1939: Honduras

A Central American Republic, Honduras lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, bounded south by Nicaragua, west by the Gulf of Fonseca, Salvador and Guatemala, and north and northwest by the Caribbean. Honduras has a total area of approximately 46,250 sq. mi. and a coastline of 450 mi. The total population by the 1937 estimate was 1,000,000, almost entirely of mixed Spanish and Indian-blood but including a Negro element and about 35,000 aborigines.

The most important crop is bananas, which accounts for over 65 per cent of the total value of exports. Other important products are coconuts, nuts, coffee, corn, beans and sugar cane. Silver is the most important mineral, although gold, copper, lead, zinc, antimony and iron have also been found. Honduran trade has suffered severely from the banana blight. Sigatoka, which has cut banana exports from a high of 29,000,000 stems in 1930 to less than 13,000,000 stems in 1937. By installing piping on the large plantations to spray the crops with copper sulphate, the worst ravages have been checked, and in 1939 the yield was estimated at about 14,700,000 stems. Total exports in 1938 (for an 11-month period) were valued at $7,356,000; total imports at $9,468,000. The United States absorbs 89 per cent of the exports and provides 58 per cent of the imports.

Under a new Constitution effective in 1936, Honduras is governed by a unicameral Congress, the 38 members of which are elected for six-year terms, and administered by a President assisted by a Cabinet. A Permanent Commission of 5 members sits while Congress is not in session for emergency and routine matters. Congress in March 1937 extended its own term to Dec. 4, 1942, and that of President T. C. Andino, who assumed office in 1933 and was since reelected, to Jan. 1, 1943 (from 4 to 6 years).

Under the Andino dictatorship, the moves of the Government and internal policies are rigidly censored. Reports of revolutionary movements seep out at intervals, and there is an insurrectionary party operating continuously against the Government, as is evidenced by such episodes as the fining of one Bjorne Olsen in May 1939 for conspiracy to smuggle rifles to revolutionists in Honduras. In foreign affairs, the year ended without any settlement of the dispute between Honduras and Nicaragua over a border strip good for banana growing, but without serious altercation.