westward into Pinar del Rio, through a charming country that he and I have many times enjoyed together. He picked up his coal-discovering friend in the city of Pinar del Rio, and proceeded into the country to inspect the coal-vein. At a number of points immediately alongside the highway, his companion alighted to scrape away a little of the surface of the earth and to return with a little lump of really high-grade anthracite. Such a substance had no proper business there, did not belong there geologically or otherwise. The explanation soon dawned upon my friend. They were following the line of an abandoned narrow-guage railway, abandoned twenty years ago, along which had been dumped, at intervals, little piles of perfectly good anthracite, imported from Pennsylvania, for use by the portable engine used in the construction of the road. My friend declares that he is entirely ready at any time to swear that there are deposits of anthracite in Cuba. A very good quality of asphalt is obtained in different parts of the island, and considerable quantities have been shipped to the United States. Signs of petroleum deposits have been strong enough to induce investigation and expenditure. An American company is now at work drilling in Matanzas Province. The most extensive and promising mineral industry is iron, especially in eastern Cuba. Millions of tons of ore have been taken from the mountains along the shore between Santiago and Guantanamo, and the supply appears to be inexhaustible. The

product is shipped to the United States, to a value of several millions of dollars yearly. A few years ago, other and apparently more extensive deposits were discovered in the northern section of Oriente. The field bought by the Pennsylvania Steel Company is estimated to contain 600,000,000 tons of ore. The Bethlehem Steel Company is the owner of another vast tract. The quality of these ores is excellent. In Oriente Province also are deposits of manganese of which considerable shipments have been made.

It is not possible in so brief a survey of Cuba's resources and industries to include all its present activities, to say nothing of its future possibilities. At the present time, the island is practically an extensive but only partly cultivated farm, producing mainly sugar and tobacco, with fruits and vegetables as a side line. The metal deposits supplement this, with promise of becoming increasingly valuable. The forest resources, commercially, are not great, although there are, and will continue to be, sales of mahogany and other fine hardwoods. Local manufacturing is on a comparatively limited scale. All cities and many towns have their artisans, the bakers, tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, and others. Cigar making is, of course, classed as a manufacturing enterprise, and so, for census purposes, is the conversion of the juice of the sugar-cane into sugar. A number of cities have breweries, ice factories, match factories, soap works, and other establishments large or small. All these, however, are incidental to the great industries

of the soil, and the greater part of Cuba's requirements in the line of mill and factory products is imported. While little is done in the shipment of cattle or beef, Cuba is a natural cattle country. Water and nutritious grasses are abundant, and there are vast areas, now idle, that might well be utilized for stock-raising. There are, of course, just as there are elsewhere, various difficulties to be met, but they are met and overcome. There are insects and diseases, but these are controlled by properly applied scientific methods. There is open feeding throughout the entire year, so there is no need of barns or hay. The local cattle industry makes possible the shipment of some $2,500,000 worth of hides and skins. annually. Other lines of industry worthy of mention, but not possible of detailed description here, include sponges, tortoise shell, honey, wax, molasses, and henequen or sisal. All these represent their individual thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and their employment of scores or hundreds of wageearners. Those who start for Cuba with a notion that the Cubans are an idle and lazy people, will do well to revise that notion. There is not the hustle that may be seen further north, but the results of Cuban activity, measured in dollars or in tons, fairly dispute the notion of any national indolence. When two and a half million people produce what is produced in Cuba, somebody has to work.

XIV

POLITICS, GOVERNMENT, AND COMMERCE

T

HE British colonists in America were in large

measure self-governing. This is notably true in their local affairs. The Spanish colonists were governed almost absolutely by the mothercountry. A United States official publication reports that "all government control centred in the Council of the Indies and the King, and local self government, which was developed at an early stage in the English colonies, became practically impossible in the Spanish colonies, no matter to what extent it may have existed in theory. Special regulations, decrees, etc., modifying the application of the laws to the colonies or promulgating new laws were frequent, and their compilation in 1680 was published as Law of the Indies. This and the Siete Partidas, on which they were largely based, comprised the code under which the Spanish-American colonies were governed." There was a paper provision, during the greater part of the time, for a municipal electorate, the franchise being limited to a few of the largest tax-payers. In its practical operation, the system was nullified by the power vested in the appointed ruler. It was a highly effective centralized

organization in which no man held office, high or low, who was not a mere instrument in the hands of the Governor-General. Under such an institution the Cubans had, of course, absolutely no experience in self-government. The rulers made laws and the people obeyed them; they imposed taxes and spent the money as they saw fit; many of them enriched themselves and their personally appointed official household throughout the island, at the expense of the tax-payers.

A competent observer has noted that such terms as "meeting," "mass-meeting," "self-government," and "home-rule," had no equivalent in the Spanish language. The first of these terms, distorted into "mitin," is now in common use, and its origin is obvious. Of theories, ideals, and intellectual conceptions, there was an abundance, but government based on beautiful dreams does not succeed in this practical world. Denied opportunity for free discussion of practical methods, the Cubans discussed theories in lyceums. Under the military government of the United States, from January 1, 1899, to May 20, 1902, there was freedom of speech and freedom of organization. The Cubans began to hold "mitins," but visions and beautiful theories characterized the addresses. Prior to the Ten Years' War (1868–1878), there were organizations more or less political in their nature, but the authorities were alert in preventing discussions of too practical a character. In 1865, a number of influential Cubans organized what