Prowling about Panama

by George A. Miller

Compared with well-known and important insular holdings in the Caribbean group, Panama assumes entirely different proportions. Panama is two thirds as large as Cuba and has one third of Cuba's population. Panama is about the size of Portugal, is four times as large as Salvador, seven and one half times as large as Jamaica, and nine times the size of Porto Rico. Panama is as large as all New England except Maine, and nearly equals the combined area of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia.

There are interior areas of well-watered, rich soil that equal whole States in size and yet are entirely unknown to many residents of the Canal Zone. The Chiriqui Province has a coast line of one hundred and thirty-three miles and contains as much land as Delaware, Rhode Island, and Long Island combined. The rich agricultural region in the provinces of Coclé, Veraguas, Los Santos, and Herrera is as large as the State of Connecticut. The region east of Panama City reaching out to Chepo is as large as Rhode Island, and in the Darien country is an area almost unknown, but abounding in rich resources which would cover the map of New Jersey with a good margin.

It is supposed that no one lives in this large territory except the Americans on the Canal Zone and inhabitants of the two cities of Panama and Colon. This is also indicative of ignorance. The Republic of Panama has two thirds as many people as Paraguay or Jamaica, and, as previously stated, one third as many as Cuba, as many as Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho combined, or is about equal to Utah, Nevada, and Arizona put together.

On the basis of resources and soil and climate and accessibility to market, Panama can support a population many times her present numbers. Her capacity for supporting population from her own products is larger than that of most of the States of the Union, acre for acre. Panama's resources are as good as those of Jamaica or Porto Rico or Cuba. On the basis of Jamaican population there should be six and one half million people in Panama, and if the number of people per square mile were equal to that of precipitous Porto Rico, we would have a population in Panama of ten and one half million, which is more than live west of a north and south line drawn through Denver, Colorado.

That no such population lives to-day in Panama is due to political causes more than any other factor. The population of Porto Rico has nearly doubled since American occupation exchanged the old regime for the new. The barren deserts of the great Southwest are becoming fertile and populous regions because the people who are possessing the land have a fair chance, and know that they will be assured a market for their produce and security for their lives and property. Given political security, monetary stability, market accessibility, and assurance of economic cooperation on the part of the government, there are no immediate limits to the population that Panama may support in comfort.

SHIPPING COSTA RICA VEGETABLES TO PANAMA

Political stability for the government of Panama is assured by the relations which exist between the United States and the Isthmian Republic, a condition which exists in no other Spanish-American republic. The proximity of the Canal assures a world market. The climate and soil and water supply nature has provided with lavish hand. Sanitation and hygiene have become exact sciences, and the matter of retaining good health in the tropics is no longer a problem. There is still good land to be had on favorable terms, but the supply will soon be controlled by monopolists who are seizing the present opportunity to load up their future bank accounts, while war conditions produce a general depression of the world's development forces.

The present interior population includes three distinct classes of people. The original Indian stock still exists, pure and often wild, in the high mountains and remote regions of the country. These Indians are beginning to emerge from their fastnesses and get acquainted with their neighbors, now that they are sure of police protection when they come out. But their number is small and they are a negligible factor in the totals.

The West Indians are an importation, and while they are easily adapted to the climate and form the staple of labor supply for the Canal, they are not the Panamanians and never will be except as they mix with the native stock and shade off the colors that exist in such confusion. The Negroes and Panamanians are much more distinct in the interior than about the Zone with its terminal cities, where the remnants of humanity have been stirred together for four hundred years. West Indian populations exist in predominance only on the plantations of the United Fruit Company, where they supply the labor for the operation of these vast enterprises.