REAL DEMOCRACY

Taranaki Daily News, 5 August 1937, Page 16

REAL DEMOCRACY

HISTORY OF COSTA RICA. 'MORE SCHOOLS THAN SOLDIERS. It would take more than a casual glance at this warlike world . to locate an independen-t natjori .that can reasonably be caUed a dernocracy and that. is actually disarmed, writes Juliari . Freeman in Events, Yet there is such a ijitiorl. Costa Rica is able to boast that she has more schoels than soldiers. In the 435 years of her existence Costa Rica has . never indulged in international conflict, Last year over 21 per cent. of the entire Budiget was devoted to educational appropriatioiis. The military and the police suffered accbrdingly: There are to-day 475 schools, 1902 -teachers and 51,500.. pupils in a dountry of fewer than half a V million population, while the army consists of 246.elderly citizens who are unable to find- employment elsewhere. : . In Costa Rica during the last 100 years there have been. two , reyolutions, both bloodless,. both lasting three days, both ending in collapse. There is little political discontent because Costa Rica alone among Latin American States has genuine popular electipns. Exaggerated tales of E1 Dbrado sent promir.ent Spanish families and their1 servants to the "Rich Coast" of Costa Rica. They did not find gold, and many . returned horne. Those who stayed realised that the real wealth was ih the soil. Racial mixtures were rare and to-day rosy-cheeked blondes are comraon. In 1821 independence was the vbgue in Central America and, Costa Rica followed her neighfoours in freeing herself from Spanish sovereignty. There was no opposition and no bloodshed-^merely. a declaratjon. The. discovery of gold and the exportation of , coffee paid in part for purchases of necessities abroad, . foreign loans making up the difference. With. the pid of great sacrifices on the part of the people, roads and schools were gradually built. In the 1870's Minor Cooper Keith, an American, was cornmissipned by President Guardia to build a railroad connecting the Atlantic and the^ Pacific. Keith recognised the yellow wealth that the early prospectors, had missed — bananas. ■ Slowly a profitable trade with the United States de'veloped. Minor Cooper Keith, his brother, and his uncle organised a fruit company which was soon competing with two others. The Keiths owned the Northern Railway of Costa Rica and that fector caused vthe consolidation of all three into the United Fruit Company. In Costa Rica the United Fruit invasion was much more orderly than in the neighbouring States. Costa Rica's economic development had by this' time, thanks to the extensive British arid German markets .for the country's high-grade coffee, reached the point where they no : longer needed the United Fruit inyestments. ; In 1929 the world sixddenly crashed on ,the banana men in , Costa Rica. First the depression cut off foreign markets. Then an administration opposed to the company came into power and rushed through a new export tax on a sliding scale. The final blow came with the discovery that a mysterious parasite was raviging the banana flelds. In 1931 the United Fruit owned 8500 acres of banana land in Costa Rica. To-day less than 3500 acres remain. Thus we see that in this one instance the joke has been on the "imperialist." The United Fruit Company has built ropds, railways and hospitals. They have dredged harbours, installed efficient sanitation systems, and have made possible the construction of two modem cities. the port, Limon, and the capital, San Jose. Actually the Costa Ricans have suffered very little from the . American "invasion." To-day , they are not.wealthy in a material sense. The majority of them are small landowners. The people are happy because they are free. They have a political dernocracy in. every sense of the word. They have free speech, free elections and schools that are free because no fees are charged and because of the lack of restraint upon the. discussions and views of the teacher and student alike.