sentiment in their States at that time. They went as far as they felt justified, under their responsibility to their constituents, in going.

The weakness named is one that time will cure ; for, with the growth of the country, the proportion of silver in the total supply of money will decline, and the entire stock of silver and paper based on it, with the latter reduced to small notes, will be widely distributed and wholly employed in the retail trade. When that time comes there will be a practical obstacle to its use as a medium for large payments, and the problem of converting it into gold will have disappeared. The framers of the law, restricted by limitations of which

their critics know nothing, counted on this certainty to complete their work. Whatever criticisms of this character are made, they ought not to be offered in the interest of a party which had but two votes in the Senate for any gold-standard measure, and which has since disowned and rejected the men who cast those.

In conclusion: There is no safety to the goldstandard except by keeping its enemies from power. The elevation of so conspicuous and extreme an opponent as Mr. Bryan to a position of such preeminent importance and vast influence as the Presidency would be to throw away all that has been achieved in former victories.

IN

N reply to the question, "What could Mr. Bryan do about the financial policy of the Government, if he were elected President?" I would say that, during the first two years, he could maintain the existing status of our gold, silver, and paper currency; and that, during the next two years, if his party could carry the intervening Congressional election on the financial issue, he could restore silver to the currency upon terms which would insure its continued parity with gold.

The attempt of Secretary Gage to alarm the country lest Mr. Bryan, in spite of a hostile Senate, should put the country on a silver basis" by paying out silver to redeem bonds and notes still payable therein, is as farcical a bugaboo as party exigencies have ever put forward. In the first place, as the Springfield Republican has pointed out, Mr. Gage himself has been paying out silver and silver certificates to as great an extent as was easily possible. Of the $500,000,000 of silver currency in the country, less than 3 per cent. is in the treasury. There is now the "circuit of silver out of the treasury into the hands of the people, from the people into the banks, from the banks into the custom-house, and into the hands of collectors of internal revenue," which the secretary looks forward to with so much trepidation. If this, as he says, will put us on a " silver basis," we are now on a silver basis." No secretary could pay out his silver receipts any faster than Mr. Gage has done, and he can hardly alarm the country by predicting that Mr. Bryan's secretary will continue to do just what he has done from the beginning.

So long as the United States Senate remains hostile to the increased use of silver as money, a Democratic President could not possibly increase its use as money. All that he could do would be to maintain the existing status. This, however, is a matter of importance. The goldstandard act passed by the last Congress does not, in so many words, make our silver dollars and silver certificates redeemable in gold on demand; but it contains a clause which might be construed to authorize such redemption. Prior to 1893 there was never in any statute any shadow of authorization for the redemption of silver currency in gold. In that year, in response to the question whether the silver (issued under the Bland-Allison Act) had ever been redeemed in gold in order to keep it at par with gold, the writer received, through Senator Sherman, the following letter from the Treasury Department:

The treasury does not pay gold for standard silver dollars or silver certificates issued under the Bland-Alison act. Silver certificates issued under that act are redeemable only in standard silver dollars, or other silver certificates. (Signed)

J. K. MELINE, Assistant Treasurer, U. S.

If Mr. Bryan were elected President, his secretary of the treasury would undoubtedly continue to treat the silver dollars and silver certificates as they were treated by secretaries of the treasury under Presidents Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, and Harrison. He would not redeem them in gold, unless the Republican Congress during the next session should require him to do so;

but his preservation of the silver currency upon the same basis on which it was issued and remained at par for fifteen years would not threaten the slightest depreciation. Mr. Bryan's policy would not deviate from that pursued by any of Secretary Gage's predecessors, and would only deviate from that which Secretary Gage himself proposes in case he intends to redeem silver in gold on demand, and thus turn our $500,000,000 of silver into an endless chain" to draw gold from the treasury and force the issue of bonds. If Secretary Gage does propose to do this, frankness requires that he should so state to the country.

So far as the next Congress is concerned, the only peril to the existing status of our currency lies in the desire of certain powerful supporters of Mr. McKinley to complete the retirement of greenbacks and begin the retirement of silver. Two years hence, however, a new Congress will again be elected, and new Senators will be chosen in doubtful States now represented by Republicans. A change in the political complexion of the Senate, therefore, is then possible; and while the Democratic Senators who may be chosen from the more Eastern States will prob ably be conservative upon the silver question, Mr. Bryan may hope, during the last half of his term, to sign constructive acts to restore silver to its old place in the currency. The fact that the passage of a free-coinage bill pure and simple is hardly to be hoped for does not in any respect negative the possibility of restoring bimetallism. Conservative bimetallists have again and again recommended, as an initial measure, the unlimited coinage of silver purchased at its market value. This insures to monometallists that a gold dollar's worth of silver bullion shall be back of every silver dollar issued; it insures to bimetallists that all the silver not used in the arts or shipped to the Orient shall again be added to the currency. In 1890, Secretary Windom recommended legis lation of this sort, and the immediate effect of the Sherman act, passed in July of that year, proved that but for the restriction placed upon the purchases of silver its old value would at once have been restored. The value of silver bullion the year before had been down to 92 cents an ounce. The Sherman act increased the Government's purchases of silver only $2,500,000 a month. Yet this increase raised the price of silver bullion all over the world to $1.16 an ounce—or, to within 10 per cent. of the old ratio of 16 to 1.

To-day, the quantity of gold produced is relatively far greater than in 1890, and the price of silver would be relatively higher if the currency demand for the two metals had remained the

for the unrestricted coinage of silver to be purchased at a market value not exceeding its coin value would restore the old ratio as surely as the value of silver bullion is governed by the law of supply and demand. A bill framed in this way was supported by all the bimetallists in the Senate in 1894, but was defeated by those who maintained that the increase of the currency would be an evil to both capitalists and laborers. To-day, when President McKinley is boasting that the increase of our currency from $1,500,000,000 to $2,000,000,000 in four years has been accompanied by increased business at increased prices, there are relatively few who look upon the increase of the currency as an evil to the producing classes. Mr. Bryan, therefore, might easily bring the conservative members of his party to support a measure which without imperiling the continued parity of gold and silver coin would restore silver to its old place in the currency.

If legislation of this sort failed to restore silver bullion to the value it held for generations, until adverse legislation took away the currency de mand for it, then the bimetallists in Congress would change the ratio. The ratio at which the free coinage of both metals shall be resumed is not the essential part of the measure. Bimetal lists believe in the old ratio, because we believe that legislation should restore to silver the value which legislation has destroyed, and because we know that the adoption of any higher ratio would necessitate the recoinage of all existing silver coins and proportionately lessen the amount of silver to be added to the currency in the future. But if the currency demands of the United States failed to restore silver bullion to its coin value, the bimetallists in Congress would accept the ratio which the equal treatment of both metals established. Not one bimetallist in five wishes a silver currency that will not, in all ordinary transactions, be at par with gold; and it is folly to fear that bimetallist Congressmen will force upon the country what their own constituents do

not want.

By

All this, however, belongs to the campaign two years hence, when the future currency policy must be decided. Prior to that time the amount of silver currency cannot be increased. that time the issue of imperialism must be disposed of, for unless Mr. Bryan meanwhile brings to an end the present war against the right of our recent allies to the government of their choice, the chagrin of his supporters would make the defeat of his party inevitable. The men who are now united against imperialism may as safely divide in 1902 as those who are divided upon the currency may safely unite now.

W

HATEVER text-book the United States may consult in the matter of colonial information applicable to Porto Rico and the Philippines, as it concerns the new possession in the West Indies, the history of Jamaica should not be passed by as valueless. True, the British colony in the Caribbean Sea does not furnish a record worthy of emulation. Few islands in the world have done more to shake one's confidence in

colonial prosperity. But it is exactly because of what has happened in Jamaica, during the past ninety-five years, that a lesson may be learned for others to profit by. Since that early period, changes have been wrought for better or for worse such as but needed the Spanish-American War to add one more phase to the already suf ficiently complex situation.

There is not the least doubt that the result of the war with Spain is responsible for the awakening of such of the West Indies as still fly the flags of foreign nations. Suddenly these colonies have become possessed of a certain insular importance. Take, as an instance, the Danish West Indies. While it is argued that, since the United States now owns the finest harbor in the Antilles, there is need no longer of St. Thomas as a possible coaling station, still it must not be supposed that Denmark holds her property in less esteem. Be cause the sum recently mentioned as a possible selling price is less by far than that of thirty-four years ago, yet the Danes will know how to drive a proper bargain when the real time to sell arrives. However, there is every indication that the Danish Government is of the opinion that what the islands are worth to others they are worth to Denmark; and a fresh attempt is about to be made to redeem the Danish West Indies from their unprofitable past and their present stagnation. Should the experiment succeed, the proximity of St. Thomas to Porto Rico will prove to be the chief factor of transformation.

There is high speculation in Jamaica as to the future government of the Cubans. In a meas. ure, the largest colony of the British Empire in the West Indies is now much nearer to the United States than before the evacuation, by the Spanish troops, of Cuban soil. If a considerable faction in Jamaica had the say, Cuba would never be handed over to its people for self-gov.

ernment.

Anglo-Saxon blood in control is just what this faction would wish for. But ask the average Jamaican his opinion anent the annexation of Jamaica to the United States, and the reply would please the patriotic citizen of whatever nation.

Jamaica has no desire for annexation to the United States. Whatever may have been former attempts in that direction, the inhabitants of the island are to-day as British as those of Great Britain. In spite of the present deplorable financial condition; in the face of the disaffection due to excessive taxation, although the representatives of the people have refused to legislate with the members appointed by the Crown, Jamaicans do not look to annexation as their ultimate salvation. As in the case of the Danish West Indies, though in a different sense, the remedy is now looked for from within. And again it is the advent of the United States in the West Indies that furnishes the basis for stimulation.

Capital is the present cry emanating from Jamaica. It was American capital and American brains which, during the past ten years, partly redeemed the island to itself. From the gov· ernor down to the lowest-caste coolie, all have praise for what the Americans have done. But will the investment of United States capital continue? Such is the burning question of the hour. Can the people of Jamaica keep on depending on Americans as their exploiters, or will they at last be forced to lend a hand themselves? All indications point in the direction that, with the fertile soil of Cuba nearer the United States, a great trade is to spring up between this island and the mainland. Then, Porto Rico likewise produces the identical staples with Jamaica. Before long shipments of fruit from Cuba and Porto Rico will prove these islands to be rivals of consequence to the British colony which has long held the monopoly.

There is awaiting, in the Senate of the United States, the ratification of a treaty of reciprocity with Jamaica. But the opinion is now prevalent in the island that this treaty is as good as shelved. The map of the West Indies has undergone considerable changes since the agitation for a reciprocity treaty first began. And since Porto Rico

is now American territory and Cuba as yet under United States domination. there is every reason to understand why the chance for the treaty to become operative is diminished. Jamaica, therefore, finds herself in a decidedly peculiar position. The island wants American goods, and in return for a reduction in duties asks the United States to reduce the custom-duty on fruits. As long as Spain held possession of Cuba and Porto Rico and failed to develop the resources of those islands, such an arrangement with Jamaica might have been useful. The turbulent condition of the Spanish colonies, furthermore, did not invite American investment. But with the SpanishAmerican War all this has changed. And with every American dollar that now seeks investment in Cuba, this island looms up a more formidable rival to the British colony. It is this the Jamaicans have at last come to realize. How it is proposed to meet the new conditions will be shown directly.

For the purpose of gaining information anent the state of affairs in the West Indies since the war with Spain, the present writer recently spent two months in Jamaica. With Cuba and Porto Rico already treated of exhaustively, there was wanting an estimate as to the conditions now prevailing to the south of these islands. Most assuredly the result of the investigations comes as a series of conflicting pictures. The marvelous possibilities of the soil, the political imbroglio, the commercial anxieties and anticipations, the general unrest of the people, combined in a manner which made the task far from being an easy one.

To begin with, the poverty of Jamaica, it is claimed, is due to excessive taxation. Of course, in his interview with the present writer, his Excellency, Sir Augustus Hemming, the governor of Jamaica, avoided as much as possible any reference to political conditions and those concerning colonial government. But the views held by other prominent men of the island, including the leading elected members of the Legislative Council, would seem to indicate that the blame for the present unsatisfactory condition. rests with the home government. And the Transvaal is not the only spot on earth where the name of Joseph Chamberlain is unbeloved. The colonial secretary of the British empire is the moving spirit behind the visible government of Jamaica. Whatever is done there is due to his decisive action.

Before treating of the political phases, it is advisable to first see what Americans are doing in Jamaica. Since to them is due the partly rejuvenated condition of the island, it is necessary to follow them back some twenty-five years;

and acting as its own distributer in the United States. What was formerly the Boston Fruit Company united with a number of similar concerns, also doing business in Central and South America, with the United States as the common market. At the head of the Boston company stood Captain L. D. Baker, and to him is due the credit of being pioneer in the export and import of tropical fruits. With a capital of more than $20,000,000 invested in the business, the United Fruit Company covers the field including South and Central America and Jamaica. Since Jamaica was the place first discovered as available for export of fruits on a large scale, it may be guessed that here can be learned much of interest in that direction. When the various companies consolidated, Captain Baker preferred to take charge of the Jamaica division; and it is through the courtesy of Captain Baker that the present writer is now able to convey information unobtainable elsewhere.

A short sketch of Captain L. D. Baker is essential before proceeding. Born on Cape Cod, he went to sea at an early age. Engaging in the South American coastwise trade, he soon became convinced that there was money in the exportation of tropical fruits. In command of his schooner, the young seaman realized that it was impossible to conduct the business profitably when handling other cargo besides the perishable one. It was evident that fruit had to be loaded with the utmost expediency, shipped to its destination with all the haste of wind and weather, and distributed without waste of time. Captain Baker was willing to try the experiment. Almost from the first the venture proved a success. Before long steamers supplanted the uncertain sailing vessels, and from its small beginning of twenty-five years ago the promoter of the enter prise and those who associated themselves with him have seen the business grow to such proportions that the entire island of Jamaica almost is depending for its sustenance on the plantations of the United Fruit Company and the export of its products to the United States.

Captain Baker had just returned from a trip to Cuba when the writer sought him out in Port Antonio, which is the principal shipping-place of the northern coast. From here special fruitsteamers leave almost daily for the United States, and Port Antonio is the headquarters of the United Fruit Company in the island.

"I am very much impressed with the possibilities of Cuba," Captain Baker said, ignoring for the moment a question pertinent to Jamaica.

The sugar-plant now in course of erection promises to be of great importance. Yes, I have

PORT ANTONIO.

no hesitancy in saying that we are going into business over in Cuba. The field there is a promising one; and then, the United States market is so much nearer than from Jamaica. As for Cuba becoming a formidable rival to Jamaica, it is yet too soon

CAPTAIN L. D. BAKER.

gar industry in Jamaica will be fraught with difficulty. We all know the immense revenue which cane sugar yielded in its time. But, in order for the business to pay now, it is necessary to obtain large tracts of land, with great central factories to handie the product of the field. As for raising bananas and cocoa-nuts, the smaller holdings answer the purpose weil enough; for there is nothing to stand between the cutting down of the fruit and bringing it to the shipper. But cane needs considerable attention. I doubt very much

(The pioneer in the tropical fruit trade.)

that even concerted action in this island will ever make the sugar industry of Jamaica a factor in its rejuvenation. There is an immense future for sugarraising in Cuba; and while we are investing considerable capital, due to the most modern machinery, we expect to be well repaid in time.

"It is largely owing to the antiquated machinery on the former sugar plantations that cane-sugar has been left so far behind the beet product. If the same high-class machinery had been installed on the cane-sugar plantation as is in vogue in the beetsugar factory, the cane would