From this table we see that certain industries, such as the cultivation
of pineapples or citrus fruits, which can be carried on successfully on
relatively small farms, bring practically as high a return per acre as
does the production of sugar cane, which is essentially a large farm
product. This argument would not necessarily do away with the
cultivation of sugar cane, but would tend to increase the cultivation of
other crops wherever and whenever the soil and climatic conditions would
permit.
An increase in the number of owned farms and a consequent decrease in
the number of dependent wage earners, together with the increased
production of foodstuffs which such a system of land management would
necessarily bring as a result, providing the management of the farms was
carried on under modern scientific methods, would, to a great extent,
relieve the situation of overpopulation which we now face. Porto Rico
can support twice the population which she now has with comparative
ease, providing some means is found to relieve the economic situation of
the greater part of the people and to prevent the accumulation of wealth
in the hands of a comparatively small number. It is estimated at the
present time that the wealth of Porto Rico is in the hands of less than
15 per cent of the population, and the remaining 85 per cent are
dependent for their living upon daily or monthly wages. Such a situation
must be changed or else the question of overpopulation will become
indeed serious. There is no particular reason to fear that the
population will increase to such an extent that we shall be unable to
support ourselves on what the Island may produce; but with the increase
of population under present conditions, trouble between capital and
labor and between workmen and their employers cannot be avoided.
Emigration as a means of relief to the overpopulation of Porto Rico will
not solve the question. In the first place, the Porto Rican people are
essentially a home-loving people, clinging closely to family ties and
not at all disposed to migrate to other countries. A few cases of Porto
Rican families who have moved to other countries have shown that in the
majority of instances the migration was not successful. In the second
place, in order to relieve the situation at all it would be necessary to
provide for the emigration of a large number of families. The removal of
100 or 500 families from Porto Rico would not make any appreciable
difference in the economic situation that we find to-day. The average
family consists of five people, and the removal of 5,000 unskilled
laborers from the Island would not tend to relieve the situation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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