GEOGRAPHIC SUBDIVISIONS IB 



Spaniards), $10,115,420; church and clergy (all Spaniards), 

 $379,757; military decorations (to Spaniards only), $5000; 

 pay of gendarmerie (all Spaniards), $2,537,119 ; expen-<- 

 of Spain's diplomatic representatives to all American 

 countries except the United States, $121,300. This left 

 $1,195,745 for the ordinary administration of the island, 

 such as education, public works, sanitation, the judiciary, 

 etc.; but if any of the sum was so expended, there are no 

 visible monuments in evidence of the fact. There is a 

 well-grounded suspicion that most of this sum reached the 

 pockets of the officials. It may be said that in round 

 Qumbers $20,500,000 have been annually contributed by 

 ( !uba to the profit of the people of the mother-country, and 

 devoted to purposes by which the island has been in no 

 way benefited. 



In addition to the legal taxation, the commerce is bur- 

 dened by a system of illegal taxation in the form of bribes, 

 which are necessary to the securing of any legal action. 

 Little or none of this money was devoted to education, 

 science, public construction, harbor improvements, high- 

 ways, sanitation, or other benevolent purposes, such as 

 those to which our free government devotes its per-capita 

 tax of $13.65. It is also a remarkable fact, notwithstand- 

 ing the extravagant taxation, that only about $100,000,000 

 have been remitted to the mother-country during the past 

 century, most of the revenue having been diverted to main- 

 tain the official classes. It is a common assertion that, 

 with the exception of Martinez Campos, no captain-general 

 has ever returned to Spain after a four years' intendancy 

 except as a millionaire. 



The first generation of Spanish-born immigrants cried as 

 loudly in protestation against the exactions of the mother- 

 country as do the oldest Creole families. Their commerce 

 was restricted; their industrial development prohibited; 

 their resources were exhausted; and their health, lives, 

 and liberties forfeited to uphold the institutions of an in- 

 capable mother-country. Not a single motive of civiliza- 



