SPECIAL REPORTS FOR FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION, 171
the several business centers, any advantage to be gained thereby is
dubious.
Perhaps the competition and rivalry among dealers is more prominent
 than any evidence of organization. The one single exception
may be noted is that a prominent European firm and also two native
firms in this city receive a preferential rate on unloading and
lighterage charges from two European firms which control the’ unloading
 of ships and lighterage privileges at the port of Amapala.
It is this situation at Amapala which furnishes perhaps the only
chance for application under the subjects of this instruction. Briefly,
German exporting firms for more than 30 years have monopolized
the shipping business in Amapala. They are branches of firms in
Hamburg, and own all the beach frontage. It is estimated that they
receive 20 cents of every dollar’s worth of imports by their charges
for unloading, handling, and lightering to the mainland. This
wide margin permits them to introduce German goods (handled exslusively
 by them) at less cost than corresponding American goods.
The only remedy seems to be the long-considered project to build a
port on Corn Island and connect same to the mainland. This project
was almost begun in the latter part of 1913, but was.dropped for the
time being.
Another thing which acts against American goods, or rather the
amount of American goods, is that all the Government purchases of
voods are made through commission houses (usually the Amapala
firms just mentioned) or thrcugh the Honduran consuls in the
United States.
This Government has recently begun to revive the form of free
trade which at one time existed between Honduras and other Central
American countries. Recently a treaty of “free commerce” was
signed by the Honduras and Salvador officials and a similar treaty
is being considered with Nicaragua. These are designed for protection
 mainly of home products.

SALVADOR.

Special report of Vice Consul Lynn W. Franklin, San Salvador, Salvador,
November 20, 1915 (approved by Consul General Henry F. Tennant).

Salvador is the smallest Central American Republic and the most
densely populated republic of the Western Hemisphere. Its population
 is given as 1,200,000, and it has an area of some 7,225 square
miles. Agriculture is the chief industry and coffee the chief product
(80 per cent). It is rich in minerals, gold, silver, copper, and iron;
the first two are worked to some extent by both foreign and native
capital. The exports of importance of Salvador are precious metals,
coffee, indigo, sugar, balsam, rubber, and hides. The chief imports
are cottons, drugs, foodstuffs, and manufactures of iron and steel.
The capital of the Republic, which is San Salvador, and the towns
of Santa Ana and Sonsonate, are connected by railroad with the
port of Acajutla, on the Pacific coast. The Pan American Railway
is in course of construction and is now some 50 miles from the capital,
the railway being built at the present time from the port of La
Union on the Gulf of Fonseca, where there is constructed the only
concrete pier in the Republic at which ocean vessels can load and
unload by tying up to same.