The CHAIRMAN. I see that Ponce is located inland, up some distance from the port-the city of Ponce? General BEACH. A short distance; not very far. Mr. LINEBERGER. About 2 miles, is it not, or a mile and a half? The CHAIRMAN. How is the pier connected with the city? General BEACH. By rail and highway. The CHAIRMAN. Has the port of Ponce a settlement at all, or is that just the port? General BEACH. That is mainly the port. There is a little place there. It is something like San Pedro is with reference to Los Angeles. The CHAIRMAN. Will you give us the report here? What was the last year's tonnage at Ponce? General BEACH. I doubt if you will find it in there, as it is not a port that has been improved. The CHAIRMAN. Well, tell us approximately what it is. General BEACH. The district engineer's report in 1919 says that about 41 per cent of the sugar crop of the whole island, or about 127,000 tons, was shipped from the port of Ponce, and 45,000 from a landing at another point, and 66,000 from the wharf in Guaniga Bay, but they estimate if this harbor was improved, as he says sugar as well as a lot of other materials which are now shipped by lighters in ships anchored out in the ocean, would come to Ponce and be shipped from this point and at a considerable saving in cost. The CHAIRMAN. About what do they estimate the tonnage would be the outgoing tonnage? Mr. LINEBERGER. Do you mean by concentrating all the shipments in Ponce? General BEACH. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. While we are waiting on Mr. Davila, tell us how large a place Ponce is. Mr. DAVILA. It is about 71,000 people. It is the second city of the island. General BEACH. But immediately in Ponce and right around the bay, in the immediate vicinity of Ponce, the population is nearly 300,000, or practically one-fifth of the population of the whole island. Mr. LINEBERGER. The densest area of population of the whole island I think would be within 25 miles of Ponce, would it not? Mr. DAVILA. I believe that the population of Ponce and towns contributory thereto is nearly one-fifth of the population of the whole island, as the General has stated. Mr. MANSFIELD. The island is only about 35 miles wide. Mr. DAVILA. Yes; about 35 miles. Mr. LINEBERGER. I mean to say about half the island-I thought it was longer. Mr. McDUFFIE. How much did you say the estimated tonnage would be from the surrounding territory that could use this improvement? General BEACH. I stated there would be probably 127,000 tons of sugar. It is estimated that about 40 per cent of all the coffee exported from the island would come out through Ponce. Mr. MANSFIELD. There is a large tobacco trade there, is there not? General BEACH. Large tobacco trade and quite a trade in tropical products. Mr. McDUFFIE. You say some of that stuff has come to deep water by a lightering system? General BEACH. Yes, sir.. Mr. McDUFFIE. They float it out on barges and load it on oceangoing vessels? General BEACH. Yes, sir. Mr. LINEBERGER. That is very expensive, is it not? General BEACH. Very expensive. It is a slow process, requires the boat to wait a good deal longer than they would if they were loaded at the wharf or docks, and then you have the expense of carrying it out and the additional expense of handling it in that manner. Mr. McDUFFIE. This tonnage can not get to the other harbor except by wagon, can it? General BEACH. It can not get there except by wagon. The CHAIRMAN. There is a coastal or belt railroad. General BEACH. A belt railroad, but you would have to haul it from a larger territory first to get it to the railroad than you would to get to Ponce. The CHAIRMAN. Then you have a territory in the district of San Juan that is really tributary to Ponce. General BEACH. You can see the railroad. It runs around the island, the west side, down to Pone. Mr. LINEBERGER. Since this island has been in the possession of the United States we have spent very little money on it, have we not? General BEACH. I do not think we have given our insular possessions quite a fair show, and that brings me to one point that I would like to bring to the attention of the committee. The recommendation, as you will notice, is that the work be done at an estimated cost to the United States of $254,000. Now, it is estimated by the district engineer, as shown on page 15 of the report, that the total cost is $1,016,000. If I were going to make that report to-day, I would recommend that the United States pay one-half of the total amount involved. As it is now they are saddling three-fourths of the work on the city of Ponce and the island of Porto Rico and I think that a fairer division would be for the United States to pay one-half or $506,000, and if the committee cares to return the report to me I will make my report in that way. The CHAIRMAN. Would you be permitted to do that under the existing law? General BEACH. Certainly, sir. The CHAIRMAN. It depends upon the recommendation of the Chief of Engineers or the division engineer? General BEACH. Yes, sir. You will find several reports where I have changed the report of the division engineer for rivers and harbors. I differed with him. Of course, where I differ with him, the committee has full authority to follow me or the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors or to modify either of our recommendations. The CHAIRMAN. Well, now to develop a little bit of what can be done at this harbor, if you will turn to pages 6 to 9 of the report you can run through that very quickly. I can see the population of Ponce and the town contiguous to it are 140,000, the fifth General BEACH. Then he gave the manufacturing activities and exports. The CHAIRMAN. Exports consist of sugar, cigars, coffees, cigarettes and tobacco, molasses, alcohol, honey, coconuts, manganese ore, oranges and pineapples, medicine and perfumery. He says the manufacturing activities consist of the manufacture of sugar, cigars and cigarettes, hats, soup paste, soap, preserved fruits, alcohol, hulling of coffee bean, embroidered goods and drawn work, polishing of diamonds, iron works and foundries.. Mr. MANSFIELD. They have immense cigar factories there. I was there in 1919. Mr. Davila was along with the party and when we approached the city in a car-we went across the island in cars there were 20,000 cigar workers who met us as we went across there. Mr. NEWTON. Were they friendly? Mr. MANSFIELD. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. He says the coastal plane along the south coast, which is almost entirely under sugar-cane cultivation, has an area of approximately 375 square miles, and produced in 1919 about 41 per cent of the sugar crop of the whole island, or in round numbers 164,000 short tons. Mr. McDUFFIE. I would like to inquire how that land is owned there? Is it cut up into small ownerships, or is it owned by large holdings? General BEACH. I am not positive, but I think it is in much smaller holdings than in Cuba. Mr. MANSFIELD. I think I can give the gentleman an idea of that. The sugar cane district, west of there and on the west coast of the island, which is a sugar district, is in reasonably large holdings, large plantations, principally owned by Americans and native Porto Ricans. Those sugar plantations extend from Ponce around to Mayaguez, which is on the west coast, and in the middle part of the island is a mountainous district, tobacco district. Some of them are in large holdings and some in small holdings. You will find some plantations there that have only a few acres of land. Mr. MCDUFFIE. The reason I asked that was to know whether or not this improvement would be beneficial to many people or be primarily of interest to a few large interests who might hold it. Of course any improvement, even if it were owned by a large interest, would be of benefit to the people as a whole, but somebody might ask the question on the floor. Mr. MANSFIELD. There are hundreds of small plantations. The CHAIRMAN. The coffee exportation in 1919 was nearly 12,000,000 pounds, valued at over $2,000,000. If Mr. LINEBERGER. I do not know how the rest of the committee may view this, but the observation made by General Beach regarding the treatment by the United States of its insular possessions opens up a new angle to this situation. First, the committee must consider it on its merits. In addition to that, there is the political angle. these possessions remain a part of the United States, and if we are to inculcate into them a knowledge of the United States and respect and a desire to remain an integral part of the United States, we must give them the assistance to develop their national resources and to increase the ties and bonds between the islands and this country. There is $156,000,000 worth of commerce coming out of that island, and, while I have not the statistics at hand, I have been informed a vast majority of it comes to this country. Mr. MANSFIELD. Practically all of it. Mr. BOYCE. I would put it a little stronger than that. I would say we have a moral obligation. Mr. MANSFIELD. I would state that nothing could better bring about a good feeling between that country and this than to extend our activities there. We extended the land bank act to them several years ago. They all want water improvements as well as a good banking system. They now have our postal system. Mr. MODUFFIE. I would like to know about how much money comes into the Federal Treasury from the island of Porto Rico. Mr. NEWTON. I have all those figures in my office. The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, just let me bring up my figures so that we may have them when the House has it up for consideration; 30,000,000 pounds of rice, valued at $4,000,000, and 80,000 bags of flour, valued at $1,500,000, were delivered within the Ponce district. About 8,000,000 gallons of crude oil were thus delivered in Ponce Harbor last year. The local cooperation, in addition to paying part of this expense, will be in the following way: Local interests propose to cooperate in this improvement by the construction of permanent bulkheads 50,000 feet in length, behind which the material dredged in improving the anchorage and terminal facilities can be deposited. The material is to be deposited over an extensive area of worthless swamp land which will when filled in provide valuable sites for industrial development similar to that in progress in San Juan Harbor, in which the insular and Federal Governments are cooperating. Now, gentlemen, I would say that the report of the Chief of Engineers is very full and complete as to population, business present and potential, its nature, its value, the amount of tonnage, the condition of the population there, as to facilities of all kinds. It is all very complete, and it shows in the end that we have a large population there and that this will really serve half of the island and add to the industrial development and reduce freight rates. General BEACH. The report as it is now drawn says that the island shall pay for all bulkheads, and the bulkhead cost is going to be half of the total cost, and then it shall pay half the cost of the dredging and half the cost of the breakwater. Mr. LINEBERGER. That is about three-fourths of the cost of the project. General BEACH. Now, in this country we have almost invariably gone along the line that the municipalities and localities favored by the Government shall provide disposal areas, and in the project that you have just adopted that for the extension of deep water up to Trenton-you have provided that they shall provide disposal areas, bulkheaded if necessary. Now, the work on Philadelphia Harbor is going ahead without any cooperation of that kind. It was at my suggestion that the committee recently passed a resolution asking that this matter be reviewed to see if we could not obtain some cooperation, and it was not until some time during the past year that my attention was called to the way in which we have treated our insular possessions in a good many instances, and it seemed to me that it was no more than fair in this case to apply practically the same rule that we did in our own country, and not be more severe on the people of the island than we are upon our own citizens within the continental limits of the United States. The CHAIRMAN. That is to do the dredging ourselves and compel them to furnish the bulkheads? i General BEACH. Yes, and the disposal areas. Gentlemen, we have done pretty well for to-day, and we will now stand adjourned until to-morrow morning at 10.30. (Thereupon, at 4.30 o'clock p. m., Thursday, April 3, 1924, the committee adjourned until Friday, April 4, 1924, at 10.30 o'clock a. m.) COMMITTEE ON RIVERS AND HARBORS, The committee met, Hon. S. Wallace Dempsey (chairman) presiding. STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. LANSING H. BEACH, CHIEF OF ENGINEERS, UNITED STATES ARMY PORT ORCHARD BAY, WASH. The CHAIRMAN. General Beach, was it your suggestion that we take up Port Orchard Bay, Wash.? General BEACH. Yes; that is a very important little piece of work; we might take that up. Puget Sound has one of the largest naval stations we have, or, rather, on a branch leading off from Puget Sound, at Bremerton. The channel of Bremerton extends through what is called Richs Passage, and right in the middle of Richs Passage is a very pronounced shoal. The CHAIRMAN. I wish you would show us where that is on this big map. General BEACH. It is almost directly opposite Seattle. Here is this little branch or inlet and Bremerton is right there [indicating on map]. The shoal is right at the bend here [indicating] where boats have considerable difficulty in turning. The channel is from 55 to 65 and 70 feet on each side of the shoal, but there is only a little water on top of it, so that the big boats coming in have great difficulty in getting past there making the turn. The CHAIRMAN. In other words, the channel on either side is too narrow to permit space for convenient passage? General BEACH. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. And you have to have the entire width of the channel to give you the room necessary for the boats to come in there? General BEACH. Combined with that bend, which is just beyond the shoal. And considering the fact that that is the only naval station and port of refuge north of San Francisco, and it is very important that the deepest draft naval vessels should be able to get in there. The CHAIRMAN. I see. That is a passage leading westward past Seattle sort of a salt water bay-is it not? General BEACH. Yes; it is a salt water bay. |