20 



THE CUBA REVIEW 



CUBAN COMMERCIAL MATTERS 



MEAT PRODUCTS 



The city of Camaguey, in Camaguey Prov- 

 ince, is an important center of the fresh-meat 

 industry. Habana depends largely upon it 

 for its supply of meat, buying it mostly, how- 

 ever, upon the hoof. Nuevitas and other 

 towns near Camaguey receive their supply of 

 fresh meat daily from that city, t hemeat being 

 shipped without refrigeration, lor immediate 

 consumption. 



There is also an important meat-products 

 industry there. One company in Camaguey 

 owns an abattoir capable of slaughtering 300 

 beeves and 150 to 200 hogs during an 8-hour 

 working day, having also equipment for the 

 pulling of bristles from, and the dressing of, 

 57 to 1 00 hogs an hour. There is also a sausage 

 factory for making sausages of all kinds and 

 other equipment for canning preserved meats 

 with a capacity of 15,000 pounds daily. The 

 company also makes meat extract. 



With respect to lard, an article that is very 

 scarce on the island at present, is is said that 

 the equipment employed by the company 

 turns out two lots of 20,000 pounds each in a 

 working time of 8 to 12 hours. The company 

 owns also nine refrigerator cars, running be- 

 tween Camaguey and Habana, and ice fac- 

 tories in both these cities, having a joint out- 

 put of 120 tons, also a co Id-storage warehouse 

 at Habana. 



According to the census of 1907 there were 

 2,579,492 head of cattle in Cuba, and it is 

 thought that now there must be over 3,000,000. 

 Camaguey is the chief cattle-raising Province 

 of the island, but separate statistics for it are 

 not available at this office, nor are statistics 

 of the number of hogs in the Republic. There 

 appear, however, to be a great many hogs. 

 They breed rapidly and generally are per- 

 mitted to run wild. 



CUBAN MINES 



According to the report of the Bethlehem 

 Steel Co., it is planned to combine three 

 mining properties operated in Cuba, the 

 Spanish-American Iron Company, Juragua 

 Iron Company and the Bethlehem Iron 

 Mines Company into a single company, 

 directly subsidiary to the Bethlehem Steel 

 Corporation, thus practically completing the 

 scheme for central control and operation of all 

 the various Bethlehem properties. 



CUBA'S PROSPERITY 



No sugar-producing country has benefited 

 more by the shortage of the commodity in- 

 duced b}^ the war among the Allies than Cuba. 

 The price obtained for this staple food has 

 been the highest in the history of the Repub- 

 lic, the total of crude and refined sugar and of 

 molasses exported being valued at £39,- 

 000,000 in 1915, rising to no less than £54,- 

 250,000 last year, figures which put the extent 

 of the pre-war trade completely in the shade. 

 Great Britain alone purchased sugar and 

 molasses from Cuba in 1916 to upwards of 

 £10,000,000. Such prosperity in the industry 

 has naturally encouraged great activity and 

 enterprise on the part of planters and refiners, 

 and it is therefore not surprising to learn that 

 last year imports of machinery and apparatus 

 were ahnost double those purchased annually 

 before the war. Between £7,000,000 and 

 £8,000,000 were spent on industrial machin- 

 ery by the Republic in 1916, and the greater 

 part of this was in connection with the sugar 

 industry. 



Plenitude of money, however, was shown 

 in other ways than in industrial expansion. 

 Foodstuffs and manirfactured goods of nearly 

 all classes were imported in enormous quan- 

 tities, the total imports last year amounting 

 to as much as £50,980,000, against only 

 £31,600,000 in 1915. As might be expected, 

 the bulk of this trade, to the extent, indeed, 

 of 72 per cent. ,is in the hands of the United 

 States, but it is satisfactory to note that 

 Great Britain's trade with the Repubhc, 

 instead of suffeiing as a result of the war, has 

 made marked progiess. In 1915 imports into 

 Cuba from the United Kingdom were valued 

 at £3,200,000, but in 1916 they rose to £4,- 

 843,000, or an increase of about 51 per cent. 

 The principal items imported from Great 

 Britain last year were cotton man "factures, 

 £900,000; vegetable fibres. £600,000; machin- 

 ery, £100,000; iron and steel, £96,000; chemi- 

 cal products, £90,000; colours and dyes, 

 £40,000; and wooden manufacturers, £75,000. 

 One item in the official returns is, however, 

 incomprehensible, viz., £1,500,000, repre- 

 senting imports of cereals from the United 

 Kingdom. The British shortage in foodstuffs 

 would, it might have been assumed, preclude 

 such shipments. It would be interesing to 

 learn the explanation. — British Export Gazette. 



