Industrial Cuba
by Robert P. Porter · English · Gutenberg #41463 · 947,453 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Industrial Cuba
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Industrial Cuba
Author: Robert P. Porter
Release date: November 23, 2012 [eBook #41463]
Most recently updated: November 27, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41463
Credits: Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from scanned images of public domain material
from the Google Print project.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INDUSTRIAL CUBA ***
Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from scanned images of public domain material
from the Google Print project.)
Every attempt has been made to replicate the original book as printed.
Some typographical errors have been corrected. No attempt has been
made to correct or normalize the printed accentuation or spelling of
Spanish names or words. (etext transcriber's note)
[Illustration: _Frontispiece._ ENTRANCE TO HAVANA HARBOUR.]
INDUSTRIAL CUBA
BEING A STUDY OF PRESENT COMMERCIAL AND
INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS, WITH SUGGESTIONS
AS TO THE OPPORTUNITIES PRESENTED IN THE
ISLAND FOR AMERICAN CAPITAL, ENTERPRISE,
AND LABOUR.
BY
ROBERT P. PORTER
SPECIAL COMMISSIONER FOR THE UNITED STATES TO CUBA
AND PORTO RICO
WITH MAPS AND 62 ILLUSTRATIONS
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1899
BY
ROBERT P. PORTER
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
TO
WILLIAM McKINLEY
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY
THE AUTHOR
INTRODUCTION
This volume deals with the living questions of Cuba--the questions which
confront the United States in the reconstruction of the Island. It aims
to give a description of Cuba as it appeared to the author when, as
Special Commissioner of the United States, he was sent by President
McKinley to report on its industrial, commercial, and financial
condition, soon after the signing of the protocol of peace, August 12,
1898. It is the result of nearly seven months' inquiry and hard work, in
which the Island has been visited three times, over five hundred
witnesses have been examined, and innumerable statements have been
studied and analysed. In the course of this inquiry the author has
visited all the provinces and nearly all the principal cities and towns.
The merit of the book lies in the freshness and originality of the
material brought together, and the demerit in the fact that it has been
written by one who was obliged to snatch a few hours at a time to map
out or write a chapter. The author realises the defects and asks the
indulgence of the reader on the ground that it is the first attempt to
discuss the economic and political future of Cuba under its new form of
government.
Whatever the future may have in store for this wonderful and unfortunate
Island, the author can truly say that the task allotted him by the
President has, so far as Cuba and the Cuban people are concerned, been
conscientiously and faithfully performed. The measures inaugurated for
the government of the Island, which were based upon the author's
reports, have been scrupulously framed in the interest of Cuba and not
with a view of benefiting by discrimination the United States. The
machinery of the new government has been set running in Cuba, and though
some time may elapse before it is working as smoothly as we would wish,
it has been inaugurated with the sole desire of doing the best possible
by Cuba. Of the rest, the reader must judge for himself. The subject at
least is interesting, even though its treatment here may be a little
statistical. The account of the visit to General Gomez was deemed
sufficiently interesting and important to give it in full, exactly as
the report was made through the Honourable Secretary of the Treasury,
Lyman J. Gage, to the President.
Recognition is due to Mr. W. J. Lampton for his assistance to the
writer.
R. P. P.
36 EAST SIXTY-FIFTH STREET,
NEW YORK.
_February 9, 1899._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--CUBA--POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC 1
II.--CONDITIONS WHICH CONFRONT US 14
III.--POLITICAL FUTURE OF CUBA 32
IV.--THE ENGLISH IN JAMAICA 47
V.--THE AMERICANS IN SANTIAGO 62
VI.--OUTLOOK IN CUBA FOR LABOUR 73
VII.--THE POPULATION OF CUBA 90
VIII.--SANITARY WORK IN CUBA 108
IX.--CITIES AND TOWNS OF CUBA 122
X.--HAVANA 139
XI.--COLONEL WARING'S SANITARY REPORT 154
XII.--MUNICIPAL PROBLEMS IN HAVANA 172
XIII.--BANKS AND CURRENCY 190
XIV.--PAYMENT OF INSURGENT SOLDIERS 204
XV.--THE REVENUE OF CUBA--CUSTOMS TARIFFS 211
XVI.--THE AMENDED TARIFF--OFFICIAL 221
XVII.--THE REVENUE OF CUBA--INTERNAL TAXES 248
XVIII.--HOW THE REVENUE WAS SPENT 256
XIX.--COMMERCE 267
XX.--SUGAR 281
XXI.--TOBACCO 302
XXII.--MINES AND MINING 318
XXIII.--AGRICULTURE AND STOCK 329
XXIV.--TIMBER AND FRUIT 338
XXV.--TRANSPORTATION 351
XXVI.--NAVIGATION 362
XXVII.--EDUCATION AND RELIGION 376
XXVIII.--A MEETING WITH GENERAL GOMEZ 390
XXIX.--CONCLUSION--THE OUTLOOK FOR THE FUTURE 408
[Illustration: _Frontispiece._ ENTRANCE TO HAVANA HARBOUR.]
Illustrations
PAGE
ENTRANCE TO HAVANA HARBOUR Frontispiece
SKETCH-MAP OF THE PROVINCE OF PINAR DEL RIO 8
SKETCH-MAP OF THE PROVINCES OF HAVANA AND MATANZAS 16
BATEY OF SANTA CATALINA 22
SKETCH-MAP OF THE PROVINCE OF SANTA CLARA 28
SKETCH-MAP OF THE PROVINCE OF PUERTO PRINCIPE 38
SKETCH-MAP OF THE PROVINCE OF SANTIAGO DE CUBA 44
ON THE ROAD TO CASTLETON, JAMAICA 50
CATHEDRAL STREET, SANTIAGO DE CUBA 66
From a photograph by J. F. Coonley, Nassau, N. P.
CANE CUTTERS 76
A COUNTRY VILLA 92
CUBAN "GUARACHERO" (MINSTREL) 96
A NATIVE HUT 100
From a photograph by J. F. Coonley, Nassau, N. P.
STREET VIEW, SANTIAGO DE CUBA 108
From a photograph by J. F. Coonley, Nassau, N. P.
WATERMAN IN THE COUNTRY 112
MARIANAO WATER VENDOR 116
SQUARE IN FRONT OF GOVERNOR'S PALACE AT SANTIAGO DE CUBA 122
A MULE TRAIN, SANTIAGO DE CUBA 124
From a photograph by J. F. Coonley, Nassau, N. P.
MATANZAS YUMURI RIVER AND ENTRANCE TO THE VALLEY 128
PANORAMA FROM THE ROAD TO THE CAVES, MATANZAS 132
THE PLAZA, CIENFUEGOS 136
HAVANA, FROM ACROSS THE BAY 146
THE PRADO, HAVANA 150
YARD OF AMERICAN CLUB, HAVANA 156
THE PRADO AND INDIAN STATUE, HAVANA 166
HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT, HAVANA 180
TACON MARKET, HAVANA 186
FIRE DEPARTMENT, SANTIAGO DE CUBA 196
MORRO CASTLE, SANTIAGO DE CUBA 206
PALM TREE BRIDGE 220
AVENUE OF PALM TREES, PALATINO 238
ROAD IN A PINE GROVE OF YUELTA ABAJO 252
A COCOANUT GROVE 262
A SUGAR-CANE TRAIN 272
SUGAR-CANE SCALES 276
CANE FIELDS 282
CUTTING SUGAR-CANE 286
UNLOADING CANE AT A BATEY 290
CYLINDERS FOR GRINDING SUGAR-CANE 294
APPARATUS FOR PACKING SUGAR AT THE SAN JOSE CENTRAL 298
PLANTING TOBACCO 302
TOBACCO FARM AND DWELLING 304
WETTING THE TOBACCO LEAF 308
TOBACCO-DRYING HOUSE 310
BALING TOBACCO 314
OLD COPPER MINES AT LA COPERA 318
MINING CAMP AT FIRENEZA 322
ORE BANK OF JURAGUA MINES 326
OX CART 332
A FOWL VENDOR 334
ROYAL PALMS, YUMURI VALLEY 336
SAGO PALM 338
MAHOGANY CARRIED BY OXEN 340
CUBAN FRUITS 344
COFFEE MILL, SANTIAGO DE CUBA 348
A CONVOY IN THE HILLS 352
A CUBAN VOLANTE 354
CUBAN MULE CART 358
A CURVE ON THE YAGUAJAY RAILROAD 360
THE HAVANA FLOATING DOCK 364
A CUBAN FERRY 368
PIER OF THE JURAGUA IRON CO., LTD. 372
OLD ARCH OF THE JESUIT COLLEGE, HAVANA 378
OLD CATHOLIC CHURCH AT LA COPERA 380
THE CATHEDRAL, HAVANA 384
THE CATHEDRAL, SANTIAGO DE CUBA 388
SPANISH FORT ON RAILROAD TO JURAGUA MINES 396
MAP OF CUBA 416
INDUSTRIAL CUBA
CHAPTER I
CUBA--POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
A nation, like an individual, must be gauged by its endowments, its
environment, its opportunities, and the various causes which from time
to time accelerate or retard its progress.
Cuba is richly endowed with natural resources, it is within a short
distance of the best and most profitable market in the world, and its
opportunities, under favourable conditions of trade, should have made
its population contented and prosperous. Had it not been for the
numerous causes which have retarded all progress in this Island, what
would have been its industrial, commercial, and social conditions at the
close of the present century?
Numbering over a million population fifty years ago, the Island of Cuba,
at the rate of growth common to the more prosperous countries of the
western hemisphere, ought to number at the present time between four and
a half and five millions of inhabitants. With this population, and a
government giving everyone the right to the fruits of his own labour,
Cuba's sugar crop alone would have been more than double the high-water
mark of the last prosperous year, exceeding two millions of tons, with a
value of one hundred millions of dollars.
Tobacco, coffee, tropical fruits, iron ore, other minerals of various
kinds, lumber, cattle, and innumerable other products which form the
commercial wealth of this marvellous Island, would have increased the
annual value of its products to figures ranging between two hundred and
two hundred and fifty millions of dollars, and thus more than doubled,
perhaps trebled, its commercial importance. Laws favourable to trade,
and a government interested in development of home industry would have
retained for Cuba a large proportion of this wealth, and there would
have sprung up an industrial system giving actual employment to as many
people in the gainful occupations as will be found in all Cuba when the
last Spanish soldier departs from the desolate and prostrate Island.
Cuba should have developed some diversified industries, if only those
branches of manufacture which are necessary to supply the requirements
of its own population. In its mineral resources it has the basis for the
manufacture of iron and steel and for the establishment of machine-shops
to supply home demands. In its untouched forests of excellent hardwood,
Cuba possesses the chief raw material for the manufacture of furniture
and other articles for which the Spanish race are justly famous. With
steel and wood for the first quality in abundance, and a water tonnage
of considerable magnitude, there should have sprung up, in many of the
unequalled harbours of the coast of Cuba, shipyards of no mean
dimensions. Without becoming a manufacturing country, except in sugar
and tobacco and a few other products in which Cuba excels, it might,
under favourable conditions, at this period of its industrial history
have been producing many articles of home consumption which, by reason
of the unhappy management of its affairs, it has been compelled to
purchase abroad. Not abroad in the open markets of the world, for that
is another story; but of Spain, because the most infamous discriminating
duties have shut Cuba out of the cheaper markets; and while thus gagged
and bound, the Island has been plundered and despoiled by the mother
country. In this manner have resources and revenue alike been drained
away and nothing left, either for home enterprise or improvement, nor
for reserve capital with which to do business.
Cuba should have established a central railway system running the length
of the Island from east to west, with branches extending on all sides,
like its rivers, to the many good towns and harbours on both north and
south coasts. Instead of this it has a little less than a thousand miles
of line, operated by seven timid companies, extending in various
directions, but leaving the two ends of the Island farther apart in
actual days of travel than are New York and San Francisco. The capital
city of Cuba, Havana, has within it the possibilities of a great and
beautiful city; the commercial and industrial city of a prosperous
country of five millions of people, and the winter health-resort for the
rich and fashionable families of all North America. Its public buildings
should have been of the best, its tropical parks and gardens the most
fascinating in the world, its streets and pavements the most
substantial, its healthfulness unquestioned, and its harbours and docks
thronged with shipping and resonant with commercial activity. The
merchants of Havana should rank among the richest and most prosperous in
the world, and the business, manufacturing, and social interests of the
place be equal to those of Boston or Baltimore or San Francisco. What
applies to Havana applies only in a lesser degree to the other cities of
Cuba, many of which are excellently located and should be important
industrial and commercial centres, with numerous fields for the modern
municipal enterprise which has done so much to improve the condition of
the urban population of Europe and of the United States. Last, though
not least, the Island should have been dotted over with the trinity of
civilisation--the home, the schoolhouse, and the church. It is the lack
of these three great elements of national strength and progress,
underlying Cuba's ills, that is the cause of much of its misfortune.
The building of the home, the establishment of the school, and the
tolerance of religious worship in half a century changed Texas from a
wilderness to a great and prosperous State, with the possibilities of an
empire. These same forces, had full play been given them in Cuba during
the same period, would have transformed that Island into all that has
herein been depicted. Its resources are abundant to maintain five and
even ten millions of persons, for only a small proportion of its area is
populated. The climate is healthful and the dangers to those
unacclimated which lurk in its seaport towns may all be controlled by
sanitary and engineering science. That these possibilities have not been
realised does not lie with Cuba itself, but is due to the numerous
causes which have retarded and stopped its development, and which have
finally, after years of strife and war, left the Island with population
depleted, agriculture prostrate, industry destroyed, and commerce
devastated.
It may be necessary for a clear view of the subject in hand to review
briefly the causes which have led to this unhappy end; but, happily, a
work dealing with the rehabilitation or industrial reconstruction of
Cuba does not require the author either to dwell long upon nor to
emphasise the gloomy side of the picture. The results of Spanish robbery
and misrule speak too plainly. The reader has seen what Cuba might have
been under an honest, stable government, or under the protecting ægis of
the United States. The picture presented is not exaggerated, but is
coloured by a moderate brush. What Cuba is, alas! is too well known to
American and English readers to call for more than a brief summary of
conditions as they existed when the author was requested by the
President of the United States to visit the Island, report upon its
industrial condition, and suggest plans for the relief of the population
and for the commercial and industrial reconstruction of the country.
Visiting the Island immediately after the signing of the protocol of the
cessation of hostilities between the United States and Spain, August 12,
1898, and again returning to Santiago in December after that province
had been in charge of the United States military authorities for nearly
six months, he had ample and satisfactory opportunity for the study of
conditions and future needs of the people. Surely the horrors and the
desolating hand of war were never laid more heavily upon a once
prosperous country. Nearly a third of the population wiped out by
battle, wholesale slaughter, starvation, exposure, or disease, and a
large proportion of those left enfeebled by deprivation and too weak to
take up their occupations; the cane-fields and tobacco plantations,
which formed the basis of prosperity, burned, and whole sections of
country swept of every vestige of civilisation; sugar-centrals, houses,
and structures of all kinds destroyed, and inhabitants either dead or
huddled half starved in miserable huts near the towns and cities; not a
living creature to be seen where once browsed innumerable cattle, and
death, destruction, and desolation spread throughout this land that
should, and under ordinary circumstances would, be as full of life and
prosperity as the richest agricultural section of our own country.
Nor were the cities and towns exempted. Trade and commerce at a
standstill; the few sickly manufacturing industries which at the best
struggled under the most adverse conditions closed, the ruined buildings
emphasising the scene of desolation. In Havana, the wharves and numerous
large warehouses were empty, or converted into rendezvous and hospitals
for Spanish troops. Hungry and discouraged, the native population stood
listlessly on the streets and in the public places. At each station the
railroad trains were boarded by half-starving women or children begging
for bread or coppers. The principal signs of life were exhibited by the
Spanish soldiers, who, with their blue cotton uniforms and Mauser
rifles, seemed to form the greater part of the population of the cities
and towns, while at the small country railroad stations the squads of
woe-begone soldiers alongside the blockhouses comprised the only living
relief to miles of waste. The Cuban railways, like all other implements
of industry in the unfortunate Island, show evidences of the conflict.
Stations burned, bridges destroyed, tracks torn up, freight-cars made
into portable blockhouses, locomotives blown to pieces, and
passenger-cars dilapidated and dingy. In short, a country more
systematically pillaged, more infamously deprived of its resources, more
wantonly plundered of its revenues, and a population more completely
deprived of its rights by those who had every reason to foster and
protect a valuable possession cannot be found recorded in ancient or
modern history. Cuba, as it was left at the close of this year by the
Spanish, who to the last moment seemed loth to leave the emaciated body
which their inordinate greed had thus reduced, presents a picture so sad
and sorrowful that, for the sake of our common humanity, it is better to
draw a curtain over the past and direct attention to the happier omens
which point to the possibilities of the future.
The work of industrial, commercial, and social reconstruction of Cuba
must date from the eventful day when the Stars and Stripes were unfurled
above Morro Castle. It is with this work that the present volume deals.
Whatever form the government of Cuba may take, the responsibility of the
commercial and industrial rehabilitation of the Island must rest with
the United States. The power that forced the Spanish to evacuate the
Island is the power which the world will hold responsible for the future
welfare of its people. The timid, the weak, and the craven-hearted who
contend that the United States has no responsibility, after it has
assumed all responsibility, are entitled to no voice in the disposition
of Cuba. The cost to the United States cannot be put in the balance
against the duty of the United States. The moral obligation, therefore,
toward Cuba and humanity must come first. The war was a war of humanity
and not of conquest. The same principle must guide those upon whose
shoulders will fall the more difficult task of restoring peace, forming
a stable government, and reviving commerce and industry. For the United
States to desert Cuba in its hour of greatest need would be more
inhuman than it would have been to have left it to Weyler and his policy
of extermination. The plain duty of the hour, so far as the United
States is concerned, and the best means of solving all political
questions which may arise in connection with the Island, is to begin at
once the work of economic or industrial reconstruction, postponing for
future discussion all political questions. To this end the mission
already referred to was projected. To this end a firm military
government, capable of keeping law and order, will be established. To
this end the attention of the people of Cuba should be at once directed
toward the economic questions upon which depend the progress and
prosperity of the population.
The destruction and disorganisation brought about by the war will make
the work of placing the Island in a favourable economic condition costly
and protracted, and many years must elapse before Cuba will take its
rightful place in the economies of the world. By this is meant the
position to which its resources and location entitle it. If it is true,
and I doubt it not, that the causes which have led to war, both in 1868
and in 1895, were more economic than political (and the greater
importance of economic over political questions in such a colony of
small and mixed population as Cuba is easy to understand), then Cuba
to-day is free. The Spanish Government would have more willingly granted
political freedom to Cuba had it not been for the well-grounded fear
that economic concessions would have necessarily followed. Those United
States officials who have been in Cuba since the signing of the protocol
of peace understand this fully. The United States Military
Commissioners, in their daily intercourse with Spanish officials, have
found no sentiment of resentment toward the United States. The regrets
have all been of a sordid character and may be summed up in loss of
revenue and commerce for Spain.
The war which has just been brought to an end really began in 1868.
Although between 1878 and 1895 there was some appearance of peace, the
real situation in Cuba during these seventeen years was one of silent
economic struggle with Spain. The meaning of the peace of Zanjon (1878)
was that Spaniards and Cubans were to be treated alike. The fact has
been, however, that the Cuban native population has been kept in a
condition similar to slavery. The means employed have been skilful and
full of cunning. Leaving to the Cubans complete liberty of discussion by
means of the press, the Government has felt itself powerful enough to
despise them, and when warned of the danger of a new revolution, always
considered impossible this last extremity. This feeling of absolute
confidence and reliance on the military power of Spain has constantly
been expressed in Madrid, both officially and privately, and also by the
Spanish party in Cuba. During the years 1878-1895, a political
organisation (the Autonomist party) was formed in opposition to the
obstinate Spanish party. It would be too tedious to go now into the
details of contemporary Cuban politics; it is enough to say that the
Spanish Government has been to the last moment strenuously opposed to
any plan of real autonomy, that is, to an autonomy that would grant
industrial freedom to Cuba. Even the laws of autonomy actually conceded
in 1897-1898, as a last and desperate resource against the revolution,
were not granted in good faith, as is well known to those who have
carefully watched the course of Cuban-Spanish politics. Therefore,
although the Cubans knew very well how superior to their own strength
was the Spanish power, and understood equally well how great and
numerous were the dangers of a new insurrection, nevertheless the
sufferings of the entire native population were such that the popular
sentiment became irresistible, and after a few fruitless outbreaks the
war was renewed in 1895.
[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF THE PROVINCE OF PINAR DEL RIO.]
The long contest between Spain and Cuba has been finally decided by
American intervention, without which the war must have been protracted
until the Island was completely devastated and ruined; and even then
Spain would never have given it up. Not from patriotic motives, but
simply and solely because it yielded revenue to Spain's depleted
treasury, and gave her sons an opportunity for pillage and plunder. The
tenacity with which these officials have clung to the offices, and the
difficulty which the United States Commissioners encountered in
obtaining a relinquishment of the custom-houses, all point to the
cupidity of the Spanish, and show that they were in Cuba for revenue
exclusively.
Considering now the political aspect of Cuban affairs after the protocol
of August 12, 1898, it will be found that no well-defined scheme of
political organisation exists in Cuba, and that the only really popular
and, it may be said, unanimous feeling is that liberty, in all the
legitimate meanings of this word, is necessary. The actual situation may
be compared to an anarchy, for there is really no supreme authority. How
to discuss and establish any political laws in the midst of this
existing legal anarchy and complete lack of political experience, is the
question confronting the United States Government. This situation and
many other conditions that are the natural consequences of the last
events point out the necessity of forming provisionally a strong
government in Cuba, under the guidance and protection of the United
States. Under such protection the work of rebuilding the industries
destroyed, and of once more making productive the fields burned and the
plantations dismantled and devastated, can be carried on, and in no
other way.
With these general conditions in mind, it may be well to ascertain if
there exist any facts of a promising nature, which will contribute to
make easier the work the United States has undertaken. It is undoubtedly
true that the people of Cuba can be brought together on economic
questions, if not on those of a political character. The United States
has specifically disclaimed "any disposition or intention to exercise
sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said Island," except for "the
pacification thereof." If, therefore, the pacification can be more
easily and surely accomplished by giving Cuba industrial freedom,--the
right to buy in the most advantageous markets in the world, and sell
where the natural demands for its products exist,--the United States has
the right before all the world to carry out that programme. Spain never
granted this right to Cuba, not even in the alleged Autonomist
Government wrung from Madrid when war with the United States seemed
imminent and Spanish diplomacy was in the last ditch.
The signs and omens for crystallising public sentiment in the Island of
Cuba on all industrial questions are far more hopeful at the present
moment than are those which indicate the possibility of establishing a
stable government, and thus leaving the management and control of the
Island to its people. There is now no opposition nor rivalry of
different interests among the Cubans, as the strong and important
industries in Cuba, most of them agricultural, are of such a nature that
they may all thrive at the same time. Until now the condition has been
different, because the prosperity of all Cuban industries has been
thwarted and impeded by the protection and privileges which the Spanish
Government had to grant to the Peninsular industries, whose interests
(always in opposition to the legitimate wants of Cuba) have ever been
systematically preferred to those most vital in the Island. Another fact
is that the productive energy of Cuba and the fertility of its soil are
so great, and the real needs of the population so very small, that the
process of accumulating capital will become very rapid, after the worst
results of the late war are over and a settled and stable government has
been established. How far the natural resources of the country will
contribute to this result will soon be understood and appreciated.
Heretofore, the yearly increase of public wealth has been a very
doubtful quantity, and it has never been possible to build any hope on
that ground, because all industrial profits have been absorbed by Spain,
without leaving any surplus to provide for the accumulation of capital
and the material progress of the Island. The consequences of the
Spanish colonial system have been such that even before the present war
Cuba was already ruined. The 1895-1898 war has completed and aggravated
to the utmost degree the material ruin of the Island. The ultimate
result of this industrial thraldom has been the never-ending removal of
Cuban wealth to Spain, without any return. The means employed for
securing that object were numberless.
The irresponsible methods of governing Cuba converted the Island into a
powerful means of political influence in the hands of the Ministers. The
most difficult political questions, either personal or otherwise, were
usually decided at the expense of Cuba. Very often the single signature
of a Minister of the Colonies was sufficient to make the fortune of a
man for his whole life; and it is easy to understand that every
political party in Spain would be opposed to any reform that should
deprive it of such efficient means of influence and power. With very few
exceptions, all the Spanish officials in Cuba, from the lowest to the
highest, came from Spain. Their number was extraordinarily large, and
their work, as a general rule, pitifully bad; their constant aim being
to do as little work as possible, and to enrich themselves, at the cost
of Cuba, as quickly as they could. The fleet of the Spanish
transatlantic steamers was constantly employed in transferring
impecunious officials from Spain to Cuba, and taking them back again
with more or less wealth acquired during their residence in the Island,
and sometimes with pensions during their lives and the lives of their
widows and daughters. Even a share of the passage money of these
officials "both ways" was paid by Cuba.
Besides this salaried staff of officials, backed by the army and navy
(which were wholly paid by Cuba), Spain depended for the support of its
rule in Cuba on the so-called Spanish political party, known since 1878
as the "Union Constitutional." This party comprises the whole of the
Spanish population in Cuba, which is very numerous; and the blind and
unconditional support it gave to every measure of government, or of
misgovernment, whether the ruling party in Spain was liberal or
conservative, was paid for by the Government in many different ways, and
in such a degree that whatever might be the economic situation of Cuba,
the men belonging to the Spanish party had always the means of enriching
themselves. To these causes of impoverishment must be added the results
of the commercial policy of Spain; a subject which will receive
attention later in this volume. In vain the productive classes of Cuba
protested, during many years, against this deadly regime. It is no
wonder, therefore, that the insatiable ambition of Spain should have led
to such an antagonism of interests as to render a Cuban insurrection
necessary, there being no peaceful means of convincing Spain of its
folly. In the same measure as Cuba was reduced to utter bankruptcy and
poverty, the importation of Cuban wealth into Spain, without any return,
increased year after year. More particularly after the price of sugar
fell permanently (in 1884) to about one-half of its former value, and
after the complete abolition of slavery took place (in 1885), was the
contrast strikingly manifested between the gradual exhaustion of Cuba
and the ever-increasing exactions of the mother country. It may with
accuracy be said that after the slavery of the negroes came to an end,
Spain possessed the power of reducing to real slavery the whole native
Cuban population, both white and black.
For this systematic process of thorough draining, Prime Minister Canovas
invented the name or appellation of _realidad nacional_ (national
reality), meaning thereby that the necessity of maintaining the old
colonial system could not be avoided, as it had become interwoven with
the Spanish economics in such a degree as to make it impossible for any
Government, either conservative or liberal, to interfere with it. The
Cubans could not accept, without repeatedly protesting against it, the
oppressive system of the "national reality," for which name they
substituted, very properly and accurately, the denomination of
"economical slavery." It is now useless to explain in how many forms,
and how often, the Cubans have appealed to the Madrid Government,
especially since 1890. But all their efforts failed, and the necessary
outcome of those failures was war. Cuba, no more a European colony, will
henceforth be an entirely American country. It is now completely ruined
and devastated, and many years of peaceful industry will be necessary in
order to convert its unhappy people into a prosperous nation. How that
can best be accomplished is of far more importance to the people of Cuba
at this time than the question of who shall administer the government.
For the present, at least, if its people are wise, the Island will be
content with the industrial freedom which has been accorded to it, and
rejoice in the fact that it is an American country, and not a Spanish
dependency.
CHAPTER II
CONDITIONS WHICH CONFRONT US
To treat of Cuba as an American country is the purpose of this volume.
If the people of the Island, regardless of nationality, will only
postpone the question of the particular form of government for the
present, and give all their attention to the new economic questions
which confront them, the future will be full of promise. Cuba is no
longer a European colony, but an American country, under the protection
of the United States. So long as the Island is occupied and governed by
the military forces of the United States, law and order will be
maintained and equal rights will be granted to all the people. From an
industrial point of view Cuba will have practically obtained what she
has been fighting for for nearly a generation: namely, industrial and
commercial freedom. The United States will administer the laws for the
Cubans in the interest of Cuba. The United States asks nothing in return
but the same opportunity for trade and commerce as is accorded to the
other countries of the world. The Republic will levy no tribute, nor
will it exact a dollar of taxation over and above the revenue necessary
for protecting life and property, and the cost of inaugurating such
works for the improvement of sanitation, or the carrying on of
industries, as may become necessary.
Many Cubans, and a very large number of Spaniards, who appeared before
the author when in Cuba, for the purpose of giving testimony on
industrial and commercial matters, took it for granted that the United
States would, in making up the new fiscal laws for the Island, exact
discriminating duties in favour of the United States and against
European countries. When told nothing of the sort was contemplated, the
Cubans were surprised and the Spaniards incredulous. Indeed, the latter
were astounded, and seemed to wonder what the United States was in Cuba
for. Even American citizens interested in pushing their Cuban trade have
expressed surprise at the absolute freedom which has been allowed all
fiscal legislation, and the scrupulous care exercised by our Government
not to exact any right itself which is not accorded to other nations. In
such matters we are of course bound by our international treaties, and
so long as Cuba remains under the protection of the Republic, and not
part of it, she must be treated, so far as customs regulations and
navigation laws are concerned, as a free country. In the preliminary
work of economic reconstruction these sound principles have been kept in
mind and adhered to. In fact, the fullest and broadest plan was chosen
by the Administration to secure information in Cuba; and the refrain of
the instructions, both from President McKinley and his able and
broad-minded Secretary of the Treasury, was, to spare neither time nor
money to secure the views of all the people of Cuba; for whatever the
United States Government finds necessary to do in the Island must be
done, as far as possible, by the people of Cuba, for Cubans, and in the
interests of Cuba. By this it must not be inferred that those of Spanish
birth were to be excluded, but, on the contrary, that the views of all
who proposed to remain in Cuba and help by their labour and thrift to
build up the industry and commerce of the Island should be sought and
considered.
In following out the spirit of these statesmanlike instructions, the
author invited, through the newspapers, all persons interested in the
industry, trade, foreign commerce, and currency and banking system of
Cuba to express their views on these and kindred topics. Many responded,
and as may be imagined the information gathered took a wide range, and
will, it is hoped, be of practical value in adjusting the questions with
which the Government of the United States will have to deal during the
military occupation of the Island. In the prosecution of this work,
public hearings were given in Havana, Cienfuegos, and Santiago; and to
committees of persons representing interests at Trinidad, Caibarien,
Sagua la Grande, and other parts of the Island an opportunity was given
to express their views as to the industrial necessities of their
respective communities. In New York and Washington opportunity was given
to those interested in Cuban commerce and such American citizens as
represent large sugar estates, iron mines, and tobacco and fruit
interests in the Island of Cuba, to present a full and free expression
of their views on all topics included in the scope of the investigation.
A large amount of information was thus obtained, and no inconsiderable
assistance rendered by these gentlemen. With hardly an exception, such
assistance has been rendered freely and disinterestedly, and the author
takes this occasion to thank a large number of business men who have
been found ready and willing to drop their business at any moment and
devote much valuable time in an endeavour to elucidate the somewhat
complicated conditions which surround the commerce and industry of Cuba.
In Cuba every possible consideration was shown to the writer and no
pains nor trouble were spared on the part of the Spanish officials and
business men to give all required information and to aid in the inquiry
undertaken. In this work neither political prejudice nor nationality
took any part. The Spanish bankers and merchants, whose influence a few
weeks previously had been arrayed against the United States, came
forward and placed such information as they had at the disposal of the
United States Government. The Cubans engaged in business, and the
military commanders in the field, from Generals Gomez and Rodriguez
down, have alike assured me of their sympathy in the work thus
instituted by the United States, and proffered their services in its
prosecution. The following expression from the veteran warrior, General
Gomez, dated Boffill Plantation, October 3, 1898, will be read in this
connection with interest:
"I must congratulate you cordially for the high mission which you
have had entrusted to you. I am completely identified in all and
with all concerning it; I reserve for a better opportunity giving
you my personal views on the matter.... On my side I am working in
the same sense; I am doing all I can for the immediate
reconstruction of the country; its wounds will heal with the rapid
promotion of the work. This is the battle we are now fighting, and
all men of good will should join us in our struggle. I avail myself
of this opportunity to tender my services."
The business men and merchants of Havana and other large cities,
regardless of nationality, have rendered services of incalculable value
to this inquiry, on the ground that the one thing that Cuba wants more
than all else is, as General Gomez truly says, that its people should
lay down their arms and take up the implements of peace. The Presidents
of the Chambers of Commerce of Havana, Cienfuegos, and Santiago have all
taken an interest in this work and elaborate reports were prepared by
committees appointed especially to aid in gauging the industrial
necessities of the Island. A similar report has been prepared for
Matanzas.
Whatever may be the shortcomings of this volume on _Industrial Cuba_,
they must not be attributed either to lack of interest on the part of
the people of Cuba, or to any failure on their part to give information,
especially on all matters relating to foreign commerce. There is, of
course, a dearth of statistical information, in consequence of which it
has been difficult to work out certain fiscal statements and estimates
with the degree of exactitude easily attainable on the same lines at
home. The information which has been obtained, however, would seem to
leave no room for doubt as to the wisest course for the United States
Government to pursue in adjusting Cuban customs duties, in establishing
a sound currency, in protecting the savings of the people, in preventing
usury, in abolishing onerous and iniquitous taxation, in establishing
free schools, in starting new and reviving the old industries of Cuba,
in increasing commerce, in improving the sanitary condition of the
cities, in distributing labour, and in the general industrial and moral
upbuilding of the people.
The present volume touches on all these topics, and endeavours to give
the reader a clear and practical idea of the present industrial
condition of Cuba. The present chapter aims to present in a concise form
a few of the more important problems which the United States Government
was called upon to face January 1, 1899, and with which it may have to
grapple during the first years of the new century. No attempt is made to
forecast the manner of their settlement. It is not, as a rule, wise to
worry about how we are to cross a bridge until we get to it. Many Cuban
economic problems which at a distance seem to be complicated, will
simplify as we come within close range. Once the United States military
authorities are in possession, ways and means will suggest themselves to
overcome obstacles which now seem almost insurmountable. The most urgent
needs of the Island, when it was turned over to our Government, were
those briefly discussed in this review of the economic conditions of
Cuba.
First among these needs of the Island was a tariff that should bear
lightest in directions where the people could least afford the burden of
taxation, and heaviest on commodities which the well-to-do and those
engaged in large enterprises required. The Spanish tariff was made by
Spaniards, for Spain, in the interests of the Spanish. That seems to be
the actuating principle of it. On any other theory it was inexplicable.
In adopting, July, 1898, for an exigency measure, the rates of duty
which Spain levied for her own commodities, the United States acted
wisely. These rates, however, were full of inequalities, and were not
levied on any sound principle, but on the "heads, Spain wins; tails,
Cuba loses" idea which prevailed in the whole fiscal fabric. It was
found that the only way to remedy these inequalities, equalise the rates
of duties, improve the administration, and reduce the rates of duties on
all articles of general consumption, was to frame a practically new
tariff. This was done, and the new tariff now in force will undoubtedly
do its share in the industrial reconstruction of Cuba. In this tariff it
was not thought advisable to make radical changes in the administrative
branches, nor to change weights and measures into United States
equivalents, because the people of Cuba are accustomed to the metric
system. As a rule, all duties in Cuba are levied by the kilo and hundred
kilos. United States currency, however, was substituted for the Spanish
_pesos_. This will simplify collection of taxes, as customs duties were
collected by Spain in three different classes of currency: gold, silver,
and bank notes, all (for the gold coins used in Cuba have fictitious
values) fluctuating in value.
The tariff adopted by the United States, when the military forces took
charge of the custom-houses, reduced all duties about sixty per cent. on
the old Spanish rate, and averages fully two-thirds less than the rates
exacted by Spain in Cuban ports during the last five months of its
occupancy of the Island. The reasons for these reductions, together with
the reasons which led up to the decision of the President to admit
cattle and agricultural implements free into Cuban ports in possession
of the United States, are fully given in another chapter. Still another
chapter will be devoted to an analysis and discussion of the Cuban
Budget, in which the effect of the new tariff on the revenue of the
country, together with the other sources of revenue, are explained and
discussed. It will naturally be asked: With such a large reduction of
duties, how does the United States expect to secure revenue for the
purpose of administering the government of the Island? There are several
answers to this question, and the facts bearing on the subject are given
in full in the chapter on the Cuban Budget. The general answer is that
by reason of fraudulent classification and smuggling, much of the
revenue collected from the people of Cuba never found its way into the
treasury of that Island, nor of Spain. The cupidity and rapacity of the
Spanish officials in Cuba are beyond conception, and, if one may judge
by the reports of the United States customs officials at Santiago, as
much revenue will be received from a tariff whose duties are from a half
to two thirds less than the Spanish tariff as was received under the
iniquitous and exasperating law which has been abolished by the advent
of the American forces. As the officials recommending the measure
believed, the reduction to a reasonable rate of duty in certain
schedules--such, for example, as those relating to machinery and railway
supplies--would increase importation, and certainly the revenue would be
greater than during the period of prohibitory duties. A railway company
naturally hesitated to import a locomotive when the duty was equivalent
to the value of the engine. With a revised tariff of twenty-five per
cent. ad valorem, it may import two, or four, or even six. In adjusting
such schedules, the revenue features alone need be considered, because
Cuba has no locomotive works, or any iron or steel industry. The same is
true of a variety of other articles.
In all cases where there are home industries in Cuba capable of
supplying a manufactured product made by home labour, care was exercised
by those who framed this tariff (either by making free the raw material,
or by not making a too radical reduction of duty) not to injure their
prospects. In so doing, the Administration is only carrying out the
policy which has been fruitful in developing the industries of the
United States and in securing diversified employment for its labour. If
honestly enforced, the new tariff established in Cuba by the United
States will yield sufficient revenue, enable Cuba to buy in the cheapest
markets of the world, and not compel her to purchase from Spain inferior
commodities at a high price. In every section it is a Cuban measure, and
in no single case can there be found a section that discriminates in
favour of the United States as against any other market. The United
States purposes to take its chances for the Cuban trade with the rest of
the world. If Cuba can purchase cheaper and better articles on more
favourable terms of the United States than of Europe, we shall secure
the trade. If not, the Cuban consumer is free to purchase in the markets
of the world. In this one act alone, conservative, thoughtful Cubans
must realise that they have attained to the commercial freedom which
some, not without reason, contend was the real object of the two
insurrections. However that may be, Cuba has secured a right which
England would never concede to Ireland, namely, a separate revenue
system. In granting this economic freedom to her other colonies, England
has strengthened their ties to the mother country. With industrial
freedom assured, a colonial country may be indifferent to the form of
its political government.
Next in importance to the fiscal laws for the revenue of the Island
comes the currency question. No country can be permanently prosperous
unless its currency is sound and its credit good. Bad financial
management of state affairs begets bad credit, and impaired credit is
the forerunner of depreciated currency. Although Cuba is afflicted with
many kinds of depreciated currency, the established basis is strictly
gold, and in any commercial engagement the value is understood to be in
Spanish gold, unless there is a specification to the contrary. Indeed,
there is something almost pathetic in the manner in which Cuba, though
plundered and depleted of her resources and wealth, has never wavered
from the gold standard. The business interests of the Island are, as the
author found, unanimously in favour of a continued gold basis; for the
Cubans have suffered so much from Spain's various attempts to force upon
the people a depreciated currency, both in the form of silver and bank
bills, that they want no further experiments with the currency. The
Spanish silver money current in the Island is taken at the daily value
only, which is fixed, partly by the larger or smaller demand for wages
and necessities of the Government to pay troops, but principally by the
continually fluctuating value of the Spanish money in the European
markets. As this Spanish silver is legal tender in Spain for its face
value, it is able to maintain a fictitious value for purposes of
shipment to that country. This silver dollar, therefore, fluctuates in
value with the fitful changes in Spain's credit, and it is probable,
should the United States establish American currency as sole legal
tender for the Island of Cuba, that all the Spanish silver dollars will
be shipped to Spain. There was in Cuba during the last months of Spanish
control a margin of thirty per cent. on the silver dollars. It is not
probable that these dollars will go down to a point where it will not
pay to ship the Spanish silver to Spain and utilise the American dollar
in Cuba. In this event the United States Government will, of course,
ship its own silver dollars to Cuba; which, with the subsidiary coins,
will be required for small payments. At Santiago the immediate
disappearance of Spanish dollars and minor coins has made small
transactions extremely difficult. Some think that the present stock of
Spanish silver in the Island exceeds the necessities; but however this
may be in the western part of the Island, it was evidently not the case
in Santiago.
[Illustration: BATEY OF SANTA CATALINA.]
Besides the silver, there is a bank-note circulation, but that has no
actual bearing on the question of currency, as the trade and business of
the Island has refused to accept it, and the present quoted value is
less than ten cents on the dollar. The greater part of this emission,
which was a war issue made by the Spanish Government at Madrid through
the _Banco Espanol de la Isla de Cuba_ (not _by_ that bank), is largely
in the hands of speculators and government contractors. The only public
application is for the payment in the custom-house of the so-called ten
per cent. ad valorem duty assessed on the official value of imported
merchandise in addition to the regular specific rate of duty exacted.
The abolition of this duty, under the new tariff, ends the life of
these bank bills. There still remains a question as to whether the
Spanish Bank of Cuba was in any way responsible for these bills, and the
question will come up for future adjustment. The Bank will probably deny
responsibility and refer those who hold this depreciated currency to the
Spanish Government at Madrid. It is an interesting fact in this
connection that the credit of the Spanish Bank of Cuba is of a higher
standard than the credit of the Spanish Government, for the Bank has
never failed to redeem its own paper during nearly half a century of its
existence, first as the Bank of Spain of Havana and subsequently under
its present name. It has at times suffered embarrassment, but ultimately
the bills of the Spanish Bank of the Island of Cuba have always been
redeemed.
The gold coins current in Cuba are the Spanish and French coins, the
bulk of which consists of Spanish twenty-five-_peseta_ pieces, so-called
Alfonsinos, which for many years have been inflated by royal decree to
$5.30, and the French twenty-franc piece, so-called Napoleons, which
have also been given a legal value of $4.24 and decreed since the end of
1893 as legal money.[1] When the necessity for adopting and inflating
another gold coin besides the Spanish Alfonsino was under discussion,
the suggestion was made that the United States gold eagle would make an
excellent coin for this purpose, as it would figure out almost exactly
eleven dollars Spanish gold.[2] The idea was not entertained, because of
the general distrust of Americans, and the fear lest the relations
between the United States and Cuba should become too intimately
interwoven.
STATEMENT SHOWING VALUE OF UNITED STATES GOLD IN COMPARISON WITH
SPANISH AND FRENCH GOLD ON THE BASIS OF PAR VALUE
Spanish Alfonsino $5.
French Napoleon 4.
Spanish Alfonsino, value in Havana $5.
Value in United States mint ($4.80 less shipping
expenses, .024) 4.776
------
$0.224.
Exchange 4-11/16%
French Napoleon, value in Havana $4.
Value in United States mint ($3.84 less shipping
expenses, .0192) 3.8208
-------
$0.1792
Exchange 4-11/16%
Value of $5, less 1/2% shipping expenses $4.975. At 4-11/16%
Quotations: £ Stlg., Spain, $39.40 currency in Havana, 10% £ in U. S.
4.84
STATEMENT SHOWING ACTUAL VALUE OF $1. SPANISH SILVER
100,000 dollars Spanish silver can be bought to-day here with $66,000
Spanish gold, equal to $60,000 U. S. currency.
100,000 silver dollars shipped to Spain after deducting 1% shipping
expenses would produce $99,000.
99,000 dollars Spanish silver on Spain will buy at rate of £1, which is
$7.88, £12,563. £12,563 would produce in the U. S. at $4.84, $60,804.92.
Cost $60,000
Proceeds 60,804.92
----------
$ 804.92, from which deduct
commission, revenue
stamp, interest,
and profit.
While the principal banking concerns are unanimous as to the gold
standard, there is a difference of opinion in relation to the
advisability of squeezing the inflation out of these gold coins. Some of
the Cuban bankers and financiers contend that the United States
Government should add another gold coin to the currency, namely, the
American eagle; and, by maintaining the fictitious value given to the
other two gold coins, leave it equivalent to eleven dollars in Cuba.
This, it is claimed, will be a very easy way of leaving matters _in
statu quo_, as it were, until such time as permanent government and laws
shall be provided for the Island. They fear that to make the United
States currency legal tender would work an injury to the creditor class,
whose contracts would then be payable in gold worth six per cent. less
than the gold specified in such contracts. There are others, whose
opinions are equally worthy of consideration, who recommend as the only
logical remedy for this situation the substitution of the American
currency as sole legal tender. Such action on the part of the United
States Government it is believed would not seriously interfere with
present contracts, which are invariably expressed as payable in Spanish
gold, and which might be arranged for accordingly.
The premium on Spanish gold was never agreed to by the business people.
Having thus arbitrarily put a premium on Spanish gold, the same
authorities later put a premium on French gold, and to make the matter
more complicated, the United States Government is now requested, by some
of the Cuban financiers, to introduce another gold coin, which,
practically, will be worth ten per cent. more in Cuba than in the United
States; that is, a man owing $1,100 gold in Cuba may pay that debt with
$1,000 gold in United States currency. As a temporary measure, and in
view of the fact that this inflation so far as Spanish coin goes has
been in force for over half a century, this may be justifiable. The
process, however, is entirely artificial, and to continue it would
certainly result in many complications. Some Cuban financiers think it
inadvisable to introduce American money at this time, while certain
planters are fearful lest their labourers should refuse to take one
American silver dollar instead of two Spanish silver dollars. The latter
looks larger in amount, it must be granted; but if the purchasing power
of the American dollar, by reason of the sound credit of the United
States, is double that of the depreciated dollar, with only Spain's
guaranty between it and its intrinsic value of fifty cents, there will
be no difficulty in the end. A country which is just now going through
an operation involving its very existence will hardly be seriously
affected by taking this fictitious value out of the gold coin and
establishing once and for all a sound currency that will be good for a
hundred cents on the dollar--no more, no less--the world over.
Cuba has no banks in the national sense. There are some excellent
private banks, and since its establishment, nearly half a century ago,
the Spanish Bank of Cuba has cut an important figure in the finance of
the Island.
In another chapter, a brief history of banking in the Island from the
earliest period to the present time will be given. For the present, the
banking facilities are adequate to the business, because it would be
extremely hazardous to loan money in Cuba on any kind of collateral or
property. Upon the revival of business, however, the agricultural
interests will require facilities for obtaining money in advance of the
crops at reasonable rates of interest, and protection from the
abominable usury which heretofore has blighted the strongest industries
of the Island and added materially to the burdens of the Cuban planters.
There are so many forms of obnoxious taxes in Cuba that even a brief
description of them would occupy considerable space and convert this
volume into a treatise on the evils of Spanish taxation. Foremost among
the taxes which the United States will abolish is the "consumption tax,"
on the killing of cattle, which is an exaction that greatly increases
the price of food to the people. This tax, like many others, was simply
farmed out to private firms or corporations, whose emissaries in its
collection became a constant menace to thrift and industry in their
respective districts. Another tax, which will fall of its own weight,
now that the United States forces control the Island, is the "cedula,"
or head tax, which varied in amount from a few cents to one hundred
dollars, according to the rank and importance of the individual.
Curiously enough, this tax, when not collected, became under Spanish
rule a greater source of injustice and annoyance than when collected. It
was generally allowed to run until some occasion came for the unhappy
victim of Spanish rapacity to require a public document, a permit to
bury a child or relative, a licence to marry, a transfer of real estate,
or a notarial acknowledgment. Then it was that the petty rascals in
charge of public business came down heavily, and unless the fines and
back "cedula" and a handsome "gratification" to the official was
forthcoming, the body must await interment, the marriage must be
postponed, or the transaction be delayed.
The United States Government will not continue taxes that yield nothing
in revenue and were simply the means by which unprincipled officials
whose cupidity seemed to know no bounds were enabled to plunder and
distress the weak and the unfortunate. The "consumption tax," the
"cedula," and the revenue from "lotteries," must necessarily disappear
with the advent of United States administration of affairs.
Until the tax laws of Cuba can be thoroughly revised, the revenue from
customs, from the various forms of internal revenue (and there are
many), and from the receipts from taxes upon municipal real estate will,
if the strictest economy prevail, suffice for immediate wants, without
resorting to measures of taxation which are alike debasing and
tyrannical. It is impossible to make specific suggestions at this time
in relation to a subject so hopelessly complicated. After the
administration of affairs of the Island has been longer in the hands of
United States officials, these matters may be carefully studied and
adjusted on a basis of equality and justice to all concerned. The true
inwardness of Spanish taxation, as developed in the Island of Cuba, can
be studied and remedied only after time has elapsed and all the facts
are in possession of those who have assumed the responsibility of
control.
The question of education is one that will receive early attention, and
in which the President of the United States has personally evinced
considerable interest. Free public schools exist, but the teachers have
the right to take pay scholars, and naturally those who do not pay get
little or no attention. In the cities from which data are available it
was found that only a small portion of the school population attend
school. There were 888 schools for boys and girls in 1893 and the amount
paid for their support was $775,646. It is impossible even to
approximate the situation at the present moment. In a general way, it
may be described as simply deplorable. A free public-school system must
be immediately established, for much of the misfortune and suffering
Cuba has undergone may be traceable to the neglect of education. The
number of people who are illiterate is very great. Some statistics show
only one in forty of the labouring classes able to read and write. There
can be no stable government in Cuba until this has been remedied.
The reader familiar with Cuban history will remember that the first
movement toward the emancipation of the slaves was the practical freeing
of all children born subsequent to 1868, the year the revolution started
which ended in the abolition of slavery. In the same way, the first act
looking toward political emancipation should be the establishment of a
free public-school system, which shall have for its aim the preparation
of the young Cubans for self-government, whether exercised as part of a
Cuban republic or part of the greater republic the basis of which is
industrial freedom and the common school.
[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF THE PROVINCE OF SANTA CLARA.]
Manufacturing in Cuba is limited to a few industries in Havana, to the
manufacture of sugar and tobacco, and to machine-shops and small
foundries scattered over the Island for the convenience of the railway
companies, sugar-centrals, and harbours. The author visited all the
manufacturing plants in Havana, some of which were located in quarters
of the city reeking of filth and teeming with disease germs. There is
little hope for industrial enterprise in the broader sense until the
sanitary conditions have been improved in all the industrial centres of
the Island. The fear of that deadly enemy to all enterprise and thrift,
yellow fever, which lurks in the vicinity of the most flourishing
industries of Havana, makes it dangerous for those unacclimatised to
enter these occupations. The initiatory success of manufacturing in Cuba
must depend upon the importation of skilled labour from the United
States or Europe. With this invisible and deadly foe in the background,
ready to strike when least expected, and against which, as a Confederate
officer now in the United States Army at Havana said, "You cannot even
raise an old-fashioned rebel yell," the outlook is far from attractive.
Not only the commercial prosperity of Cuba, but to a considerable extent
that of the southern portion of the United States depends upon the
possibility of destroying the foci of yellow fever which exist in the
larger cities and towns--especially in Havana and Matanzas--and which
have been the cause of the epidemics of this disease which have occurred
in the United States during the present century. It is believed that to
destroy these germs is possible, and from a mere industrial and
commercial point of view it would be a paying investment to spend
several millions of dollars, if necessary, to effect it. Until this has
been accomplished, and the centres of industrial activity of Cuba made
safe for the influx of skilled artisans, whose advent alone will make it
possible for Cuba to diversify its industries and elevate the condition
of its labour, it will be vain to hope for the establishment of new
manufactures. The importance of sanitation is so great and the subject
of so much general interest to all those looking towards Cuba with the
idea of residence or investment there, that considerable space in this
volume will hereafter be devoted to a consideration of the subject.
The railway system of Cuba, consisting of seven companies, the aggregate
length of whose lines is only 1,467 kilometres, or 917 miles, is
entirely inadequate in bringing the extreme ends of the Island together;
Santiago and Havana in point of time being as far apart as San Francisco
and New York, though only separated by a distance of a few hundred
miles. The facts gathered on this subject and the maps presented
elsewhere point to the advisability of immediately constructing a trunk
railway from end to end of the Island, with branches extending north and
south to the important cities and ports. From whatever standpoint it may
be viewed, no one enterprise could do so much to improve the situation
on the Island. No revolution could have existed in Cuba if such a
railroad had been completed by the former Government, and nothing will
so rapidly tend to the revival of commercial and general business as the
facility for quick passage from one end of the Island to the other, and
from the trunk line over branches to the seaboard cities. All political
turbulence will be quieted thereby and prevented in the future. The
entire country will be open to commerce; lands now of practically no
value, and unproductive, will be worked; the seaport towns will become
active and commerce between the Island and the United States will soon
be restored to the former figures of approximately one hundred millions
of dollars per annum. Business enterprise, ever alert to conditions such
as herein described, has already surveyed the route, and there are
several projects on foot looking toward prompt action in this direction.
After a careful study of the situation, it would seem extremely doubtful
if such an enterprise could be made a commercial success for many years
to come, without material assistance from those responsible for the
industrial future of Cuba.
The questions arising in relation to navigation between Cuba and the
United States are delicate, and involve, as does the question of
discriminating duties in favour of the United States, in a greater or
less degree our international relations with other countries. Those
interested in American shipping suggest discrimination in favour of
American vessels between Cuba and the United States, and some go so far
as to indicate that a joint arrangement of the American and Cuban flags
would be a solution of the problem. Much of this is mere speculation. We
cannot discriminate in favour of American vessels in the trade between
Cuba and foreign countries, just as we cannot do so in the case of
American vessels in trade between New York and foreign countries, on
account of our commercial treaties. The chapter on this subject has been
submitted to Mr. Eugene T. Chamberlain, Chief of the Bureau of
Navigation of the Treasury Department, and this experienced and
efficient official has thrown considerable light on the subject which,
it is believed, will be of value to the commercial interests of both
Cuba and the United States.
These are some of the most important economic questions with which the
United States will be called upon to deal during its military occupancy
of Cuba. That we are capable of dealing with them intelligently and
satisfactorily can hardly be doubted. Questions of far greater magnitude
are continually presenting themselves at home, and as a rule the people
of the United States have been found equal to the task of adjustment. To
doubt our capacity as a nation to bring about complete pacification of
the Island, industrially and politically, is to throw a doubt on our
most cherished institutions and to cast a shadow on the Republic
itself.
CHAPTER III
POLITICAL FUTURE OF CUBA
The political future of Cuba is a matter of much speculation and
interest. Considerable will hereafter be said in this volume on the
economic and industrial future of this wonderfully productive Island,
and little doubt can be entertained that with an honest effort and
stable government the commercial future of Cuba will be full of promise.
What of the political future? The industrial independence of the Island
attained, what, if any, steps are likely to be taken for the political
independence? At the present moment, it is difficult to discern any
nucleus around which is likely to crystallise sentiment strong enough to
form, with any degree of unanimity, a cohesive, independent government.
The strongest and uppermost sentiment in the Island, as I have found it
since the close of the war, is for peace and reconstruction under the
guidance of the United States. Those who have made the greatest
sacrifice for independence are apparently willing to rest for a while
and enjoy the glorious results of industrial and commercial independence
and a release for ever from Spanish misrule. Let the future shape its
own political policy, is the desire of all intelligent Cubans. In
commercial and business circles (and it must be remembered that the
author has, in the course of his inquiries, been very largely thrown in
contact with business people), the desire for ultimate absorption or
annexation by the United States is almost unanimous. Those who have
property, those engaged in industrial pursuits, those carrying on
commerce, those interested in affairs, regardless of nationality, see
the greatest future for Cuba in ultimate annexation to the United
States, and openly advocate that policy. There are others who advocate
annexation on grounds of sentiment, and who take the stand that the
degree of real freedom enjoyed by a State of the Republic is greater,
and the advantages far in excess of those likely to accrue to the mixed
population of Cuba by the establishment of any sort of independent
government. This is not a matter for surprise when it is recalled that a
large proportion of the most enlightened Cubans have been educated in
the United States, while no inconsiderable number of the most active
participants in the war for Cuban freedom carried individually, alike
into battle and into conference, the grandest badge of freedom so far
vouchsafed to mankind--United States citizenship.
These ideas are admirably set forth in a pamphlet just written by Fran
Figueras, who makes an eloquent plea for the annexation of Cuba to the
United States. The title of the little book--for it is more than a
pamphlet--suggests the line of argument: _Cuba Libre--Independence or
Annexation_. Exactly! Cuba is free to-day! Liberty came when Spanish
sovereignty ended. Adapting the lines of Kipling, the Cubans may
truthfully say:
"If blood be the price of liberty,
Lord God, we ha' bought it fair."
Liberty, therefore, has been won and paid for. By the very nature of
things there can be no forcible annexation to the nation representing
the absolute liberties of the people. If Cuba becomes part of the United
States, it will be because the Cubans, having won their liberty, shall
so decree. Intelligent Cubans understand this perfectly well and none
better than the author referred to above.
After reviewing the state of public opinion in Spain late in 1896 and
the sentiments predominating in Cuba among the native population in
regard to the mutual relations with the mother country, Mr. Figueras
analyses the present situation, and considers that public opinion in
Cuba is divided into three classes. Those wanting:
1. Immediate and absolute independence.
2. Independence under American protectorate.
3. Annexation, more or less immediate.
He allows independence to be the ideal of all peoples, but considers
Cuban independence to be still in embryo, and compares the sudden
liberation of the island from Spanish dominion to a premature birth,
brought on by American intervention and subject to the dangers attending
its early advent at an unexpected time. The author contends that to form
a nation it is important that the inhabitants shall have some common
interests, usually apparent in countries where one element predominates.
He finds that in Cuba there are three races equally strong: the
autochthonic or white Cuban (pure white), the Cuban with unmistakable
and acknowledged signs of black descent, and the white Spaniard; the
first of which by its number, the second by its greater acclimation, and
the third by its wealth preserve the balance. The fact that these people
do not live in different provinces but in the same places makes this
adjustment all the more noticeable. Sometimes in one house you will see
a patriarchal Spanish father with conservative ideas in the same room
with his son of high-flown, Robespierre-like ideas, convinced that a
country progresses more in a year of revolution than in a century of
peaceful campaigning; while in a dark corner the negro servant, a slave
only yesterday, to-day free and taking an interest by no means meagre in
the revolutionary legend, curses his colour but does not fail to realise
how better fitted he is for rough work than his white neighbours.
"And in the present situation which, pray, of these elements," the
author asks, "is victorious? Which has conquered and is ready to
take under its protecting ægis the other two? Is it perchance the
revolutionary party that has had its work crowned with success and
that can therefore force its criterion of independence on all the
inhabitants? Facts answer this question negatively and it would be
sheer madness to constitute one nation out of such heterogeneous
elements."
The author establishes comparisons with the other southern republics,
contends that Cuba will be in a chronic state of revolution if left to
herself, calls attention to the handicap to Cuban sugar, tobacco, and
coffee industries by the annexation of Puerto Rico and the Philippines,
and asks if it is to be expected that the United States understands that
her interest in Cuba's welfare is to justify damaging that of the new
colonies for Cuba's exclusive benefit.
Arguing against a protectorate, the author calls attention to the fact
that Cuba has nothing to fear from foreign nations. Her dangers are at
home; it is _pronunciamentos_ and the like that threaten, and a
protectorate will not avoid this; it is only absolute annexation that
will.
"If before 1895," continues the author of _Cuba Libre_, "all Cubans were
satisfied with a Canadian autonomy system given by Spain, why should the
United States be refused a trust given to a nation like Spain, which has
treated Cuba with injustice, bad government, and extortion, against the
tested 'cash' good faith of the other?"
Refuting arguments upon the offensiveness of annexation to Cuban
dignity, the author calls attention to the fact that dignity does not
always accompany independence, as, for example, it is often seen how an
English, German, or Italian schoolship silences the dignity of some
independent states by firing a few shots.
In conclusion he says:
"We Cubans have been tyrannised by an unscrupulous mother country
and the proceeding has dishonoured the nation which did so, and we
victims have withstood the humiliation with dignity. We stood with
dignity when we were burdened with a system of colonial servitude,
it was with dignity that we rebelled, staining the chains that
bound us with our own and foreign blood; we have kept our dignity
whilst the Americans have cut them for us; when to-morrow comes,
and we ask for annexation to the United States, we shall do so with
the same dignity."
There is sentiment, force, and good hard business sense in this
attitude. A flag, after all, is nothing in itself, but all in what it
represents. The Stars and Stripes have for a century or more represented
human liberty and have taken into their folds millions of the people of
the old world. The historic flags of all nations have been fully and
freely and joyously repudiated by them, in search of broader liberties,
for that fascinating emblem of the people's rights; and under it scarred
and impoverished Cuba may in truth rest with dignity and content.
Adolfo Muñoz, one of the ablest and most thoughtful Cubans it has been
my pleasure to meet, gave utterance to similar views in relation to the
future of Cuba, though he approached the subject more from a commercial
than a sentimental point of view.
"A new community," said Mr. Muñoz to the author, "particularly a
small one, after a long and destructive war, is always surrounded
by many dangers, both internal and external; and the only safety
Cuba may find against them is a close connection with the United
States which will afford the immediate protection of the American
Government. Cuba left alone could not enjoy a high credit, either
public or private; neither could she build a respectable navy,
which her geographical position renders necessary. In these, and in
many other respects, Cuba has to depend exclusively on the United
States. The political connection between both countries becomes
consequently a matter of extreme importance, which cannot be
discussed, and much less decided upon, in haste."
Continuing, Mr. Muñoz said:
"The liberty which, by the aid of the United States, Cuba has now
conquered, will enable her to frame an entirely new tariff. This
work, which must be done in accordance with other financial laws,
will prove to be a rather easy task, because the commercial
relations between Cuba and the United States are naturally
beneficial to both countries. Perhaps the best arrangement, both on
commercial and political grounds, would be to convert these
relations into a coastwise trade, so that the productions of
either country should be admitted free of duty in the other;
provided that the question of the United States sugar industry
could be settled by means of some compensation or otherwise. Cuba
expects to be placed, in what respects custom duties, on the same
footing as Puerto Rico; as it is necessary to save her sugar
industry from its present depression and ruin."
Here is annexation clearly marked out though not actually advocated. A
country without credit cannot start up the machinery of government. To
make the trade coastwise for Cuba, as we have already done in the case
of Puerto Rico, means ultimate annexation. If, therefore, as Mr. Muñoz
says, Cuba "expects to be placed on the same footing as Puerto Rico,"
she expects annexation--nothing more, nothing less.
Attention is next directed to another, though not less interesting view
of the future of Cuba. When in Cienfuegos the author had the honour and
pleasure of meeting the Marquis de Apezteguia, President of the
Conservative party, and, although a Cuban born, a strong sympathiser
with Spain. There are few abler men in Cuba than the Marquis de
Apezteguia. Educated in London, Paris, and Madrid, and at home in the
best circles of New York, the Marquis is, in a sense, a cosmopolitan.
His interests, however, are all bound up in Cuba. If Cuba once more
flourishes the Marquis will become rich again; if it does not his large
fortune will have gone, and he himself have been reduced to penury.
Asked to give his opinion of the present and future condition of the
Island of Cuba, the Marquis de Apezteguia did so without hesitation,
clothing his thoughts in English so pointed and vigorous that it would
be an injustice to the reader to abridge or change it, and it is
therefore made part of this chapter.
"In regard to the disposition of Cuba," said the Marquis de
Apezteguia to the author, "you have first of all to consider the
population of the Island, then you have its geographical position,
which makes it of importance to the United States; nay, if there is
anything in geographical position, which makes it dependent upon
the United States. Key West is not an offensive position, it is
simply a defensive position for the United States, because it
commands the defence of the American coasts. The defence of your
coast, with the Island of Cuba, is trebled with the same number of
vessels, as its 750 miles practically makes the Gulf an inland sea,
outside of the possibility of incursions from foreigners. Up to
Cape Hatteras, Cuba defends your eastern coast. Therefore, to you
as a military nation and as a naval power, Cuba is a necessity;
without Cuba, you have simply Key West, and Cuba is an excellent
substitute for Key West. Having this naval defence, which makes the
United States non-attackable from Cape Hatteras to the Rio Grande,
with how much more efficacy, and without danger, you can move your
armies! Cuba is of immense value to the United States, and
therefore from that point of view we will develop the others. Under
the naval and military aspect in regard to the concentration of the
army, we command the Gulf of Mexico as an inland sea of the United
States, and we are the principal factor in the trans-oceanic
traffic.
"The Cuban question is not a difficult one, because there is an
imposed issue. In commercial development, to all evidence, you have
been a long time a borrowing country, but to-day you have great
banking centres: New York, Philadelphia, and Boston constituting an
eastern centre; Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati constituting
another; with a smaller one at New Orleans, and a western one at
San Francisco. Certain centres, such as the New York one, which has
an excess of capital, will act in this annexation of Cuba as a
multiple in the matter of capital. The capital will in preference
come to Cuba, instead of going west.
"In the political problem, the condition of the population of Cuba
must be considered. It is not a new country, but four hundred years
old,--a totally different nation, with different habits, ways, and
languages. Then how can you profitably absorb that population as a
State? You cannot afford to sacrifice the United States for Cuba,
but must lend Cuba both moral and material riches without
forgetting yourself. Is it profitable for the United States to
absorb Cuba as a State? If I were an American, I would oppose it. I
do not think the Cuban people have sufficient adaptation; in fact
they will not Americanise for quite a while, and therefore you must
create an empire and a public right that is not within the federal
bounds. Your territorial laws pursue colonisation towards the end
of absorption, and have placed in your Constitution a limit of
population, which we initially possess. Were I an American, I would
not be for annexation of Cuba as one of the units of the Union. I
think there is a condition of injustice which would be felt by both
parties, if you held Cuba in an inferior political state so close
to Florida. I say that this is inevitably American, from the
material defence which it procures to the United States, and it is
a military necessity. It cannot, however, be absorbed and governed
rapidly, and for a time you will have to create a new political
right, for it is inevitable. You cannot absorb it without creating
a different political right.
"Now I have said that, in my belief, the issue is imposed and
inevitable; Cuba has to be American territory, and cannot be
anything else, with restringent or lax ties uniting it; but in the
exterior life it will have to be American. You have no laws so far
that can be established here; the new political right will have to
be created because of the way in which you acquired the Island. You
cannot govern it until you give it those things which have been
assured it. You have acquired responsibilities which you are not at
liberty to throw away and go back on; that is your position towards
Cuba and towards the world, and therefore towards yourself. The
American people must not feel that they are making of Cuba a
business, but a necessity, to be maintained by force if necessary
until evolution can be accomplished.
"Since we see the problem is one with an imposed ultimate solution,
the easiest way is to continue the same action that brought the
Island. You need, as a guaranty to yourself, and to the Cubans not
in arms (which are the majority), a material force here that cannot
be disputed with any chance of success. After Spain has abandoned
her sovereignty here you are under the responsibility of keeping a
force here which will make it a crazy enterprise to dispute. This
is a moral duty which you are obliged to fulfil; you cannot have
the excuse of want of power that Spain had. The first element of
success is the destruction beforehand of all insurgent or
insurrection element. All minor things should be put aside and the
American mind have a national policy toward the colonisation and
final prosperity of Cuba. You do not want the Cuban question to
become one of those burning questions of American politics; but it
will, unless you have strength to determine it in the way it should
go. If it is disputed now in the transient state, you will convert
it into an interior American question, which would make things
worse than if you had never come into the thing at all. It is the
duty of your Administration to mark out these lines and tell the
American people that it is a duty outside of small political lines.
"What is the duty of the Cuban people? Your trouble comes from
having to handle an unknown land. The business of the President is,
not to show business people how they can make money, but to show
the people their duty, and leave the rest to American ingenuity.
The Cubans are a good people. The population is divided about
equally between whites and blacks, and has decreased about one
third during the war. I do not wish to discuss the inferiority of
the black race, but, so far as I can see in this country from
whatever cause, they do not meet worry. The act of force is the
determining one with them, and in it they are of great value. In
all other social determinations they count very little indeed. From
this you derive two lines of conduct: you must try to satisfy the
whites as far as possible, and you must content the black so that
he will not lend his brutal force to the discontent of the white.
The insurrection caused a great fraternity, that is to say, the
distinction of race which existed before the war does not exist
now. This is not, however, one of the elements that is going to
cause trouble, if you do not let them conflict. The insurgents have
fought many years for independence, making great sacrifices for the
sake of it, and therefore they will not be satisfied with anything
short of independence. If you leave them in the future to their own
inferior force, I do not think there will be a strong fight towards
acquiring total independence in the exterior world, because they
recognise the fact that their country is comparatively small and
the United States is large, but if these people see that this
independence at any moment is not given to them, they will rise in
arms--to what extent I do not know. A man who has lost family,
suffered sickness, and has no interest now in the home where he was
born, is a very reduced moral being. He has not the energies of a
total being. The Island of Cuba has been debased by a war of
extermination, brought about by its own manner of warfare, and by
the Spanish warfare. The Island of Cuba is now totally inert and
totally incapable of any governing faculties, not only because of
the dead, but by making the rich poor, by making the poor indigent,
and the indigent dying. You have in the Island of Cuba a reduced
specimen both of material and moral wealth, and these individuals
are not capable of determinations of value and worth towards the
natural end of civilisation. You then see how much you can depend
on the help of the individual. If you attempt to govern by
carpet-bag legislation, you will bring on an insurrection. If you
help the indigent, and bring them to a condition like they were
before the war, you will do them no good. Therefore, you must have
a force to establish an indisputable power, and then you must have
a policy in which each one finds a solution to his own interest and
welfare, under the idea that the Cuban people are unable to take
care of themselves to-day, and that none of them have definite
ideas or definite plans for their welfare. These plans must come
through a strange guidance and not from the Cubans. I have on the
Constancia in my care about five thousand people to-day, whom I
have helped all I could. I shall have to employ means of coercion
to throw these people outside of my house, so little is the sense
of dignity in them to-day, and shall have to give them lands, and
help them, in order to get them to find their own way in life. This
is the real condition of things. The more energetic element is the
one in the insurrection, but these on my estate are such as
constitute the element which took no sides but suffered the
distress of both.
"The size of property was one of the causes of the war, together
with the total neglect of the lower orders of population.
"Of the element in arms, you have to distinguish between those who
made the war and those who are wittily called the 'Veterans of
1898'--about one half are Veterans of 1898. These people have
energy, and these people have accustomed themselves to that life of
civil warfare, but their condition is very bad to-day, and because
of this they would like to come into order, although they have
great inclination to continue. This is about the only energy left
here, but it will be of no use to you except by getting these
people out of the way. They have gone to war and acquired honours
and salary to the extent of probably $10,000,000. The only way you
can do is to offer them the security of what they have acquired so
far as material welfare is concerned,--that is, their salaries. It
would be an error not to give it all to them. If you give them work
in the face of that inert mass I have shown you, and let them see
their superiority, giving them certain annuities or monthly
payments, you can bridge over the troublesome part of this
population, but you cannot do it through their moral nature. You
will have to bridge over several months by a strong occupation, by
destroying the insurgent energy, by helping the other people, and
by drawing general lines which all parties in the United States
will accept. You must outline a distinct American policy which must
be followed by both parties, and which no party can differ from.
With these conditions you will have no trouble in the Island of
Cuba.
"If you name your high officials Cubans, this will run off into
Cuban solution, and not American. If the occupation is made by
sufficient force, and you name only a few high officials who have
the confidence of the Administration and have a general plan to
carry through, and these appoint lower officials, taking the best
class of Cubans and insurgents, the problem is solved. As a
Spaniard born in Cuba and wishing this country all the good I can,
I think it would be absurd to hope for the peace of the Island
without a strong military force. The place must be occupied on
strategic lines and not as Spain occupied it, and with good means
of communication. This is the solution of the question. If this is
not done, guerrilla warfare will have the advantage and it will be
the same as when the Island was occupied by the Spanish forces;
there were no enemies and no battles and it was like making a
cavalry charge on a cloud or a mist."
The above is a vigorous statement of the situation from the standpoint
of one who has lost his all, not in fighting for independence, but in a
contest for what he believed was a strong government. The Marquis wastes
no sentiment. He tells some hard truths which all who know Cuba will
recognise as such. Few foreigners know the United States better than the
Marquis de Apezteguia and few have his ability of touching the weak
spots in our armour. He tells us we cannot absorb Cuba, and as an
American he would oppose annexation. These observations, as well as some
others, will delight Mr. Andrew Carnegie, Mr. Edward Atkinson, Mr.
Charles Francis Adams, and other opponents of annexation. The talk of
strategic necessity, the exertion of power, and the material force
necessary to make Cuba American territory will give these gentlemen who
have raised the anti-Imperialist cry sentences which will greatly
increase their stock of phrases, but in no way solve the question of
what shall be done with our new possessions. Indeed, the Marquis,
consoling the so-called anti-Imperialists with his well turned
sentences, offers them medicine more stringent and a remedy more drastic
than annexation. The word "Empire" has no terror for this Cuban-born
Spaniard. You must create an Imperialistic policy, or right, not granted
in the Federal Constitution, you must maintain American ascendency at
any cost, and do your duty toward the people of Cuba and the people of
the world. Cuba must, for all time to come, be American territory. It is
only by a policy of this sort the Marquis thinks we shall succeed. In
carrying out this plan, we are warned not to allow the Cuban question to
become a burning question of American policy, but we are enjoined to
hold up President McKinley's hands in establishing a stable government
in Cuba. It must not be made into a business, but a necessity.
Carpet-bag legislation, he thinks, would bring on an insurrection. In
this the Marquis is undoubtedly right. Lastly, he offers the good advice
that something must be done and done quickly for the insurgents in arms,
whose deplorable condition he vividly portrays. That these soldiers
should be speedily paid off there can be no doubt, for until that is
done, the rural districts of Cuba can never become productive.
Presumptuous as it may be to pass judgment on the utterances of a man of
such wide range of experience in Cuba as the Marquis de Apezteguia, I
believe the President of the late Conservative party of Cuba
underestimates the Cuban capacity, both for self-government and for
annexation to the United States. The work of final absorption may take a
generation, but it will surely come. Once annexed, Cuba would become an
English-speaking country, and the alert Cuban mind would grasp those
great principles of fundamental liberty with far greater alacrity than
the Spanish. Let the word go forth to teach English in every schoolhouse
in Cuba, and the work of amalgamation would be half done. The more the
Cubans know of the United States and of our institutions, the better
they will like us. As confidence takes the place of distrust in the
minds of the population of Cuba,--native or foreign-born, black or
white,--the sooner all will reach the conclusion that the most promising
future for Cuba can only be attained by complete union with the greater
Republic.
In support of this opinion as to the political future of Cuba it is only
necessary to quote the utterance of one whose opportunity for making
such a forecast has been exceptional. Major-General Matthew C. Butler,
of South Carolina, combines in his make-up and experience both soldier
and statesman. The Confederate cause can point to no more brave and
capable officer than General Butler. For sixteen years he represented
his State in the United States Senate, and during that period grappled
with all the important questions of the day. No man on the Cuban
Evacuation Commission was so well equipped to study the political and
economic side of the Cuban question as General Butler; and no man took
so much pains to ascertain the facts in relation to the condition and
sentiment of the people of Cuba. For a month last autumn the author was
daily and closely associated with General Butler at the Vedado, near
Havana, where the Military Commission had its headquarters. Between
acquaintances of many years, in Washington, it is not strange that
conversation during those long evenings at the Hotel Trotcha turned on
the future of Cuba and that the exchange of thought was both free and
frank. Summed up, the opinion of General Butler on the future of Cuba
is as follows:
"You ask an expression of my opinion before leaving Cuba as to the
character of the people of the Island and their future prospects.
If they will be patient, following the dictates of prudence, and
trust the Government of the United States, a very prosperous and
happy future awaits them. The process of rehabilitation may be
slow, but by cordial co-operation of all classes it will be more
certain and permanent.
"The army of the United States is here to guarantee public order
and enforce obedience to law. Its use will be controlled very
largely by the conduct of the people themselves. If they uphold the
law and insure public tranquillity, if each will respect the rights
and persons of the other, there will be no occasion for
interference by American troops. And you may take my word for it
they will not interfere with the people in their peaceful
vocations, if the conditions I have suggested prevail.
"The officers and soldiers on duty in the Island of Cuba are
American citizens as well as American soldiers, accustomed to
rendering loyal obedience to law; and they will not abandon on this
Island their devotion to the principles of American liberty
regulated by law. I therefore repeat that the people of Cuba may
safely trust the officers and soldiers of the United States to
establish and maintain the principles of government as set forth in
our Constitution and laws, which mean freedom, not licentiousness,
and equality before the law for all.
"We have no such thing as 'one man power' in the United States, and
cannot so far depart from our devotion to popular liberty as to
tolerate it here. So I say, if the people of Cuba (I include in the
word 'people' all classes and conditions) will await with patience
and resolution the establishment of good government, honestly and
impartially administered, a brilliant future is in store for them.
If, on the contrary, bickerings among themselves, unreasonable
complaints, and demands in disregard of the rights of persons and
property should lead to bloodshed and breaches of the peace and the
disturbance of public order and tranquillity, as they most surely
will, the day of their deliverance will be indefinitely deferred.
"You ask me whether I think the people of the Island of Cuba
capable of self-government. This is a very difficult question to
answer. I may, however, say that I have no sympathy with the harsh
and unjust judgments of those who condemn them without a hearing
and settle in advance a problem which requires time for solution.
"Officially I have no opinion to express as to the status of such a
commonwealth, for that is a question to be settled by the people
themselves in their aggregate capacity, but personally I should
like to see Cuba a State in the American Union, enjoying all the
rights of local autonomy and self-government on terms of equality
with the other commonwealths of the United States. She would then
have liberty, regulated by a written constitution, where the
military is subordinate to the civil power, and where each of the
three great co-ordinate branches of the government, legislative,
executive, and judicial, execute the will of the people."
The above statement, which, with General Butler's consent, is made part
of this chapter, was prepared with great precision and care and only
after long deliberation. Moreover, it was submitted to some of his
colleagues, and the subject-matter fully discussed with the author, who
is in full and hearty accord with the views expressed. Officially the
author has no opinion to express as to the status of such a
commonwealth, for the work committed to him was purely of an economic
and fiscal and not of a political character. Personally, however, the
author, with General Butler, looks forward to the day when Cuba will be
a State of the Union, in the enjoyment of that full degree of liberty
and self-government which is accorded the other commonwealths of the
United States.
CHAPTER IV
THE ENGLISH IN JAMAICA
Having sought light and information in relation to the future political
government of Cuba from both Cuban and Spanish sources, for the Marquis
de Apezteguia is more Spanish than Cuban, it may be well to ascertain if
any useful lesson may be found in British colonial administration. With
this thought in view, the author, after completing the work in Cuba,
made a brief visit to the island of Jamaica. Through the courtesy of the
American Mail Steamship Company, the S.S. _Admiral Sampson_ stopped at
Santiago and thus enabled me to reach Port Antonio, Jamaica, in seven
hours. At this point I met Captain L. D. Baker, the head of the vast
American fruit interests of Jamaica, and with him visited Kingston and
had an interview with the Governor-General of Jamaica, and with the
heads of nearly all the Departments of Government. In this connection it
affords me pleasure to mention the name of Dr. James Johnston, member of
the Jamaica Council for St. Ann's Parish and member of the Commission
now revising the revenue law of Jamaica. Dr. Johnston was a
fellow-passenger on the S.S. _Sampson_, on its return voyage to the
United States, and furnished much valuable explanatory information in
relation to the government of Jamaica, for which this opportunity is
taken to express thanks.
The information thus obtained and the data gathered from the various
blue books and the reports of the Royal Commission on the British West
India Islands, all have a special bearing on the problem the United
States is now confronting in Cuba, and hence on the political future of
the Island. Better to appreciate the present aims of British
administration in Jamaica, one should read the following extract from an
article in the December number of _Scribner's Magazine_, by the Right
Honourable Joseph Chamberlain, British Colonial Secretary:
"In the first period of this eventful history the territories
acquired by conquest or discovery were treated as possessions to be
exploited entirely for the advantage of the occupying nation, and
little or no thought was given to the rights or the interests
either of the original inhabitants or of the colonists who had
dispossessed them. This view of the relations between a state and
its outlying territories continued more or less throughout the
eighteenth century, although the War of Independence in America did
much to modify and dispel it. The success of the Revolution not
only destroyed the hope that colonies could be made tributary to
the mother country, but led ultimately to the conclusion that,
since they would never be a source of direct revenue, we should be
better without colonies at all. Assuming that an entirely
independent and separate existence was the ultimate destiny of all
our possessions abroad, and believing that this consummation would
relieve us of burdensome obligations, we readily conceded
self-government to the colonies in the temperate zones, in the
hopes that this would hasten the inevitable and desirable result.
We found, not without surprise, that in spite of hints to this
effect, our kinsfolk and fellow-subjects resented the idea of
separation and, fortunately for us, preferred to remain, each
'daughter in her mother's house and mistress in her own.'
Influenced by the same idea, we elaborated constitutions by the
score for every kind of tropical dependency, in the vain
expectation that the native population would appreciate forms of
government evolved in our own civilisation, and would learn quickly
to be self-supporting and to develop for themselves the territories
in which we began to think we had only a temporary interest. We
were disappointed, and we have had to recognise the fact that, for
an indefinite period of time, the ideas and standards of our
political and social order cannot be intelligently accepted or
applied by races which are centuries behind us in the process of
national evolution. The experience of Hayti and Liberia under
independent native government, of many of the South American
republics, of Egypt and of India, and the stagnation of all
tropical countries, in regard to matters dependent on local effort,
make it evident that wherever the white man cannot be permanently
or advantageously acclimatised and wherever, therefore, the great
majority of the population must always be natives, the only
security for good government and for the effective development of
the resources of the country consists in providing this native
population with white superintendence, and with rulers and
administrators who will bring to their task the knowledge derived
from the experience of a higher civilisation; and, constantly
changing, will be always under the influence of the standards and
ideals which they have been brought up to respect.
"This is the root idea of British administration in the tropics. At
the same time we have abandoned forever any desire to secure
tribute from these possessions, and we no longer seek any direct or
exclusive advantage.
"We find our profit in the increased prosperity of the people for
whose interests we have made ourselves responsible, and in the
development of, and access to, markets which we open at the same
time to the rest of the world. Our primary obligation is to
maintain peace, and safety of life and property, and equal justice
for all irrespective of race or class. Subject to these conditions,
we interfere as little as possible with native religions, customs,
or laws; and under this system we are successfully administering
the affairs of hundreds of millions of people of almost every race
under the sun, with trifling cost to the British taxpayer, and with
the smallest army of white soldiers of any of the powers of Europe.
In India, where three hundred millions of people acknowledge the
Queen as Empress, the total white garrison is only seventy thousand
men; in Egypt, with a population of nine millions, the normal white
garrison is thirty-five hundred men; while in Ceylon, the Straits
Settlements and protected States, the West Indies, and West Africa
not a single white regiment is stationed for the maintenance of our
rule, which is secured entirely by coloured soldiers and police
under British officers. Our experience should at least go far to
satisfy the objections of those Americans who anticipate that the
occupation of tropical countries would involve the retention of
vast numbers of American soldiers in an unhealthy climate, and
would lay an intolerable burden on the American treasury."
The Spanish idea in its government of Cuba was purely and absolutely the
idea of possession, and the facts pointing to this will be abundantly
set forth in the several chapters in this volume relating to the fiscal,
commercial, and industrial condition of the Island of Cuba. The work of
reconstruction already so auspiciously begun by the United States
Government in Santiago, and described in a subsequent chapter, is
absolutely in line with what Mr. Chamberlain aptly terms the root idea
of British administration in the tropics. The primary obligation of the
United States in Cuba is to maintain peace, the safety of life and
property, and equal justice for all, irrespective of race or class. The
final instructions given by the President of the United States, last
August, to the author, leaving for Cuba, were to the effect that the
United States desired to secure no tribute from Cuba, that the work of
reconstruction must be performed in the interests of the people of Cuba,
only, and that the profit to the United States must come in the
increased prosperity of the people of Cuba, and in the benefits accruing
from a peaceful, instead of a constantly warring neighbour. According to
Mr. Chamberlain, this is the fundamental principle underlying England's
operation in her tropical colonies.
[Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO CASTLETON, JAMAICA.]
In comparing British administration in Jamaica with any possible
operations of the United States Government in Cuba, the fact of the
great difference in the population must be considered. In Jamaica not
over 15,000 of the 700,000 population are white. When England began to
treat this island as a trust, and not as a possession,--say about
1834,--the population was made up of 311,070 slaves, 15,000 whites,
40,000 coloured, or brown people, as they are called in Jamaica, and
5000 free blacks. In Cuba a majority of the population are white--the
census of 1887 showing 1,102,889 white and 528,798 coloured--in all
provinces; Matanzas, with forty-five per cent. coloured, and Santiago,
with forty-two per cent. coloured, representing the strongest coloured
sections of the Island. That half a century of British rule in Jamaica
has improved the population of Jamaica, nearly all of whom were slaves
when the work was begun, is self-evident, though it is equally true that
similar government in Cuba would have resulted, by reason of the
preponderance of white population, in more far-reaching results. That
is, Cuba, under such a government as England has given Jamaica, would,
in all reasonable probability, have numbered at this time a population
of from four to five millions, with a greatly increased commerce,
diversified industries, magnificent main and parochial roads, an
adequate railway system, many prosperous and well-built cities, and a
degree of prosperity and civilisation far in excess of that which the
United States officials found when they took possession of the Island.
With the disadvantages of race, with the scars of slavery, and, until
recently, with the single industry of sugar and its allied product, rum,
the policy set forth so clearly by Mr. Chamberlain has been successful
in making habitable and law-abiding and measurably prosperous a tropical
island which might have been in a condition little better than that of
savagery.
To be sure, England has not made Anglo-Saxons of these people, but it
has made of them peaceful, law-abiding, and, in the main,
self-respecting citizens. There is little doubt that the bulk of the
inhabitants of Jamaica are in a position which compares not unfavourably
with that of the peasants of most countries in the world. The facts
given farther along show that the condition of the labouring classes of
Jamaica is infinitely better than that of the labouring
classes--especially the coloured population--of Cuba, who are in a
deplorable state, even on plantations where work is abundant. The number
of holdings in Jamaica is 92,979, of which 81,924 are under ten acres
each. In 1882 there were only 52,608 holdings, of which 43,707 were
under ten acres each. Even allowing for the fact that some persons may
hold two or more plots of land, it is clear that the island already
contains a very large and increasing number of peasant proprietors. The
Crown Land Regulations offer facilities for the settlement of the
labouring population on the land, and as sugar estates are abandoned
some of them will probably fall into the hands of small cultivators. In
the last ten years the number of savings-bank accounts of the amount of
twenty-five dollars and under has nearly doubled. The census returns of
1891 show that in the ten years, 1881 to 1891, there had been an
increase of thirty per cent. in the number of persons able to read and
write. The acreage of provision grounds has increased more than thirty
per cent. in ten years. There are 70,000 holdings of less than five
acres. The area in coffee, usually in small lots, increased in ten years
from 17,000 to 23,000 acres. More than 6,000 small sugar-mills are owned
by the peasantry. The number of enrolled scholars was 100,400 in 1896,
as against 49,000 in 1881; while the actual average daily attendance at
schools had increased from 26,600 to 59,600. These facts indicate
considerable advance, though no doubt in certain districts the people
are poor. The Royal Commission appointed to investigate and report on
the agricultural, commercial, and industrial condition of the West
Indies came to the conclusion that the depression in Jamaica was the
result of the almost entire dependence of the island on a single
industry. Here is what they say:
"The general statement regarding the danger of depending on a
single industry applies with very special force to the dependence
of the West Indian Colonies upon the sugar industry, for the
cultivation of sugar collects together a larger number of people
upon the land than can be employed or supported in the same area by
any other form of cultivation. In addition to this it also unfits
the people, or at any rate gives them no training, for the
management or cultivation of the soil for any other purpose than
that of growing sugar-cane. The failure, therefore, of a sugar
estate not only leaves destitute a larger number of labourers than
can be supported upon the land in other ways, but leaves them also
without either the knowledge, skill, or habits requisite for making
a good use of the land. In those colonies where the sugar industry
cannot be carried on without imported coolie labour the position of
dependence upon this one industry is still more dangerous. In these
cases not only is there a yearly charge upon the public revenue to
meet the cost of immigration, but a liability for back passages is
incurred, which a failure of the industry would leave the colony
without funds to meet. Whilst, therefore, the vital importance of
the sugar industry to the present prosperity of nearly all the
colonies is beyond dispute, we wish to observe that so long as they
remain dependent upon sugar their position can never be sound or
secure. It has become a commonplace of criticism to remark upon the
perpetual recurrence of crises in the West Indian Colonies, and we
submit that the repeated recurrence of such crises, as well as the
fact that the present crisis is more ominous than any of the
previous ones, illustrates the danger to which we have referred,
and adds much force to our recommendations for the adoption of
special measures to facilitate the introduction of other
industries."
The special remedies recommended were as follows:
"1. The settlement of the labouring population on small plots of
land as peasant proprietors.
"2. The establishment of minor agricultural industries, and the
improvement of the system of cultivation, especially in the case of
small proprietors.
"3. The improvement of the means of communication between the
different islands.
"4. The encouragement of a trade in fruit with New York, and,
possibly, at a future time, with London.
"5. The grant of a loan from the Imperial Exchequer for the
establishment of central factories in Barbadoes.
"The subject of emigration from the distressed tracts also requires
the careful attention of the various governments, though we do not
find ourselves at the present time in a position to make
recommendations in detail."
The fact is, Captain L. D. Baker, of the Boston Fruit Company, and the
other companies engaged in the banana and orange business of Jamaica,
have pointed a way out of the present difficulties, and that industry,
in the course of a short time, bids fair to be as important as the sugar
industry was in former times. Last year this single company shipped five
million bunches of bananas to New York. There are now over one hundred
thousand orange trees planted in Jamaica, which in a few years will be
bearing finely and give additional prosperity to the country. With the
American fruit market inadequately supplied, and the English market
practically untouched, there is hope both in Jamaica and
Cuba--especially Santiago province--for diversified industries created
by rapid transportation. The recent establishment of a fleet of fast
steamships between New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore, and
the various ports of Jamaica, and the probability that these or similar
lines will be established between the United States and Cuban ports, are
all factors of promise for the industrial future of both the British and
the American West Indies.
While Jamaica is a well-governed country, and its revenue is all
honestly expended for the public good of the people, it is far from an
economically administered government. Order is thoroughly established,
laws are obeyed, justice for the humblest is easily obtainable,
education is general, sanitary matters admirably administered, roads
maintained, the rights of all conserved, and the revenue honestly
collected and expended. In these particulars the government of Jamaica
differs widely from that which the author found in Cuba. In that unhappy
Island all is absolutely the reverse of this. The cost of governing
Jamaica, however, is nearly twenty-five per cent. of the value of its
commerce, whereas the cost of governing Cuba--if gauged by the actual
revenue raised--under Spanish rule ranged from 12-1/2 to 15 per cent. of
the value of its commerce. The comparison, however, is of little value,
because Cuba got nothing for the money exacted by taxation, while
Jamaica not only gets all, but also the taxpayers are informed in
advance of the purposes for which much of the money is wanted, and the
sums thus raised are rigidly applied to the purposes for which they are
appropriated. The most useful lessons for those responsible for
administering the affairs of Cuba can be learned by a study of the
Jamaica Budgets. The methods of raising the needed revenue are
intelligent and simple, and the method of expenditure not only enables
the authorities to get as much as possible for the money, but also makes
possible the strictest accountability. The Legislative Council of
Jamaica discusses every item of the budget as closely as the Town
Council of Glasgow or the County Council of London, both model public
bodies, so far as honesty of purpose goes, even if some of their
legislative experiments fail. The humblest Jamaica negro, if he can read
and write, may at least know the purposes for which the revenue he pays
in taxes is expended. He may even have the pleasure of deciding which of
these items of expenditure he regards the least important. At the
present moment the annual cost of education, $350,000, is regarded as
too high, and a proposition to reduce it to $250,000 is pending. The
total expenditures of Jamaica have reached nearly $4,000,000 and
additional revenue is necessary to meet these expenses. The customs
tariff is in course of revision, with a view of increasing the revenue,
and many articles formerly on the free list will have to be put upon the
dutiable list, while the general ad valorem rates of duty must be raised
from 12-1/2 to 16-2/3 per cent. Before going into the future sources of
revenue, it may be well to look at the present sources, and for that
purpose the subjoined table has been compiled from official sources:
COMPARATIVE TABLE OF REVENUE OF JAMAICA, 1896-97
REVENUE. Pounds. Dollars.
Customs 321,780 1,608,900
Excise 122,735 613,675
Licences 732 3,660
Stamps 23,947 119,735
Post-Office 24,072 120,360
Telegraph 5,364 26,820
Tax on Stock[3]
Court Fees 8,284 41,420
Tax in lieu of Education Fees 11,243 56,215
Fines, etc. 4,412 22,060
Jamaica Railway 208 1,040
Reimbursements 35,969 179,845
Miscellaneous 13,992 69,960
Revenues now appropriated 181,663 908,315
Interest on Sinking Funds 14,199 70,995
Savings Bank 3,927 19,635
------- ---------
Total 773,527 3,867,635
IMMIGRATION REVENUE.
Capitation Tax, etc., Laws 7 of 1878 and 14 of 1891, 1,476 7,380
Miscellaneous 205 1,025
----- -----
Total 1,681 8,405
APPROPRIATED REVENUE.
Poor Rates 39,339 196,695
Kingston Streets 4,354 21,770
Market Dues
Pounds
Main Road Revenue, Law 17 of 1890 28,091 140,455
Parochial Roads 45,538 227,690
Sanitary 7,862 39,310
Fire Rates, Kingston 1,561 7,805
Trade, Metal, Hawker, and Gunpowder Licences,
Surplus Fund[4] 13,271 66,355
Gas Rates, etc. 3,793 18,965
Parochial General Purposes 4,503 22,515
Agricultural Produce Licences Law, 37 of 1896 3,685 18,425
Miscellaneous 8,544 42,720
Advances from General Revenue in aid of Funds 21,122 105,610
------- -------
Total 181,663 908,315
Customs, excise, and appropriated revenue, as will be seen above, are
the principal sources of income, while the expenditures for the same
period are divided under the following heads:
COMPARATIVE TABLE OF EXPENDITURE OF JAMAICA, 1896-97
EXPENDITURE. Pounds. Dollars.
Charges of Debt ................................ 82,417 412,085
Governor and Staff ............................. 7,368 36,840
Privy Council .................................. 62 310
Legislative Council ............................ 2,469 12,345
Colonial Secretariat ........................... 5,612 28,060
Director of Public Works ....................... 17,979 89,895
Audit Office ................................... 3,629 18,145
Treasury ....................................... 4,634 23,170
Savings Bank ................................... 3,275 16,375
Stamp Office ................................... 1,106 5,530
Post-Office and Telegraphs ..................... 35,910 179,550
Revenue Departments ............................ 39,969 199,845
Judicial ....................................... 45,611 228,055
Ecclesiastical ................................. 2,927 14,635
Medical ........................................ 59,307 296,535
Police ......................................... 60,889 304,445
Prisons and Reformatories ...................... 27,836 139,180
Education ...................................... 67,540 337,700
Harbour-Masters and Harbours and Pilotage ...... 2,741 13,705
Colonial Allowances and Military Expenditure ... 12,814 64,070
Miscellaneous .................................. 29,571 147,855
Census .........................................
Steam Communication ............................ 1,800 9,000
Stationery and Printing ........................ 7,989 39,945
Library and Museum ............................. 2,404 12,020
Plantations and Gardens ........................ 6,484 32,420
Railway[5] .......................................
Main Roads and Buildings ....................... 80,467 402,335
Pensions, etc. 16,962 84,810
Purposes now supplied by Appropriated Revenue .. 135,842 679,210
-------- ---------
Total Expenditure from Income ............ 765,607 3,828,035
Sinking-Funds, etc. ............................ 14,199 70,995
-------- ---------
Total Payments from Income ............... 779,806 3,899,030
Less Debt Payments as above .................... 14,199 70,995
-------- ---------
765,607 3,828,035
Add Expenditures from Moneys raised by Loans ... 8,125 40,625
-------- ---------
Total .......................................... 773,732 3,868,660
-------- ---------
Immigration .................................... 979 4,895
A glance at the above tables and then a glance at the budget of Cuba,
which will be found in a subsequent chapter, is all that is necessary to
show the vast difference between the British and the Spanish methods of
dealing with the fiscal interests of their colonies. The business-like
methods of the one, and the blind, slip-shod methods of the other, are
in sharp contrast. In dealing with Cuba, it may be difficult to follow
entirely these English methods of accounting at once. The sooner,
however, the United States inaugurates its own clear methods of national
bookkeeping and official accountability, the quicker the people of Cuba
will appreciate sound business principles in the conduct of their own
affairs. It makes no difference whether Cuba is annexed to the United
States or established as an independent government; these lessons must
be learned in either event, or the Island will come to grief. It is
hardly necessary to do more than call attention to the principal items
of expenditure.
First of all come roads. England has discovered that good roads are not
only an important factor in mountainous countries in keeping order, but
also the basis of industrial development and prosperity. In the budget
given above the following items must be added together in order to
ascertain the amount expended in 1897 for roads:
Main Roads and Buildings $402,335
Parochial Roads 227,690
--------
$630,025
Here may be found a good illustration of England's policy which is a
great contrast to the policy of Spain in Cuba. No money has been spent
on the roads of Cuba, all of which are in a deplorable condition.
Attention should at once be given to this important question and a
liberal sum out of both local and general revenues of the Island set
apart for this purpose. The debt of Jamaica is not excessive; it is in
the neighbourhood of $10,000,000, with an annual charge of about
$400,000. Police and medical charges are about the same, averaging about
$300,000 each, or in all $600,000.
In this connection attention is called to the annual expenditure on
roads in Jamaica for fourteen years:
EXPENDITURE FOR MAIN AND PAROCHIAL ROADS IN
JAMAICA, FROM 1883-84 TO 1896-97, INCLUSIVE
-----------+------------+-----------+------------------
Year. |Appropriated|Expenditure|
|revenue for |for Main | Total.
| Parochial | Roads and |
| Roads. |Buildings. |
-----------+------------+-----------+---------+--------
| Pounds | Pounds | Pounds |Dollars.
|sterling. |sterling. |sterling.|
1883-84 .. |39,514 | 48,156 | 87,670 |438,350
1884-85 .. |40,496 | 47,614 | 88,110 |440,550
1885-86 .. |38,246 | 52,285 | 90,531 |452,655
1886-87 .. |39,670 | 48,080 | 87,750 |438,750
1887-88 .. |42,935 | 52,318 | 95,253 |476,265
1888-89 .. |42,146 | 57,632 | 99,778 |498,890
1889-90[6] |20,740 | 32,210 | 52,950 |264,750
1890-91 .. |50,317 | 91,659 |141,976 |709,880
1891-92 .. |44,845 | 91,659 |136,504 |682,520
1892-93 .. |48,520 | 83,718 |132,238 |661,190
1893-94 .. |50,169 | 58,460 |108,629 |543,145
1894-95 .. |47,111 | 65,647 |112,758 |563,790
1895-96 .. |48,398 | 68,654 |117,052 |585,260
1896-97 .. |45,538 | 80,467 |126,005 |630,025
-----------+------------+-----------+---------+--------
Total for | | |1,477,204|7,386,020
14 years | | | |
Average | | | |
per year | | | | 527,573
-----------+------------+-----------+---------+---------
The necessity of liberal expenditure for maintaining the health of the
community is of first importance. A study of this budget may be found a
preparation for the subsequent study of the Cuban budget, to which the
reader's attention will be invited presently.
The present Jamaica tariff was evidently framed with the two ideas of
revenue for the island and a market for British goods. Food products,
for example, such as bacon, beef, beans, bread, butter, cheese, corn,
meats, oats, oil, pork, rice, salt, sausages, wheat, sugar, tea, coffee,
and many other staple articles are all on the dutiable list, some paying
a fairly stiff rate of duty. On the other hand, many articles of
merchandise, bricks, bridges, carts and waggons, clocks, diamonds,
machinery, locomotives, and a host of other things, which England
supplies the island, are all exempted from duty. Under a general ad
valorem clause, 12-1/2 per cent. is collected on all articles not
enumerated. The enumerated list of the Jamaica tariff is not large, so a
large amount of merchandise has been actually imported under this
clause. The proposed new tariff, which will probably go into effect next
year, takes many articles off the free list and puts them on the
dutiable list. It also increases the ad valorem rate to 16-2/3 per cent.
This has been found necessary because there has been a deficit in the
revenue. The new tariff is expected to yield £400,000, or about
$2,000,000, and from internal revenue or excise £150,000, or $750,000,
and £250,000, or $1,250,000, from appropriated revenue which will really
come from the land and householders. Here it is summarised:
Revenue from Customs ......................... $2,000,000
" " Excise .......................... 750,000
" " Appropriated Revenue (land and
household taxes, etc.) ........ 1,250,000
----------
$4,000,000
If this amount can be secured, the revenue of Jamaica will be a trifle
more than expenditure, and the result will be happiness. If not,
expenses must be reduced. Some members of the Legislative Council favour
this latter plan. The Commission has the whole fiscal question now in
hand, and within a short time will probably reach conclusions.
There is much more of interest that might be said about the present
economic condition of Jamaica, but the points herein brought out appear
to be the only ones that bear especially on the problem continually
facing the reader in a volume dealing with the industrial and commercial
reconstruction of Cuba. It will also be interesting to compare the
British method of colonial administration with the idea set forth in the
previous chapter by the Marquis de Apezteguia, whose point of view in
such matters is wholly Spanish. That is, the idea of possession is
paramount. The Marquis evidently has no faith in the ability of the
United States to administer the affairs of Cuba as a trust.
CHAPTER V
THE AMERICANS IN SANTIAGO
A visit to Santiago should give relief to those suffering from "the
craven fear of being great," for there may be found much that is
encouraging. In this province of Cuba may be seen in full operation the
work which the Government of the United States has been impelled to
undertake, and here may be studied the character of the forces upon
which the people of the United States must rely in the work of
reconstruction now in progress. The machinery of government is running
with a fair degree of smoothness, and the men responsible for it, from
the humblest official to the capable commander of the province,
understand their business and are masters of the situation. It is a
striking illustration of the marvellous adaptability of the American
character. Every department of the public service is carrying on its
work; the only difference apparent to one so recently in parts of Cuba
still in possession of Spain being the absence of Spanish soldiers and
the more businesslike methods of the officials. The disagreeable smells
of the typical Cuban city are less pronounced in Santiago, and
whitewash, limewash, fresh paint, and all sorts of disinfectants have
deodorised the surrounding atmosphere and made the old town really
habitable. The streets are no longer used as sewers, and the unhappy
person who violates the law and escapes the lash of the Sanitary
Commissioner's whip is compelled to work on the streets for thirty days.
This official, Major George M. Barbour, with one hundred and twenty-five
men, dressed in spotless white, and thirty-two good United States
mule-teams and carts, having dug out from the streets of Santiago the
filth of ages, is now able to keep them absolutely clean. Every day by
the aid of that great disinfectant, petroleum, the garbage of the city
is burned. The work of sanitation is not confined to the streets, but
extends to the dwelling-houses, shops, and buildings of all kinds.
Indeed, the campaign against dirt and disease has been as sharp and hot
as the charge of San Juan Hill, and as productive of beneficial results.
The resistance on the part of the native population was even more
stubborn than that of the Spanish soldiers to our forces around
Santiago. The doors of houses had to be smashed in; people making sewers
of the thoroughfares were publicly horsewhipped in the streets of
Santiago; eminently respectable citizens were forcibly brought before
the commanding general and sentenced to aid in cleaning the streets they
were in the habit of defiling. The campaign has ended in the complete
surrender to the sanitary authorities, and the inhabitants of Santiago,
regardless of class, have had their first object-lesson in the new order
of things inaugurated by the war. Looking backward five months and
picturing Santiago in July, and comparing it with the more hopeful
condition existing on all sides at the present moment, it is easy to
discern the omens which point to the coming prosperity of the whole
Island under intelligent and honest government.
Besides the improved sanitary conditions, there are many other
indications of the good work of Major-General Leonard Wood and his
capable corps of assistants. Several important thoroughfares have been
repaved. All the public buildings have been thoroughly cleaned and put
in good order, the work even extending to the large opera house, which
is now ready for the opening performance under American auspices; for
General Wood believes in furnishing decent amusements for the soldiers
of his command. The law courts abolished when General Shafter took the
city have been re-organised, and it was the privilege of the author to
take part in the brief, simple ceremonies on December 1st, when in a
modest speech the American commander turned over the legal business of
the province to the judiciary and inaugurated the Supreme Court. This
Court was composed of carefully selected Cuban judges, the appointees
nominated wholly on account of legal attainments; the Bar Association of
the province having been consulted as to the character and
qualifications of the new judges. As the occasion of turning over the
judiciary of the province to the people was one of considerable moment,
a brief description may not be out of place. A committee selected by the
Court called at the palace on the morning of December 1st, and after
being presented to General Wood, escorted him to the Supreme Court
Building. The room in which the Supreme Court of Santiago holds its
sessions is one story up a rather rickety-looking stairway. It looks
more like a long, narrow store than a court-room. At the far end is the
bench where the Court sits. It was draped with scarlet cloth and the
chairs are of dark oak. The courtroom was filled by interested
spectators. General Wood appeared in a fatigue uniform, taking a
position in the centre of the group of jurists, under the canopy over
the seat of the Chief-Justice, and in a businesslike manner proceeded to
state the object of the gathering. He told those assembled they had met
for the purpose of starting up the judicial machinery of the province.
While the military authorities still retained the power to revise all
cases involving life and death, there was no disposition to interfere
with civil matters. Innumerable cases had been piling up during the five
months of military occupation, and it was time they were adjusted. He
hoped the gentlemen appointed to this, the highest Court in the
province, would prove equal to the trust.
"Your enemies who say the Cubans cannot govern themselves," said
General Wood, turning toward the Court, "will watch you critically,
and your friends hopefully. Above and beyond all, be honest in
your decisions, for absolute integrity must ever be the foundation
of a fair and impartial judiciary. I pray you do not follow the
example of those who have made the courts of Cuba a byword for
corruption. With sincere hope for your success in dealing with
these matters, and with assurance of all the assistance in my
power, I hereby reinstate the Judiciary of the Province of Santiago
de Cuba."
Then the Chief-Justice, a man of fifty-five or sixty, attired in a rich
black silk gown, with handsome white lace cuffs, arose, and in a few
graceful words accepted the responsibility in the spirit in which it was
tendered, and assuring General Wood of his fealty to the United States
Government during the military occupancy, made a profound bow, and the
ceremony was over. Two members of the Court then escorted General Wood
and the author, who was invited to represent the civil authorities of
the United States, to the top of the staircase, and with a cordial adieu
the Military went out and the Judiciary came in and was reinstated. In a
few moments the Court was in session.
"Let me walk back," said General Wood, and the waiting carriage was
dismissed.
Passing the city jail, General Wood exclaimed to the author, "Take a
look at the jail, and see the good work we are doing there." There were
no prisoners, and it was evident the building was being renovated for
some new and more inspiring purpose. There is no more practical man in
the military service of the United States to-day than Major-General
Leonard Wood. He is just the man to build up the city and the province
of Santiago.
Not only has the judiciary been reinstated, but also, in the same
manner, local government has been restored, and native mayors and
officials have been appointed; the only requirement being that persons
accepting such offices shall take the oath recognising the military
occupancy of the Island by the United States. They are in no way
committed to any future form of government. The wisdom of this action
cannot be doubted, and the moral effect upon the people of Cuba will be
far-reaching.[7]
In constant meetings between General Wood and the author, during the
former's recent brief visit to the United States, he informed me that
all arrangements have been completed for the spring elections of
Santiago. Thus the next movement is towards a system of local
self-government which the Cubans heretofore have never enjoyed.
The Spanish, when in possession of Cuba, assumed absolute control not
only of the judiciary, but also of the municipal government, the larger
portion of the taxes raised for municipal purposes being diverted, with
the other revenues, into channels which either led to Spain or into
Spanish pockets. It will be even a greater stroke of wisdom if these
taxes are hereafter used exclusively for local purposes, and, as far as
may be deemed practicable, collected and disbursed by properly
constituted local authorities.
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL STREET, SANTIAGO DE CUBA.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY J. F. COONLEY, NASSAU, N. P.]
There could be no wiser expenditure of local revenue for several years
than upon the streets and sewers of the cities and towns of Cuba. For
years the money which should have been used for these purposes has been
drained away to Spain, and all local improvements shamefully neglected.
The rural districts of Santiago de Cuba have been so depleted that it
will be impossible to collect taxes over and above those needed for the
bare necessities of schools, for the poor, and possibly, in small sums,
for the improvement of sanitary conditions. The dawn of prosperity
should, however, be the signal for inaugurating systematic work on the
country roads. The province of Santiago de Cuba is similar in
geographical and geological structure to the island of Jamaica, where,
as is shown elsewhere in this volume, the good main and parochial roads
have been the principal stay of the population. In another chapter will
be found a brief history of the nearly two thousand miles of good roads
in Jamaica, together with an account of the expenditure thereon and cost
of keeping them in repair. The British Administration spends on an
average annually for roads in Jamaica about $500,000. Without
underestimating the strategical importance of a central railway from
east to west in Cuba the immediate returns to the population from good
roads would be far in excess of the more pretentious enterprise. The
money thus expended, whether from the general funds of the Island, or
from the local budgets, would come back a hundredfold, and make Santiago
one of the richest sugar-, coffee-, and fruit-growing districts of the
West Indies.
Santiago Province should be a profitable producing country for bananas.
It is good for the poorer classes to undertake the cultivation of this
fruit. The banana takes only fourteen months to grow and therefore,
unlike coffee and oranges, the cultivator does not have to wait several
years for the crop. All the capital in this business can be turned
quickly, and the banana can be planted near the hut of the small planter
and attended easily. Banes, Sigua, and Baracoa are good ports to export
them from. The Dumois family invested considerably in the business and
used to ship to the United States. This business is soon to be revived
on a much larger scale. The extension of good roads would largely
increase the possibilities of this industry in many parts of Santiago
Province. With quick transportation the market for bananas is rapidly
extending to Europe, while the United States market is only partially
supplied with this fruit and with oranges.
The internal, industrial, professional, licensing, and other
miscellaneous taxes have so far been remitted in this part of Cuba, but
the military authorities are now preparing to enforce them. In this
connection the author suggests that, now the customs tariff has been
disposed of,[8] an immediate scheme be prepared for levying and
collecting internal revenue taxes for the entire Island. The question of
separating these taxes from purely municipal taxes should also be
considered at the earliest possible moment, in order that no revenue
shall be lost.
Methods of local administration differ so greatly in different provinces
in Cuba that the wisdom of appointing a governor or commander for each
province is unquestioned. As much latitude as possible should be given
to these officials. The provincial governors should have power to decide
all questions appertaining to local matters, for the fewer the
references to Havana the sooner the people of Cuba will realise the
difference between Spanish possession and United States occupancy. For
military purposes, the government of the Island may be easily vested in
one central authority at Havana. For civil purposes, each province
should be made as absolutely independent as is possible, with general
supervision by the commander of the United States forces. The secret of
General Wood's success in Santiago is entirely due to the fact that he
has good judgment, the courage to use it, and full power in Santiago
Province to exercise both. The supervising power over the civil
department-commander should be made, as far as possible, advisory on
such matters as relate to the general welfare of all the people of the
Island, but all department questions should be scrupulously relegated to
the provincial governors. There will of course have to be some general
scheme inaugurated as to the collection and the expenditure of the
general revenue, but before this can be intelligently arranged it will
be necessary to designate what revenue shall be considered local, what,
if any, for the exclusive use of the department, and what may fairly be
regarded as revenue applicable for the general purpose of the whole
Island. In thus distributing the revenue, the greatest care should be
exercised not to hamper the provincial governor by an arbitrary division
of the purposes for which the money must be expended, until he has been
given ample opportunity to ascertain the needs of his department. A
country undergoing such changes as Cuba is, cannot be judged by ordinary
circumstances, and the most successful results will certainly be
obtained by giving the generals in command of the several provinces the
rein, and with the excellent example of the commander of Santiago before
them tell them to go and do likewise. Apportionments and divisions of
revenue will come later. The present emergency demands large sums for
sanitary purposes, for cleaning up cities, for fighting disease, for
renovating public buildings, for maintaining order, and for establishing
a decent, efficient administration of public affairs. These operations
must be done quickly and be planned chiefly by the judgment of the man
on the spot, acquainted with local conditions. The results of a free
hand are plainly visible in Santiago. The same policy must be followed
elsewhere, or summer will bring dangers from which the unacclimatised
population may well seek to escape.
As this is being written, the first difficulty has arisen at Santiago in
relation to the distribution of the customs revenue. The order of
General Brooke to send the customs receipts to Havana has met with
opposition. This is a natural result of the peculiar conditions existing
there, and no one can be blamed for it. For nearly five months no
municipal, internal, or local taxes have been collected; and with the
exception of about ten thousand dollars collected by Mr. Donaldson as
cemetery and meat taxes, the entire revenue of Santiago Province was
derived from customs dues. This money has been expended, as above shown,
by General Wood in cleaning up the city, in making new streets, in
renovating public buildings, in fighting disease, and in many other
ways, all with a view of benefiting the community. All this and much
more was justifiable in the emergency with which he was confronted.
Meanwhile the machinery for collecting local and other public dues was,
for various reasons, not put in motion until a few weeks ago. The taxes
from these sources rightfully belong to the municipality, and hereafter
will be expended thereon. The Spanish authorities collected all the
taxes, local and general, returning of the local taxes but a small
percentage to the municipalities. There is no intention on the part of
the military authorities of the United States in Cuba to use these local
taxes for other than local purposes, but it stands to reason that the
customs taxes must be collected by one central authority, equalised and
expended for the general welfare of the whole community. The ports of
Santiago Province, being practically the only ports in possession of the
United States, naturally used all moneys collected. January 1, 1899, all
other Cuban ports came into possession of the United States, and
Santiago becomes again part of the Island of Cuba, and as such is
entitled to equal, but not special consideration.
The people of Santiago have had over one hundred thousand dollars of
local taxes remitted, in consequence of the delay in getting the
tax-levying and tax-collecting machinery at work. This has been saved to
the community. All these taxes, being local, would have probably been
spent on local works or would at this time have been available for such
purposes. It is not the intention of the Government to have these sent
to Havana, nor does the order include them. New York might as well
demand that she be allowed to keep all the customs dues collected at
that port, or, more to the point, Havana. Over sixty per cent. of all
Cuba's customs dues are collected at Havana, but Havana will have to
pool her receipts, just as New York does, and take back such portion as
appropriations for public works as may hereafter be decided to be
rightfully her share. There is really no need for the people of
Santiago to get excited over the order, which is reasonable, just, and
in the line of fair government. On the contrary, the people should
rejoice to think they have had so much of the money expended in
improving the city, and that for several months they have practically
been relieved of local taxes.
The Custom-House at Santiago the author found to be under very capable
management. Mr. Walter A. Donaldson, who has had charge of the office,
has performed the rather difficult initiatory duties devolving upon him
with enthusiasm and ability. His knowledge of Spanish and his long
training in the customs service of the United States have enabled him to
recast the old Spanish methods and inaugurate the more businesslike
methods of our own custom-house without much friction; and as a result
we find to-day a complete organisation at Santiago, with branches at all
the other ports in the province, working efficiently and collecting the
revenue. While Mr. Donaldson has been able to dispense with about twenty
of the seventy employees, he has retained fifty of the Cuban and Spanish
already in the service, and with five United States officers is able to
collect the revenues expeditiously and administer the affairs of the
port with general satisfaction to the merchants and shippers of
Santiago.
Mr. Donaldson estimated, that at the end of December, the total
custom-house receipts in his entire district would aggregate in the
neighbourhood of four hundred thousand dollars. It is safe to say that
the collections in this port for the twelve months under American
administration will be twice the amount collected during the last twelve
months of Spanish control. As the rates of the tariff have been reduced
two-thirds this fact would seem to be a good sign alike for the interest
of American administration and the possibilities of a low tariff for
producing sufficient revenue. As is stated elsewhere in this volume, the
hope of sufficient revenue to manage the affairs of the Island is
largely--under greatly reduced taxation--based upon honest and
efficient collections. If it were otherwise, the natural consequence of
reducing the rates of duty by two-thirds (a measure which the President
of the United States has authorised) in a tariff capable of producing a
revenue of fifteen million dollars per annum, would mean a revenue of
five million dollars per annum. To accomplish this feat and still have
fifteen or even ten millions of revenue the future management of the
custom-houses in Cuba must be more businesslike and more honest. The
industrial importance of Santiago will be treated in the chapter on
Mines and Mining, the idea of this chapter being to give a glimpse of
some of the changes in this old city already brought about by American
military occupancy.
CHAPTER VI
OUTLOOK IN CUBA FOR LABOUR
That the wounds of Cuba will soon heal with the rapid promotion of work,
is undoubtedly true. This is the struggle the United States is now
entering upon, and the employment of the people should be the first aim
of those responsible for the management of affairs. There will naturally
be many disappointments, some disillusioning. The condition of labour in
the Island requires the most serious attention of our Government. A
brief history of it during the present century may elucidate the
existing situation.
In 1815, after the Napoleonic wars, the principal nations of Europe came
together and agreed upon the Treaty of Vienna. An important provision of
this Treaty was that henceforth slavery should be abolished. Spain, in
common with other nations, signed this agreement, but, as is her habit,
kept it not. The horrors of slavery were continued in her colonies, and
in the middle of the present century almost reached the depths of
inhumanity. At this time the population of Cuba was nearly a million
people, and the traffic in human flesh and blood was a prosperous and
profitable business. How long it would have continued is impossible to
say, had not England interfered. After painful delays, much threatening,
and innumerable broken promises on the part of Spain to observe the
Treaty of Vienna, England agreed to give that country two millions of
dollars to compensate those who owned "slave factories" in Havana,
provided the nefarious business was stopped. Spain simply pocketed the
money, told her noble sons engaged in the slave business in Cuba to
look out for British cruisers when bringing slaves, assured them that no
harm beyond the loss of cargo should come to them if caught--and the
plantations of Cuba continued to be supplied as usual with slaves.
Interesting facts in relation to conditions in Cuba during this period,
when British cruisers kept watch of Spanish slave-ships, have been
recently given in a series of articles in the _Century Magazine_,
written in 1859.
According to this chronicle, the Spaniards in Cuba were in open sympathy
with the slave-dealers, and a story is told of a slaver chased by a
cruiser into the harbour of Havana, the shores being lined with people
cheering the slaver. The cruiser would have effected a capture, but the
slaver, dodging into a corner of the harbour, came to anchor, and her
officers told the slaves on board to jump overboard and swim ashore, as
the British were cannibals and would eat them all if captured. The
slaves escaped to the shore, where the Spaniards picked them up and
laughed at the British and the trick.
The same writer notes that by law the British must sell captured slaves
by a mixed commission at fifty dollars each for a seven years' term of
labour. These slaves were known as _emancipados_ and each wore a tin tag
on his neck, showing the date of his sale and the date of the expiration
of his slave service; but _emancipados_, strangely, seldom reached the
end of their terms; the Spaniards prevented that, by taking the tag from
an _emancipado_ whenever one of their slaves died and putting it on the
corpse. This was sufficient evidence that the _emancipado_ was dead, and
the Spanish owner had a new slave. As for the general condition of the
_emancipado_, it was much worse than that of the real slave, for his
master, knowing he must soon lose him, treated him cruelly, by overwork
and starving, and when at last the poor _emancipado_ had his freedom, he
had neither strength nor health to enjoy it.
A Cuban gentleman, now over threescore years and ten, told the author,
in Cuba, that nothing in ancient or modern history exceeded in horror
the slave-trade of Cuba during this period. In spite of England's
watchfulness, it could be made profitable, even if occasional mishaps
sent a shipful of unhappy Africans, chained together below decks, to the
bottom of the sea, or a catastrophe set fire to the load of writhing
humanity, fettered to prevent escape. Naturally a large percentage died
on the voyage, and the condition of those landed was so awful that a
description would be impossible in these pages. It will suffice to say
that upon one occasion a young Cuban, who had been sent down by his
employer to land some of these unfortunate creatures, was so impressed
by the awful spectacle that he shot himself through the brain with a
revolver and died on the spot.
So long as this traffic continued, and the plantations of the Island
were supplied by the unhappy African victims of man's inhumanity to man,
there was no labour trouble in Cuba. Under such conditions sugar-growing
was a comparatively simple process, and those engaged in it became
wealthy. The day of reckoning, however, was at hand. After repeated
disappointments, England succeeded in absolutely stopping further
importations of slaves into Cuba. Up to the time of the breaking out of
the insurrection of 1868, black labour had been almost exclusively used
on the sugar estates of Cuba. Bad as slavery is at the best, there was
in Cuba probably the worst system ever known. The work was of the
hardest, the climatic conditions severe, and the unhappy victims of
cupidity were ill-treated and brutalised. With such a beginning,
continuing in one form and another until 1885, how could such conditions
produce aught but dissatisfaction and misery at the present time?
The same causes demoralised the Cubans. They were reared in luxury and
idleness and looked upon work as fit only for slaves. The owners of
plantations were rich men, their children were educated abroad, and, as
a rule, spent most of their time in foreign travel. A large proportion
of them were simply alien landlords. Unskilled in business, when the
change took place and the slaves were freed, these people were not
prepared to meet the new conditions which confronted them and to adjust
themselves to a new form of life. Here the Spaniard, who is always
anxious for gain, took advantage of the situation, and at the end of the
rebellion of 1868-1878 the Cuban planters, who were formerly rich, found
themselves impoverished. Their slave labour had been taken from them,
their opportunities for further employment of contract coolies had been
lost, and they found themselves in need of outside assistance. The
Spaniards and some others responded by advancing money to them at the
current rate of interest (twelve per cent.), but the planters,
unaccustomed to economise, could not pay expenses and interest, and year
by year their debts grew heavier. Some managed to continue operations,
but many broke down under their burdens and their plantations went to
satisfy their creditors, chiefly Spaniards. Short of labour, the crops
declined; and to add to their troubles, beet-sugar made its advent. The
European beet-growers, with a clear knowledge of conditions in the
Island, were quick to take advantage of them and push their product
forward to supply the Cuban cane-sugar deficit, and so successful were
they that at the end of the insurrection of 1868, say in 1878, Cuba was
practically bankrupt. Competition with the European beet-growers was
difficult, and it was impossible to induce capital from the United
States to restore the sugar industry of Cuba, owing to a lack of
confidence in the stability of the government of the Island.
[Illustration: CANE CUTTERS.]
During the ten years of rebellion, the planters were able to protect
their property by paying regular taxes to the Spanish Government, and at
the same time allowing a certain amount to the insurgents, who agreed
for this not to destroy the plantations. During this period they
employed slave and coolie labour; but they were then subject to the
Moret law, which was, in effect, that each planter should liberate a
certain number of his slaves each year, and this was to continue until
slavery had disappeared. Before this occurred, however, the treaty of
Zanjon was made, whereby all slaves were liberated. By the Moret law,
numbers were given to the slaves by the municipality, the name and
number of the slave written on a slip, which was put in a box and each
year ten per cent. of the names were drawn out. The owners were then
officially notified that certain slaves, giving their numbers, were
free, and this was published in a local paper. Most of these slaves
remained with the planters. This law had a very good effect.
Returning for a moment to the outbreak of the rebellion of 1868, it is
necessary to refer to another sad page in the history of labour in Cuba;
namely, the introduction of coolie labour from China. In 1869 the
importation of slaves into Cuba was stopped, and then commenced the
traffic in coolies, who were shipped from China, cargoes of them being
landed at Havana. They were brought over under a contract for eight
years by a company in Havana which had its own line of steamers. The
contracts were sold to anyone who wished to buy them, at from four
hundred to five hundred dollars per contract. The conditions of a
contract were that the Chinaman was to serve for eight years. He was to
be paid at the rate of four dollars per month, with rations, and was to
receive two suits of clothes and a blanket. If ill for fifteen days, his
wages were to be deducted and his time lost.
One of the conditions of the contract was that at the end of eight years
he was to be considered a citizen of Cuba with such privileges as were
extended to Spanish subjects. Before the expiration of the eight years,
however, those holding these Chinese contracts were notified by the
Spanish authorities that at the expiration of the contract of any coolie
in their employ they were to deliver said coolie to the authorities of
the locality where they were at work. Here, the authorities placed the
coolie on public land, obliging him to work for the municipality, and
held him there until someone offered to take him under a new contract.
This was entirely by force and not optional on the part of the coolie.
The conditions of the new contract were for four years more at
seventeen dollars per month, twelve dollars of which were to be retained
by the municipality, and five dollars were to be given to the coolie. At
the expiration of the four years, if the coolie's conduct had been
satisfactory to his employer, then the municipality was to return to the
Chinaman the money it had retained. The treatment of these coolies was
quite as severe as was ever meted out to an African, and when this
condition of affairs was learned by the Chinese Government, a commission
was sent to Cuba to investigate. A report was made to the Chinese
Government, which resulted in the prohibition of further coolie
emigration from China to Cuba.
Confronted by the loss of his slaves and by the prohibition of further
contracts for coolie labour, the Cuban was at a loss whither to turn for
help. His only hope lay with the Spanish peasants and the Canary
Islanders, and these, in as large numbers as could be secured, were
imported. They were much more valuable than the slaves or the coolies,
but jealousies arose among the Cuban labourers, and the newcomers, being
less numerous, were unable to protect themselves and in many instances
were forced into the towns for protection, thus leaving the planters
quite as short of labour as before, and at the same time increasing the
complications of the labour problem.
In this condition we find Cuba to-day. The great problem will be how to
obtain labour for the plantations, for the mines, and for agricultural
purposes, in order to carry on the work of industrial reconstruction.
All sorts of schemes have been suggested, but upon examination of the
conditions in Cuba, it is feared they will prove impracticable. The life
of the labourer, in consequence of the lack of diversified employment,
and the fact that labour in Cuba is the severest kind of toil, has few
attractions. If the Spanish soldiers are willing to remain and take up
peaceful pursuits, it will aid in the solution of the problem. Possibly
Italians may be induced to emigrate to Cuba, if assured of a stable
government and plenty of work. The opportunity (small allotments and
homes) is limited, and the drudgery on large plantations, without family
life, is not likely to attract those from Europe who are ever eager to
seek homes and broader opportunities in the United States.
When in Cuba, the author visited many plantations and talked with many
planters and overseers on the labour question. The extracts from notes
taken on the spot will be found instructive on this point. The following
excellent explanatory account of farm labour was prepared by an American
who has spent the best part of his life on Cuban plantations and is now
working a prosperous colona, or cane farm:
* * * * *
"From the 1st of December to the 1st of June an average of about 350
people were employed; of these ten per cent. were Canary Islanders or
Spaniards, ten per cent. negro women and boys (white women do no field
work), twenty per cent. native whites, and about sixty per cent. negroes
and mulattos. From the 1st of June to the 1st of December an average of
about 150 were employed. Women do no field work during this period.
"During harvest I give the negro women preference and pay them the same
salaries as the best male labour; they are more constant, their work is
usually well done, and each one keeps her man straight, which is an
appreciable item.
"Next I prefer the negro, because he is, as a rule, a more faithful
worker than either the native white or mulatto, the most of whom are
addicted to gambling, and they cannot be depended on from one day to
another.
"For stowing cane on the cars, ploughing, ditching, road repairing, and
railroad work, Canary Islanders and Spaniards are preferable; they are
more used to this kind of work, more constant, and have fewer vices.
"For cane cutting, carting, planting, and cultivating, native labour, in
particular negro labour, is preferable; because the natives, being
experts, work more rapidly, the cane plant suffers less injury, bringing
in more remunerative returns, and its life is prolonged, which is a big
item to the farmer; the natives are also much less addicted to smoking
in the field, and danger from this source is materially reduced. But as
a rule they are dishonest, and untruthful in the extreme, and this is
general and applies both to whites and blacks, the latter being the
champions. Canary Islanders and Spaniards are cigarette smokers and they
are dangerous in the cane fields.
"At the present time labour is very poor and very much demoralised. Many
of the abler men are in the insurrection, a great number of those
remaining have seen mothers, wives, and children dying a lingering death
from hunger; some could obtain work for their food, while others earned
a salary of from six to eight dollars per month in depreciated Spanish
silver. Provisions were high, and the Government increased taxes on
meats and other necessaries, until these poor ignorant people, bent down
by great sorrow and seeing no help for themselves, gave up in despair
and became indifferent.
"During the past crop, as well as at the present time, I employ a
considerable number of Asiatics, but many of these are opium smokers and
much debilitated, and we calculate on sixty per cent. only being at
work, while forty per cent. are resting in their barracon.[9]
SALARIES
"The average salaries paid by this colona during normal times, that is,
previous to the insurrection, were about as follows:
ALL THE YEAR
Administration.........per month, $166.66 gold, and maintenance.
Servant................ " " 30.00 " " "
Overseer............... " " 85.00 " " "
Second overseer........ " " 35.00 " " "
Steward and bookkeeper. " " 50.00 " " "
Assistant.............. " " 25.00 " " "
Carpenter.............. " " 35.00 " " "
Montero................ " " 25.00 " " "
Assistant.............. " " 20.00 " " "
Hostler................ " " 20.00 " " "
Assistant.............. " " 15.00 " " "
Pumping water.......... " " 6.00 " " "
Cook................... " " 30.00 " " "
Assistant.............. " " 25.00 " " "
Night watchman......... " " 20.00 " " "
Mounted field-guard.... " " 30.00 " " "
" " " .... " " 25.00 " " "
DURING CROP TIME
Mounted field guard............. per month, $25.00 gold, and maintenance.
" " " ............. " " 25.00 " " "
Time-keeper..................... " " 20.00 " " "
Waiter for operatives' table.... " " 15.00 " " "
Vegetable gardener.............. " " 20.00 " " "
Bueyero......................... " " 22.00 " " "
Assistant....................... " " 16.00 " " "
" ....................... " " 12.00 " " "
Foreman with cartmen............ " " 30.00 " " "
Assistant....................... " " 23.00 " " "
Foreman with stevedores......... " " 28.00 " " "
Cartmen......................... " " 23.00 " " "
Ploughmen....................... " " 23.00 " " "
Cane cutters.................... " " 21.00 " " "
Cane lifters.................... " " 15.00 " " "
Cane loaders (stevedores)....... " " 21.00 " " "
"During the summer months wages for field labour averaged about $17 per
month. Cost for maintaining labour averaged about $7.50 per month in
gold; cost for maintaining overseers, foremen, carpenters, cooks,
stewards, guards, etc., amounted to about $12 per month.
"Rations for each man per day were as follows:
"Clear beef, one pound, or its equivalent in tasajo or salt fish.
"Rice, one pound, or its equivalent in beans, peas, macaroni, etc.
"Lard, two ounces.
"Coffee, one ounce.
"Sugar, two ounces.
"Bread, six ounces, or instead of bread, sweet potatoes, plantains, or
melanga.
"Sweet-oil, bacon, salt, and spices sufficient to season the food.
"During the winter months, cabbage, tomatoes, and turnips are served
every day without regard to rations.
RULES AND REGULATIONS
"When a labourer enters his name on the pay-roll he receives his machete
or hoe, tin plate, tin dipper, and spoon, the same being charged to him
and credited when returned.
"Time-keeper makes his rounds twice every day.
"Away from the batey[10] smoking is absolutely prohibited, and the
penalty is immediate dimissal.
"Salaries are paid any day between 11 A.M. and 1 P.M., Sundays excepted,
to those who desire the money.
"Except in case of sickness, meals are charged to those who are not at
work.
"To the sick such medicines as we have are given free; the most
prominent of these is quinine.
"If a man remains in the barracon sick for more than two days he is sent
to his home, or to a hospital. If it is an injury received in the
service of the colona, he is cared for until able to work again.
"The bell tolls at 4 A.M. for the people to get up; at break of day,
after having drunk a cup of coffee, they go to the field; at 11 o'clock
they return to breakfast; at 1 o'clock they again go to the field; at 6
o'clock they come in to dinner, and at 8 o'clock the bell sounds
silence, after which absolute quiet is enforced. The negro is fond of
his music and dancing, and this is permitted at seasonable hours, and
sometimes the overseer gives special permission to prolong their
amusements beyond the usual hour.
"Gambling is prohibited, but the rule cannot be successfully enforced.
"In the dry season (at mid-day) when the people are in the batey,
sentinels are stationed on the hills to give timely warning of cane
fires.
"Armed guards patrol the fields by day, and guard the cattle at
night--this applies to times of peace.
ADVANTAGES OF LARGE COLONAS OVER SMALL ONES
"During my experience in this vicinity I have never known a single
instance where a small colona prospered or was able to extricate itself
from debt, and this condition is owing to various causes. A colona
employing from three hundred to four hundred men can be carried on more
economically than one employing from one hundred to two hundred men. The
high-salaried men in the one are very nearly the same as in the other,
but the small farmers with fifty or two hundred acres fare much worse.
These purchase everything they require at retail, often paying from
fifteen to thirty per cent. more than the large farmers, who purchase at
wholesale and receive rebate for prompt payment. A small farmer
employing ten men requires a cook; the larger, employing three hundred
men, requires but two cooks. The small farmer is always cramped for
money, has but a limited credit with the central, and outside of that
none, except with an occasional country storekeeper, who may consider
the risk and accommodate him by charging exorbitant interest. The money
which ought to be expended on the cane fields goes to pay this interest,
his fields get to such low ebb that the cane no longer pays the expense
for harvesting, he can obtain no money for replanting, fails to pay his
rent, and the owner of the land takes possession of what remains,
resulting in some other poor fellow stepping in only to repeat his
predecessor's experience.
"The cost for preparing, breaking up, cross-ploughing, making,
furrowing, seed cane, planting, cultivating, wear and tear to
implements, and weeding one caballeria[11] of cane to maturity, and
doing it well, is from $1400 to $1600, according to conditions of soil,
salaries, etc., and under normal conditions will here require from three
to four years before the farmer can see any profits, and then only by
intelligent management and good soil; soil which requires planting every
three to five years will ruin any man.
"The average yield of cane per caballeria in Guabairo for 1895 was about
71,500 arrobas,[12] and the cost per one hundred arrobas for weeding,
cutting, carting, and delivering to the central amounted to about $1.84.
"During the crop time we employed from one hundred and fifty to two
hundred Chinamen; of the balance of the labourers, probably there were
more negroes than Spanish, with the white Cubans in a distinct minority.
The Chinamen we have here now make very steady workmen, but they are
weak, and not able to do as much work per day as either a negro or a
Spaniard can do in the field. The best workmen we have, if we can get
enough of them, are the negroes. One negro in cutting cane, can do as
much as two of any other class; but I do not think this country is
adapted for the American negro, from what I have heard of him, as he
would have to put up with hardships here, and a style of eating and
living which, I imagine, is not as good as he has in the southern part
of the United States. The immigration of Chinese is prohibited, although
a few manage to get in at a time. I do not know of any other
restrictions on immigration. I do not believe the Jamaica negro would
make a good workman; for, from what I have heard of him, he is very
lazy, and would not be at all a desirable labourer. Thus our only hope
for labour is to retain here the Canary Islanders, because they are
harder working and can stand the climate better than others. They are
men who can save money here, and that in itself is proof that they must
be steady workmen, because they earn so little. Galicians are also good
workers, but so far as I know of the men working here, the Canary
Islanders are the best. The white men are mainly employed as stevedores
in the batey, though they are also good labourers in the field.
"As a rule the labourers are not married. The families of the married
labourers live in the villages in the neighbourhood. The men must sleep
in the batey at night. Sunday they work half a day, and get paid for a
full day, provided they have worked five full days during the week;
otherwise they only get half a day's pay. The men sleep in large rooms
called barracones; sleeping in hammocks, and not taking their clothes
off. Many of them possess but one suit, and on Sundays, after breakfast,
they go to a stream, wash their clothes, lie around until they are dry,
and then put them on again. For the better class of workmen, employed in
the factory, the machinery helpers, etc., we have bath-houses. These men
have rooms, and as a rule they are unmarried. Most of the labouring men,
if they have families, when they are paid off, go away for a day, or a
day and a half, and take their money to their families, and then come
back to work. Those who are not married, keep on working or stay off a
few days. It is quite uncommon to find a labouring man who can read and
write. Their chief vice is gambling, the Cuban and Spaniard being
similar about this, though we try on this estate to prevent gambling as
much as possible. The Chinese gamble and smoke opium. The bell rings at
8 P.M., at which time the men are supposed to be in their barracones,
and are not supposed to walk around the batey, this rule not being
enforced except during the last two years.
"The price of labour, in 1895, for cutting cane, etc., before the
insurrection commenced, varied from fourteen dollars to twenty dollars
per month, Spanish gold. This has fallen off to from twelve dollars to
fifteen dollars, Spanish silver, paid during the past crop for the same
labour--in American gold about fifty-five per cent. of this. The
maintenance per month per man is nine dollars, Spanish gold. This fall
in wages was necessitated by the fall in the price of sugar, and by the
fact that but few plantations in the neighbourhood were able to continue
working."
* * * * *
Labour seeking employment in Cuba must face these conditions. That the
field will prove sufficiently attractive to tempt immigration in large
numbers, even from the poorer sections of Europe, is doubtful. Still,
with more prosperous times, the Canary Islanders may try their fortunes
in the future as they have tried them successfully in the past; and so
with Italians, Spaniards, South and Central Americans, and even the
Southern negro of the United States, despite the fact, as stated above,
that the American negro will not come to Cuba because the work is too
hard and the food and accommodations too poor. But the American negro
will, unwittingly, no doubt be the pioneer of a new labour era in Cuba.
With the coming of the new order and new people, will come higher ideas
of labour, and that which has ennobled labour in the United States will
have its elevating influence among the labouring people of Cuba. Herding
labourers in barracones like so many cattle, sleeping them, feeding
them, bathing them, with less care than is shown to fine cattle, ruling
them with whip and spur, making no provision or allowing no time for
their mental or moral improvement, regarding them merely as so much live
stock, but of less value than cattle, because when too old to work they
cannot be slaughtered and eaten, it is small wonder that the crying need
of the sugar-planter for two centuries has been sufficient and efficient
labour. When the planter, under the newer influences which shall soon
prevail, learns that by education, by the adoption and enforcement of
sanitary regulations, by the establishment of homes, by the observance
of the decent amenities of life, by the liberalising of religious
belief, by the recognition of human rights, and by the general uplifting
of the sentiment of work, a sufficiency of labour may be easily secured,
and its efficiency guaranteed, the problem so long unsolved will be made
as clear as day, and Cuba will enter an era of prosperity for all
classes that will astonish and attract the world.
There is at this time a steady increase in the demand for labour on
plantations and, in Santiago Province, for the mines. While in Cuba the
author received one cable despatch calling for fifteen hundred labourers
for the mines, while three large planters stood ready, among them, to
employ a thousand men to work in the sugar fields. In the neighbourhood
of the sugar plantations all the able-bodied men had either been killed
in battle, died of disease and starvation, or were still in a state of
practical destitution, hidden away in the insurgent camps. Those who
offered themselves for employment were, as a rule, too weak to endure
the hard labour. Three years of privations and lack of food had
destroyed their stamina. To be sure, there is surplus labour in
Havana,--able-bodied labour,--but those who applied there had no means
of transportation to the localities where they could obtain work.
Through a suggestion made by the writer to an enterprising American
concern, four hundred of these Havana labourers were sent to Santiago.
It is estimated that at least three thousand additional labourers could
be well employed in these mines at once, if it were possible to send
them from the spots where starvation stares them in the face to the
localities where work can be obtained for those able to endure, as
already indicated, the hardest toil under trying climatic conditions.
Many Spanish soldiers desire to remain in the Island. They have formed
alliances in Cuba; some of them have married and have families there.
These men have come before American officials and entreated them to aid
in finding them employment of some kind, either as Civil Guards, in the
mines, or on the plantations. As a rule they make industrious and
faithful labourers. Attention is called to an extract from a letter
written by a prominent business man of Havana,--the man, in fact, who in
October was employed to send the four hundred labourers from that city
to Santiago:
"I advertised for labourers in the Santiago mines in our principal
newspapers, and, in consequence, have had for the last three days
at least one hundred and twenty men calling at my office for
situations. They are willing to accept the price offered, but not
one of them can pay the passage from this port to Santiago.
"Lots of soldiers, lots of labourers, many of whom have already
worked in the Santiago mines and know all about the work, living,
and everything else, but were taken away from there as guerrillas,
volunteers, and soldiers of some kind, are willing to go; but, as
you will understand, the people here have been without work and the
soldiers without any pay, and therefore nobody can pay the passage.
"While I have been writing these lines several men have called on
me, but it is the same thing over and over again; they need work,
and are willing to work, but they have not got one cent to save
their souls."
It is believed this indicates clearly and without exaggeration the
present conditions in Havana as regards would-be labourers and their
suffering for want of work. During fifteen years' experience in
operating iron mines in Cuba, those who know say, the labour question
there has always been the unsolved problem, as never during that time
have they been able fully to supply their wants in this direction. If
the number of labourers has not in normal times been sufficient to
satisfy the requirements of all industries in Cuba, how much will it
fall short under the new conditions? The only hope for the renewal of
prosperity in the Island is, first, the rehabilitation of the sugar
industry; second, a revival of work on the tobacco plantations; and
third, a full complement of men in the mining districts. These
industries are the basis of the prosperity of the Island. A better
distribution of labour will aid somewhat, and if this is accomplished
intelligently by the United States Government, employment can be found
for thousands whose presence in Havana without work is a menace to the
city. It should be borne in mind that the Cuban harvest is in the winter
months, and therefore plans should at once be inaugurated by which those
who want work can be immediately brought to those anxious to give them
employment. A small expenditure of money in this direction now will save
a large expenditure in the future in some other and less desirable ways.
It is useless to try to create new industries until the old and strong
industries of the Island are re-established. If it is difficult, after
the Spanish soldiers leave, to secure the necessary labour for the
plantations, producing, as they will this year, a maximum of 400,000
tons of sugar for export, where are the labourers coming from to produce
the high-water mark of 1,100,000 tons of sugar? The process of
industrial reconstruction will necessarily be slow and depend in a large
degree upon the stability of the Government and the rapidity with which
the people settle down to work. There is no possibility, however, of a
surplus labour supply. Work can be found for all capable and willing to
perform hard labour now that the affairs of the Island have passed into
the hands of the United States military authorities and the new customs
tariff has gone into force. From this time the work of repairing the
dismantled sugar plantations should go forward and thousands of
labourers will be required. Whatever may be the future of Cuba, the
present must be provided for and life and property and the right to
labour be protected.
The disposal of the insurgent troops is so intimately interwoven with
the labour problem that it is difficult to separate the two. Some of
the insurgent troops should be, and probably will be, utilised as Civil
Guards, supplementing the United States forces; but those who are not
needed for this purpose should be systematically aided as far as
possible in any endeavours they may make to secure work. Men with hardly
clothes to cover their nakedness, who have existed for three years on a
diet that would kill the ordinary American labourer in three weeks, and
who have practically foraged for their daily existence, must be helped a
little before they can stand alone--helped at least to the extent of
food and raiment and transportation to the locality where there is work
in abundance.
Lastly, in this connection, the need of homes in Cuba is one of the most
pressing. The condition of those who labour on the plantations is truly
deplorable. They literally have none of the necessities of civilisation.
A complete state of savagery would be preferable to the condition of
those employed on the sugar estates, who toil from early sunrise to
sunset on rations of the plainest sort, and live in huts built of the
bark of palm trees and thatched with the palm leaf.
CHAPTER VII
THE POPULATION OF CUBA
The number and the characteristics of the people of Cuba are matters of
doubt. If not of doubt exactly, at least there seem to be many
discrepancies in relation to the numerical side of the problem, and
great variation in opinion as to the qualities and peculiarities of the
several classes of inhabitants which constitute the people of the
Island. Before attempting to discuss the traits of the people, it may be
advisable to ascertain, as far as practicable, the component parts of
the population, and for that purpose recourse must be had to such
statistical data as may be found available. The census report of Cuba
can be obtained, but it is not issued, like our own, in book form, or
even as printed reports. The results, moreover, are not worked out with
any degree of detail as to age, sex, race, marital condition,
occupation, and such other data as make an analysis of the population of
the United States a comparatively easy task. The first census of Cuba
was taken as far back as 1774, and since then the population has been
enumerated at various periods, apparently when it suited the convenience
or desire of the authorities at Madrid. The last count of the people was
in December, 1897, but the returns from this enumeration have not been
tabulated. The authorities admit they are imperfect in the four
provinces of Pinar del Rio, Havana, Matanzas, and Santa Clara, and that
they lack entirely the population of Puerto Principe and Santiago de
Cuba. It may, therefore, be expedient that this work should be abandoned
and that the United States authorities should take a complete and
satisfactory census of the Island in December (for it cannot be taken
in the month of June), 1899, or December, 1900, either of which dates
will be near enough to the date of our own Twelfth Census, which will be
June 1, 1900--the earlier date will probably be better for Cuba and
nearer our own census. Such an enumeration should elicit information in
relation to occupations and such social topics as will aid in
constructing a suitable government for the people of Cuba. The method of
taking the Cuban census has been crude and the returns not very
reliable. The organisation for the work has always been made in Spain
and delegated to a Central Board in Cuba, which board is presided over
by a Cabinet Minister--the last by Mr. Montoro, Secretary of State. The
Secretary to this Board is the Director of Census. The schedules are
then forwarded to the municipalities, who thus control their own
enumerations. Fortunately for Cuba, there are no "boom towns," so the
returns are not unduly padded. The schedules for the rural districts are
handled from the capital of the province. When the schedules are filled,
they are sent to Havana, where the work of tabulation is performed. The
completed work is sent to Spain for approval and promulgation. The
method seems roundabout and cumbersome and must result in a large
percentage of errors. The official who had charge of the last census
admitted it was not exact--excepting possibly for some places where the
municipal authorities took pride in the work. This was the case in
Matanzas, where a census was taken in 1893, which seems on the face to
be careful statistical work. A study of the census columns of
unfortunate Cuba reveals the story of that Island in unmistakable terms.
(See table on page 92.)
Disease and war have performed their fatal work and from time to time
decimated the inhabitants. The cheerful side of the picture is the
constant increase of population from 1852 to 1867. These few years were
called the Golden Age of Cuba. The cholera visited Cuba at the end of
the year 1868, and the Ten Years' War began October 10, 1868, at which
time many Cubans emigrated. This will explain the decrease of the year
1869. From 1870 to 1877 Spanish soldiers poured into the country, and
not less than 200,000 Spaniards were sent there to crush the
insurrection of 1868 to 1878 (Ten Years' War).
POPULATION OF CUBA AT THE SEVERAL ENUMERATIONS OF THE POPULATION OF THE
ISLAND
----------------+-----------+-----------+----------
| | Increase | Decrease
YEARS. | TOTALS. | Per cent. | Per cent.
----------------+-----------+-----------+----------
1774 | 171,620 | .... | ....
1787 | 176,167 | 2.64 | ....
1792 | 273,939 | 55.49 | ....
1804 | 432,000 | 57.69 | ....
1810 | 600,000 | 38.88 | ....
1817 | 635,604 | 5.93 | ....
1819 | 553,033 | .... | 12.99
1825 | 715,000 | 29.28 | ....
1827 | 704,487 | .... | 1.47
1830 | 755,695 | 7.26 | ....
1841 | 1,007,625 | 33.33 | ....
1846 | 898,754 | .... | 10.80
1849 | 945,440 | 5.19 | ....
1850 | 973,742 | 2.99 | ....
1852 | 984,042 | 1.05 | ....
1855 | 1,044,185 | 6.11 | ....
1857 | 1,110,095 | 6.31 | ....
1859 | 1,129,304 | 1.72 | ....
1860 | 1,199,429 | 6.20 | ....
1862 | 1,396,470 | 16.42 | ....
1867 | 1,426,475 | 2.14 | ....
1869 | 1,399,811 | .... | 1.86
1874 | 1,446,372 | 3.32 | ....
1877 | 1,521,684 | 5.20 | ....
1887 | 1,631,687 | 7.23 | ....
1899 (est.) | 1,200,000 | .... | 2.65
----------------+-----------+-----------+----------
[Illustration: A COUNTRY VILLA.]
Then came the last war, which has been even more disastrous, and many
competent authorities put the loss by disease, starvation, and slain at
400,000. It is impossible to verify these figures until we shall have an
accurate enumeration of the population, so it must remain guesswork
until then. Whatever the result of the next census may show, the fact
remains apparent that the population of Cuba, by reason of its
misfortunes, is far behind t
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/41463