
hopeless, heartless ignorance so well described by a Spanish writer,
picturing conditions in Porto Rico before the American occupation. We
know that this picture was a true one. It was drawn in 1897 and won
the prize awarded by the Spanish Government at the centennial
celebration of the retirement of the English from this island. After
dilating upon the splendors and magnificence of Porto Rico, this
artist of the pen said of the masses:
"Only the laborer, the son of our fields, one of the most unfortunate
beings in the world, with the pallid face, the bare foot, the
fleshless body, the ragged clothing, and the feverish glance, strolls
indifferently with the darkness of ignorance in his eyes. In the
market he finds for food only the rotten salt fish or meat, cod fish
covered with gangrenish splotches, and Indian rice; he that harvests
the best coffee in the world, who aids in gathering into the granary
the sweetest grain in nature, and drives to pasture the beautiful
young meat animals, can not carry to his lips a single slice of meat
because the municipal exactions place it beyond his means, almost
doubling the price of infected cod fish; coffee becomes to him an
article of luxury because of its high price, and he can use only sugar
laden with molasses and impurities."
That picture applies to more than 90 per cent of the people in
tropical America to-day. It explains why these countries, which might
be made to flow with the milk and honey of a wondrous plenty, are
poverty-stricken and unable to work out a satisfactory destiny for
themselves. It shows why Cuba, Porto Rico, and Jamaica to-day are rich
in internal trade, and prosperous in foreign commerce, while other
countries are eking out a bare and scanty existence.
American commercial opportunities around the Mediterranean of the
West, in particular, and in Latin America, in general, will reach
their full when government there becomes government for the welfare of
the people rather than for the aggrandizement of the ruling class.