seekers from the United States will travel on the Island in increasing numbers. There is a tendency among well-to-do Americans to make winter homes in Cuba and to build residences in the capital and suburbs. All this will lead to a better knowledge of the country and a great interest in its industries with consequent additional investment of capital. There appears to be little room for doubting that ultimately American money and American management will dominate the industrial and commercial affairs of the Island.

Only one retarding factor mars the prospect of progress that is the deficiency of labor supply. Doubtless a large part will be for years to come imported from southern Europe, and this of necessity. If these, or a considerable proportion of them, could be induced to settle in the country they would form a desirable addition to the population. At present, few of them display an inclination to remain, but, on the contrary, make Cuba the means of furnishing them with sufficient money to set up in a small way of business at home.

The most easily available source of supply is the Jamaican negro, but he is not a valuable acquisition. His efficiency is calculated by em

ployers as less than half that of the Spaniard, or native of the Canary Islands. Negroes from the United States might seek employment in the Island, but the kind who would be of the most use can always find work at home at as good a rate of wages as they would receive in Cuba.

It is not to be assumed that the native will never supply the greatest part of the labor employed in his country. He would be available to-day to a greater extent and with greater efficiency if American managers understood him better and accorded him more judicious treatment.

Dr. V. S. Clark, in a government report, makes such an excellent and comprehensive statement regarding the Cuban laborer, that an extensive quotation is justified.

Some of the opinions of Cuban workingmen are given in the following quotations from the remarks by American and English employers of broad experience. It is not possible to have perfect agreement in judgments of this sort, and naturally no attempt has been made to do so. But those sweeping denunciations of Cuba and everything Cuban that come from tactless adventurers and from men who have left their

own country because they are chronically out of sorts with the world have been omitted:

A railway manager: "A Cuban seldom has a real conception of what is meant by special qualifications. On railways a man might occupy in succession a dozen different posts, each requiring a special kind of training. We have an instance where the same man has been station agent, telegraph superintendent, and superintendent of locomotive power within a few months' time."

A contracting foreman: "In the mechanic trades men are constantly presenting themselves as applicants for any positions to be had, assuring us with the greatest apparent candor that they unite all the qualifications of expert masons, carpenters, painters, plumbers, and gas-fitters. We don't employ such men any more. A modest range of acquirements is one of the best credentials a mechanic can offer us."

A government engineer: "The labor cost of all kinds of construction is half as much again as in the United States. But with time and patience intelligent Cuban mechanics can be trained to keep pretty well up with Americans on the same job. They will not do this, however, unless they are paid for it."

An English railway manager: "After many years of experience in railway managing in Brazil and other South American countries, I must say that the Cuban labor is the dearest labor I have ever had under my charge."

A factory superintendent: " We employ only Spaniards. They equal in industry and endurance the American workingman and are more steady and regular in their habits. I have had more than twenty years' experience in Cuba as factory and plantation manager, and have seldom found Cubans efficient in occupations requiring physical endurance or manual skill. But they make neat and fairly accurate clerks."

An army officer in charge of twelve hundred men in road construction: "The Cuban laborer is not as strong physically nor as intelligent as the unskilled laborer in the United States. He accomplishes about half as much work in a day as the latter. We bought a number of the iron wheelbarrows commonly used by American contractors for our work here, but the men were not strong enough to handle them successfully, and I had to substitute wooden ones in their stead."

An electric railway manager: "You can not manage the Cubans with a club. The amount