Vol. XVII. No. 420. 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS 



163 



A brief sketch of the history of the ,-ugar industry in Cuba, 

 by H. O. Neville, published in the Cul<c^ Re7'it:t'. March 

 1918, gives a very interesting account of the influence which 

 this industry has had on Cuban affairs. 



The exact date of the introdm tion of the sugarcane 

 into the island of Cuba appears to be unknown, but it would 

 seem that not very many years after the discovery of the 

 New World by Columbus, the plant was introduced from the 

 Canary Islands by Diego Velasquez, the conqueror and first 

 (lovcmor. It is stated that he bent his energies to the 

 utilization of the agricultural resources of the island, espe- 

 cially favouring the cultivation of the sugar-cane. For this 

 purpose he made grants of land to his followers, and assigned 

 to them numbers of the wretched aborigines as slaves needed 

 in the work. 



After his time, during the sixteenth and seventeenth 

 centuries, Cuban industries, especially the manufacture of 

 cane sugar, were much oppressed by the Spanish Government; 

 at one time the planting or cultivation of sugarcane was 

 even prohibited. Even after this prohibition was withdrawn, 

 monopolies and restrictions were so continued that the 

 industry could not advance, in spite of the natural great 

 advantages possessed by the island. In 1772, however, 

 most of the restrictions were removed, and active progress 

 in the industry began. The exportations oi sugar rose from 

 4,392 in 1760 to over 14,000 tons in 1790. The insurrec- 

 tion in Santo I'omingo, and the ruin and destruction of the 

 prosperous .sugar industry there in 1T91 gave Cuba an 

 opportunity of filling the place formerly iield by that island. 

 In 1792 the exports of sugar were 14,600 tons, which rose 

 to 40,800 tons in lf>U2. It must be remembered that this 

 production was only from small mills worked by oxen — the 

 only kind of mill which at that time existed in the island. 



Owing to the Napoleonic wars during the early years of 

 the nineteenth century, the Cuban sugar industry was severely 

 depressed by war conditions. But after the establishment of 

 peace, prosperity returned, so that by 1826 production had 

 fully reached its former figure. The increase in the area of land 

 tilled caused the same difficulty U> be felt as has been 

 likewise felt in these last years, namely the lack of sufficient 

 labourers to handle the crop. In 18.j4. the very year that 

 emancipation was proclaimed in the British West Indies, the 

 then Governor of Cuba encouraged the slave trade by every 

 means in his power, and >vas instrumental in the introduction 

 of numbers of slaves from Africa. At the same time, it 

 must be said, he discouraged many of the corrupt and 

 restrictive custtims which had been practised by former 

 Spanish Governors. Then began the period of greatest 

 prosperity ever enjoyed by Cuba before its occupation by 

 the United States. No accurate record is obtainable of the 

 area planted under cane, or the total production during the 

 greater portion of the period, but ajiproximate data indicate 

 that in 1870 some 610,000 tons of sugar were produced from 

 about 1,200 small mills. 



For the next ten years the continuous war of rebellion 

 changed these conditions. The island was swept with fire, 

 frequently set by the mill owners themselves, the fields 

 burned, and most of the mills destroyed. Meanwhile also 

 the beet sugar industry in Europe was forging ahead under 

 the protection of bounties granted on sugars produced for 

 export. In 1880 all slaves in Cuba were set free without 

 any remuneration being given to their owners. The labour 

 difficulty was thus again confronting the planter. Never- 

 theless the output of sugar began to increase year by year, 

 until in 1890 it again reached some 625,000 tons, practically 

 the position which it had occupied in 1870, though it is 



evident that, as this output had been produced by about 

 470 small mills, there had been great improvement in the 

 capacity of each mill. 



In the early days of the small mills each cane j^rower 

 had his own little cattle-mill, ground his own cane, and made 

 his own sugar. As labour became scarcer after the liberation 

 of the slaves, many of the small owners were no longer able 

 to obtain the labourers that they required, and many of the 

 larger planters found it necessary to sublet their lands ia 

 small parcels. This gave rise to the system at present 

 prevalent in Cuba, by which the cane growers have no 

 connexion with the manufacture of the sugar, merely growing 

 and selling their canes to the mills. The separation of 

 grower and manufacturer continued to spread, and concen- 

 tration of small mills and estates was effected more and more 

 till to-day in Cuba is to be seen the giant central factory, 

 purchasing cane often grown as much as 100 miles from the 

 jnill, possibly from growers who have never visited the factory 

 that grinds their cane. This period of reconstruction con- 

 tinued with ever- increasing output till the year 1894, when 

 a production of 1,054,214 tons was obtained. The War 

 of Independence, the bloodiest in the history of Cuba, broke 

 out in 1895, and incendiarism was so freely practised that 

 by 1897, the greater part of the factories had been destroyed, 

 the fields burned, and the cattle used for transporting the 

 canes killed, so that the production of the island had 

 fallen to only 212,051 tons. The losses of this war added 

 to the reasons for the concentration of estates, as many 

 planters emerged from the struggle without funds or credit 

 with which to re-establish themselves on their former lines. 

 Thus the sugar-manufacturing business began to fall into 

 the hands of large companies, and this tendency continues 

 and has doubtless become firmly established. 



The increase in the average capacity of the mills is 

 shown by the fact that in 1907 the average production was 

 about 8,000 tons oer mill, while in 1917 it was about 

 16,000 tons. 



A very important factor in the recent great develop- 

 ment of the sugar industry in Cuba is the effect that the 

 present war has had upon the production of sugar all over 

 the world. At the time the war broke out sugar prices in 

 Cuba had reached about their lowest level, and there seemed 

 to be little hope of a future rise. The good prices realized 

 for sugar since the beginning of the war seem to have put 

 the industry on a firm basis, Capital has been obtainable, 

 enabling mill owners to scrap all old and inefficient plant, and 

 to instal the most modern machinery, so that they are now 

 in a position to face lower prices with confidence that the 

 results obtained in the factory will enable them to produce 

 sugar at lower cost than ever before, when the price of 

 supplies, labour, etc, once more become normal. 



An account nf the development of the sugar industry ia 

 Cuba would hardly be complete without figures giving the 

 relation between the total world production of sugar, the 

 total world production of cane sugar, and the cane-sugar 

 production of Cuba alone. Fifty years ago the total pro- 

 duction of suaar in the world was estimated at nearly 

 2,000,000 tons, while the production of cane sugar at 

 the same date was about 1,447,000 tons, of which 

 Cuba produced 620,000 tons. For the year 1916-17 the 

 world's production uf all kinds of sugar was estimated at 

 16,466,777 tons, the total amount of cane sugar produced 

 being put at ll,26."i, 292 tons, of which (,'aba contributed 

 3,019,9;?(i tons, or a little more than 18 per cent, of the total 

 production of sugar of the world, and nearly 27 per cent. o£ 

 cane sugar. 



