Colonial Prospect
WEALTH OF HONDURAS
STEPHEN L. CAIGER
jUST before the war the Spanish-American Republic of Guate- mala issued a five-centavo postage-stamp map of Central America showing Guatemalan territory in buff with British Honduras left plain white beyond its eastern frontier. Early in the war years, when it seemed obvious that the British chicken was on the point of having its neck well wrung, Guatemala reissued a revised version of this stamp, this time with British Honduras also coloured buff. Since then she has never ceased to try to hypnotise herself into the belief that after three hundred years of British occupation the colony by rights belongs to Guatemala. Historically and senti- mentally this absurd claim is based upon the discovery of the coast- line of Honduras by Columbus in 1502, followed by the Papal charter bestowing it upon Ferdinand and Isabella. But there are more matter-of-fact motives underlying the revival of these pre- tensions today. There is the conviction, 'established by recent surveys and reports, that this hitherto neglected British colony is on the eve of vast economic development. Hidden away beneath the virgin bush, unexplored uplands and flooded savannahs of Honduras may lie such treasure of " green gold " in all its many forms as may make it one of the most profitable fields for enterprise in the Caribbean.
Even without the corroboration of our Royal Commissions, Guatemala's sudden interest in the place should open the eyes of the British public. It is an old story. For a hundred years after its discovery, when British Honduras_seemed nothing but an uninhabit- able swamp, the Spaniards took no notice of it at all. Then the buccaneers of the early seventeenth century discovered logwood among the mangroves, and began cutting and selling it at anything from f5 to £100 a ton for the dye-works of Europe, until in 1670
the Governor of Jamaica could report that "the thriving and prosperous settlement at Belize increases His Majesty's customs and the national commerce more than any of His Majesty's colonies." Whereupon the Spanish began to lay claim to the territory, making frequent incursions in force from Guatemala, until in 1783 the Treaty of Versailles confirmed the British occupation—and logwood lost its commercial importance. A little later, when the settlers discovered the value of mahogany, the Spanish renewed their claims and their attacks, until in 1798 the victory of S. George's Bay (still celebrated as a national holiday in the colony) put an end to their molestation, and the Peace of Amiens left Honduras more securely than ever in our hands. In the middle of the nineteenth century again, when the success of sugar, bananas and other ventures excited the interest of Guatemala, she renewed demands which were settled and silenced by the treaty of 1859. During the present century British Honduras gradually ceased to be commercially enviable, and the relations between the colony and the republic became entirely amicable—until recently.
The renewal of Guatemalan claims upon Honduras, therefore, is by the same token a most encouraging augury for the future of Belize. Evidently the Spanish across the border have taken note of the Royal Commissions, even if the public at home have not. And indeed, if the latest Report of the Colonial Office (September, 1948) is to be trusted, it would need but little enterprise and initial capital to turn the colony into a veritable Eldorado. The Com- mission were considering its possibilities (along with British Guiana) as a suitable sphere for large-scale immigraton from Europe and from other overcrowded parts of the West Indies. From the point of view of climate, health and general natural amenities the Commissioners were pleasantly surprised ; indeed, apart from one or two bitter remarks about the hotel accommodation in Belize, they make it sound like a potential West Indian Riviera—and, as one who has lived there and loved it, I agree.
From the economic angle the Commissioners are decidedly optimistic. Here is one of the most fertile countries in the world, the size of Wales or Palestine, which has been lying virtually unexplored and fallow ever since the original Maya inhabitants deserted it (no one knows why) over five centuries ago. The popu- lation is under 6o,000, mostly concentrated in the towns. The chief difficulties of development have been those of transport, but, since the Royal Commission of 1934, thousands of acres have been drained and hundreds of miles of road have been built connecting the interior with Belize. A few more roads, bridges and, above all, landing-piers and ports (there is deep water in the south of the colony) would open up illimitable possibilities at a comparatively low cost. With modern scientific and engineering methods, it would be no great labour to clear away the bush, thin the forests, drain the swamps, control the innumerable streams, build all-weather highways and construct deep-water piers.
The soil is eminently suited to a variety of agricultural products. Mahogany may have had its day, but there is an abundance of other useful timber. The once extensive plantations of bananas, ruined by the Panama disease, could be replanted with immunised species. Sugar, another once successful crop, could be revived with more efficient machinery and marketing. Smut Creek grapefruit, gold- medallist of many Imperial Exhibitions, waits only for better ship- ping. The incredibly rich fisheries around the coast have never really been exploited. Turneffe sponges, once the best in the world, could be grown again. And conditions appear to be ideal for trial of several new (or almost new) ventures, such as dairy-farming and the harvesting of rice, cohune oil, cocoa, cassava, tobacco, abaca, sisal, oranges and groundnuts.
Such is the green gold awaiting the twentieth-century buccaneer who is willing to' pull up stakes in the land of fogs and forms to search for treasure in sun-kissed Honduras. Nor need his life be all work and no play. The Report speaks enthusiastically about the opportunities for sport—hunting and fishing—which (given decent hotel accommodation) could turn Belize, only a few hours distant by plane from Miaini, into a kind of Caribbean Bermuda, thus open- ing up yet another industry in the tourist trade.
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