Puerto Rico

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26265, 9 November 1950, Page 6

Puerto Rico

The* attempted assassination of President Truinan by two Puerto Ricans and reports'of an attempted uprising in Puerto Rico have attracted attention to this dependency of the United States. Puerto Rico (tl»« easternmost island of the West Indies group known as the Greater Antilles, of whi«h Cuba, Haiti, and Jamaica are the larger unit#) suffers from the same fundamental trouble as many other tropical countries. Its population is growing and the. productive capacity of its land is shrinking. Puerto Rift> has one of the fastest growing populations in the world; about 2.300.000 are crowded on an -island of 3435 square miles (Canterbury has 13.940 square miles), and only half of Puerto Rico’s territory is Suitable for cultivation. It is a disadvantage that the island has a largely one-crop economy, based on the cultivation of sugar. However, Puerto Rico has an advantage not possessed by most other tropical countries with similar problems. As a United States dependency it has received American aid to the extent of over 1.000,000.000 dollars. Much of this money has • been spent on efforts to diversify the agricultural economy and to build an industrial economy. Huge hydro-electric plants have been constructed in recent years; completion of the Caonillas dam in 1948 brought power installations to 18 and assured production of 400,000,000 kilowatt hpurs of electricity a year. I Puerto Rico now has sufficient 1 power for all the industry it can : attract to the island. In present i circumstances the island's industrial ■ prospects are favoured by the fact that Puerto Rican goods are not j affected by United States tariffs— ’ more than 95 per cent, of Puerto Rico’s present exports go to the United States. Further, although they are United States citizens, Puerto P.icans are exempt from Federal taxes. However, though the advantages of association with the United States are clear (and are acknowledged by the island’s strongest political party), Puerto Rico is not immune from the heady air of nationalism. The United j States, to w hich Puerto Rico was I

ceded by Spain in 1898, has gone a, considerable distance towards leading the island’s people toward* political maturity. Since 1917, when they were granted full United States citizenship, Puerto Rican* have elected . their own legislatur* and have voted in the United States Presidential elections. In 1948 the United States President surrendered his privilege of choosing th* Governor; the present Governor is the first to be chosen by’ popular vote of Puerto Ricans. This year the United States Congress passed an act giving the Puerto Ricans th* i;ight to select all their owh officials. The act also made provision for the people of Puerto Rico to write their own constitution, if they want to. A referendum is to be taken in June on the constitution issue. It is by no means certain that Puertp Ricans as a whole will favour a constitution thaf would establish Puerto Rico as an independent sovereign State. The political and economic conditions of some of the small republics in neighbouring Caribbean islands and in nearby Central America provide no very encouraging examples of the advantages of independence. In Puerto Rico’s case there is another important consideration. United States citizenship has given Puerto Ricans unrestricted entry to the United States, where many have found employment. In New York City the Puerto Rican population is particularly large. For not unsubstantial reasons, therefore, Puerto Ricans might prefer to seek their ultimate status as another State of the United States. President Truman has stated several times that it is for the people of Puerto’ Rico to state the kind of status they want; and he has committed the United States to granting “ the kind, of government thpy “ desire ”. There can be little doubt that the extremist nationalist organisation responsible for both the assassination attempt and the uprising is seeking to force the issue in favour of complete independence from the United States—at any cost to Puerto Rico.