tive

writerly a billion dollars, or more than all the sugar properties inbined in lands under the American flag. Normally the United States takes from ninety to ninety-five per cent of the entire Cuban crop.

Cuban tobacco products are among the most highly regarded in the world, but the industry though second in importance in the island, does not compare with that of sugar. All other Cuban industries are insignificant by comparison with sugar or tobacco. In recent years the market for molasses, a by-product of sugar, has assumed considerable proportions. The island is adapted to fruit culture, notably citrus fruits, bananas, pineapples, and cocoanuts, but the full possibilities of this industry have not yet been realized. The grazing industry has attained to some prominence. There are iron, manganese, copper, and asphalt mines in the island. especially in Oriente. The henequen industry of Matanzas and sponge industry of Batabanó are locally important. In Cuban industries as a whole the United States has a total investment of nearly a billion and a half. This compares with eighty millions in 1901, which at that time was considered large. While most of the American money is in sugar. there are also vast sums in tobacco, mining, fruit, railways street car companies, docks, warehouses, electric light and power companies, telephone companies, banks, hotels, steamship lines, and Cuban bonds sold in the northern republic. In 1923 American holdings in Cuba were estimated as twenty-seven per cent of the entire sum invested in the twenty republics to the south of the United States! Mexico. in which the American investment reached an amount second only to that of Cuba, had but seventeen per cent.

Cuba is an intensely commercial country, exporting all but a little of what it produces and importing nearly every thing it consumes, even including food products, which con

titute some thirty-five to forty per cent of the total. Sugar nakes up eighty-five per cent or more of the exports in value, with tobacco eight or ten per cent, and other products scatering. The increase in the value of Cuban trade has been ittle less than phenomenal. At the beginning of the cenury (1900 to 1904) Cuba had an average annual volume of rade of about $136,000,000. This had reached a total of slightly more than three hundred million in 1914 and approximately $725,000,000 in 1924, the highest figure up to that time in Cuban history, except for the inflation period of 1919-1920. In 1920 the volume of trade with the United States alone was $1,125,000,000, but value in dollars was hardly a correct index then. Cuban products enjoy a preferential tariff of twenty per cent in the United States, while those from the United States get a concession of from twenty to forty per cent in Cuba. This is one of the reasons for the dominant position of the United States in Cuban trade. At the opening of the century (1900 to 1904) the normal value of the United States trade was only some $101,000,000. Disregarding the abnormal figures for 1920, American commerce with Cuba had reached $553,510,261 in 1924, or about seventy-six per cent of the total. The importance of this trade to the United States is illustrated by figures for 1923 showing that Cuba with $367,345,910 stood second in the world in exports to the United States, and with $181,717,272 was sixth in imports from that country! This far surpassed the value of American trade with any other part of Hispanic America. On account of the decline in the price of sugar the value of Cuban trade with the United States was over fifty millions smaller in 1925 than it was in 1924.

There are two principal railway systems in Cuba, which also control several lesser lines. The United Railways of Havana is an English company which is the dominant factor

in the west, while the Cuba Railroad, an American company is equally powerful in the east. The latter has greatly ex tended its sphere of influence through acquiring virtual ownership of the Cuba Northern in 1924. While the island is, on the whole, well served by railways, with some 325 miles in operation, the same cannot be said for the roads. Vast sums have been expended in road-building, but with little or no benefit to the republic, because of graft or lack of care. Naturally enough, government figures on this score are unreliable. Direct steamship connection exists with numerous European and American ports, with frequent sailings, and there is train service to the United States, availing itself of a ferry from Havana to Key West.

Cuba had no currency of its own until 1915, using a variety of Spanish, American, and other foreign coins. Since 1915 there has been a Cuban coinage system paralleling that of the United States, but American money is also legal tender and is in fact in general use. The revenues of the government, which were some forty-one millions in 1910, rose to about double that figure in 1919, and still further to nearly $110,000,000 in 1921, but fell away to about fifty-seven million the next year as a result of the depression of 1920-1921. But in 1924 they were more than ninety-one million, and nearly ninety-three million in 1925. Expenditures ordinarily keep pace with revenues. In 1925 Cuba had a foreign debt of about eighty-seven million and a domestic debt just under twelve million. In addition there is a floating debt of perhaps fourteen million.2

So much for the story in brief. Something further should be said, however, to bring the situation more clearly into view. Unquestionably the sugar industry is in the back

'The data given here were obtained eign and Domestic Commerce at from a study of the many admirable Washington. publications of the Bureau of For

401

ground of every important phase of Cuban life. As virtually one-product country Cuba is an economic football. When prosperity gives it a kick it soars high, but when depression boots it, it drives at the enemy's line and is batted back. The last years of Menocal's rule were eloquent of that. Sugar is produced in every province in Cuba, but especially in Camagüey and Oriente, with Santa Clara and Matanzas also making a good showing. In Spanish days the two firstnamed provinces were not greatly utilized for sugar estates, but the growing demand for Cuba's chief product and the development of railway facilities have contributed to make this region preeminent. Forests have been burned to give room for cane, and the ashes and stumps left in the fields to serve as fertilizer. Occasionally the more valuable species of timber are first cut down and hauled away, but perhaps more often they are not. Thus, woods that are highly prized in the north,-mahogany, for example,—are sacrificed to make room for sugar. The method of planting is very simple. Men with sharp-pointed sticks make holes in the ground about four feet apart, and others follow them bearing short lengths of cane, each containing one or two joints. These are thrust, one at a time, in the holes that have just been made, and then made firm by pressing the earth around them through stamping with the bare feet. The cane sprouts quickly from the eyes of the sections, and in eighteen months is ready for cutting. The original stalk lasts without replanting, however, for from five to twenty-five years; indeed, it is said that some of the cane-fields of Oriente have still produced good crops after sixty years. The cane responds readily to fertilizing processes, but without some assistance of that sort the soil becomes exhausted much earlier than otherwise. Fire is one of the grave threats of the cane-field, as there are few growing things that are easier to ignite and

more difficult to stop. Public opinion has been educated to an appreciation of the importance of the sugar crop to all in the community; so nearly everybody turns out to help check a blaze that has started, and woe betide any man suspected of having set fire to a field deliberately! There would be no waiting for the decision of a law court.

Perhaps not more than a tenth of the sugar produced in Cuba comes from "administration cane," or that which is grown under the direct management of the great companies in control of the sugar-mills, or "centrales,” as they are called. Instead, the "colono" (colonist) system is in almost general use, although in a variety of forms. In many cases a man will be a proprietor of his own lands, but will sell his cane to a near-by mill. The more generally accepted meaning for this system, however, concerns the men who get lands from the central company on a peculiar rental basis whereby they receive in sugar, or its market price, a certain percentage on every hundred pounds of cane delivered. It may range from four to eight per cent, though perhaps more often somewhere between those limits. Thus, if it were six per cent. the colono would get six pounds of sugar, or more likely the price of six pounds, for every hundred pounds of cane, leaving the company whatever amount of sugar above six pounds it could get out of that amount of cane. As sugar averages only a little more than eleven pounds to each hundred of cane, the administration ordinarily has less than half the total amount, out of which to pay its expenses and provide dividends. Such scientific methods have been employed by the great sugar companies, however, that profits begin at a moderately low cost per pound. At the present time it is said that sugar is profitable at a price of three cents, although there are undoubtedly some concerns that can make money under the three cent level.