The Press. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1913. THE FUTURE OF THE CARIBBEAN SEA.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14564, 15 January 1913, Page 8

The Press. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1913. THE FUTURE OF THE CARIBBEAN SEA.

With tho completion of the Panama Canal, which, if all goes woll, should tak© placo in a fow months' time, tho West Indies will bo restored to their old prominence, and the Latin Republics in tho neighbourhood of the Gulf of Mexico brought into closer touch with the world's leading States. Tho history of tho Latin Republics, though it has somo purple patches, is, as a whole, squalid and unedifying from start to finish, but tho West Indies havo in their day played a groat part in affairs. Thoy aro a world in little, where Englishmen, Americans, Frenchmen. Dutchmen, Danes, Spanish. Creoles, Negroes, Carib Indians, and

coolies from the East live, if not side by side, at least within a stone's throw of ono another. Exposed by Nature to tho chances of hurricano, volcanic outburst, and earthquake, and by human policy to all tho difficulties involved in an acute colour question, they havo not hitherto shared.in any marked degree in th© progress which associates with modern European, and especially English, colonies. Their great days were tho days of slavery, before the manufacture of beet-root sugar was even dreamed of. But of late thero has been an awakening, and a limited recovery of prosperity in many directions. Fruit-growing for American and European markets has been carried on on a

large scale, cotton cultivation has been introduced, the timber trade has developed, and the mineral wealth of some of the islands begun to be exploited.

Setting aside our own possessions, possibly the most interesting island at the present day is Cuba, for there during recent years American administration has had a free hand. There are varying accounts as to the results achieved, although no doubt a great improvement has been made in the health of the people by tho adoption of principles of modern sanitation. Cuba

occupies an anomalous position among modern States. Nominally free and independent, it is really in a new kind of semi-vassalage to the United States. In the organic laws, of its Constitution,' clauses aro embodied binding it not to permit any foreign Power to acquire control over its territory, not to contract any debt on which ordinary revenue cannot furnish both interest and sinking-fund, to continue to improve the sanitation of its cities, to allow American intervention for tho preservation of its independence and tho maintenance of efficient Government, and lastly to lease certain coaling and naval stations to the United States. Bahia Heads on tlie north-west, and Quantanamo on the sc nth-east are tho stations specified, and yesterday's cables tell us that in view :>f tho new international situations 1 lik„y to arise when transit trado jis attracted to the Panama Canal, the American naval authorities are preparing n jw plans for the fortification of tho soutiern station. Further to tho east they will no doubt establish other bases in Porto Rico, the island they ret lined after tho Spanish-Ameri-can war, but between these bases intervenes Hayti with its negro and mulatto Republics and turbulent backward population. What is to happen to Hayti, tho derelict island, when tho trado of the world flows by it? Forty years ago General Grant asserted that as a bare measuro of national protection tho States must annex it if they wero to exert a controlling influence over the international trade soon to pass over the 1 Isthmus of Darien. The island is said to possess somo of tho finest natural sites for naval bases in tho West Indies, and ono of them, tho Mofo St. Nicholas, immediately opposite Quantanamo, is a position of such strength that it has been called tho Gibraltar of tho New World. The American authorities realise that with the new conditions tho Caribbean Sea will once moro becomo tho stago for possible great wars. This being the case, in spite of their reluctance to acquire. fresh insular territory, and the obligations it entails, the people of the States must sooner or later be compelled to interveno in Hayti. For tho Monroe Doctrine, a device of doubtful worth at best, does not run in the cosmopolitan West Indies.