THE CUBA REVIEW 



27 



CUBAN COMMERCIAL MATTERS 



THE WEST INDIES AS AN EXPORT FIELD 



A handbook of nearly 400 pages on Ameri- 

 can trade in the West Indies has been issued 

 by the Bureau of Foreign and Domestie Com- 

 merce to meet the present needs of commer- 

 cial interests in this country. Figures which 

 are given furnish evidence of the importance 

 of the field, for it is shown that more Ameri- 

 can goods were sold to those islands in 1916 

 than to the entire continent of South America. 

 Including Porto Rico, they took .!;191,19.5,- 

 791 worth of goods made in the United 

 States during the year, whereas the sum 

 total of -American shipments to South 

 .\merica was $177,628,611. Cuba alone 

 purchased more merchandise than Argen- 

 tina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay and 

 Paraguay combined. China, with its 400,- 

 000,000 population, purchased only one- 

 seventh the amount of American goods taken 

 by the \\'est Indies. As a matter of fact, the 

 West Indies took considerably more than 

 two-thirds as much of our goods as the whole 

 continent of Asia and all the islands of the 

 East Indies. Thej^ took more than two and 

 one-half times as much as Australia, Kew 

 Zealand, and the rest of British Oceania. 

 They took four and one-half times as much as 

 all Africa. In short, the islands constitute 

 one of the very best markets for the products 

 of American factories, fields and mines. 



The Bureau's report, which was written bj' 

 Special Agent Garrard Harris, is entitled 

 "The West Indies as an Export Field." Its 

 treatment of each country and colony is com- 

 prehensive, although the commercial point of 

 view is never lost sight of. In the section 

 devoted to Cuba, for instance, there is a brief 

 description of the language, currency, weights 

 and measures, postage and the telephones, 

 telegraph, and wireless systems. Then comes 

 a short historical sketch, following which 

 there are chapters on location and area, phy- 

 sical characteristics, sanitation and health, 

 and population and distribution. Xext in 

 order is a description of the different prov- 

 inces, with a sketch of the resources, indus- 

 tries, transportation facilities, etc., of each. 

 The other chapters relate to such subjects as 

 the recent commercial progress of the countrj-, 

 agricultural products, fibers, stock raising, 

 forest resources, manufacturing industries, 



mineral resources, mineral waters and baths^ 

 labor and wages, rents, and living* expen.ses, 

 government and education, courts and civil 

 laws, trade-marks and patents, lands and 

 titles, taxation, banks and banking, foreign 

 trade, castoms, tariff, commercial travelers 

 and their samples, and concluding the sec- 

 tion there is a chapter on the outlook for the 

 future. Sixty-nine pages are devoted to 

 Cuba alone. 



Copies of "The West Indies as an Export 

 Field," Special Agents' Series Xo. 141, may 

 be obtained for the nominal price of 50 cents 

 each from the district offices of the Bureau of 

 Foreign and Domestic Commerce or the Super- 

 intendent of Documents, Government Print- 

 ing Ofhce, Washington, D. C. 



CONDITIONAL SALES 



American manufacturers are frequently 

 called upon to make sales of their products to 

 individuals or companies that are not pre- 

 pared to pay the full purchase price, and in 

 such cases it is a matter of great importance 

 to retain control of the article until all of the 

 terms of the contract have been satisfied. 

 Particularly is this true of machinery and 

 other articles of relatively high value, for 

 which the full purchase price is ordinarily not 

 immediately available. The practice com- 

 mon in the United States, whereby goods are 

 sold on the installment plan with reservation 

 of title until the full price has been paid, is, 

 however, not applicable in Cuba, where the 

 word "sale" is understood to mean a com- 

 plete transfer of ownership in spite of other 

 reservations. 



The plan which has been followed success- 

 fully by some of the largest American com- 

 panies is to lease, or rent the goods with an 

 understanding that the rent paid shall apply 

 on an agreed purchase price. \\'hen this has 

 been paid in full the title passes to the pur- 

 chaser. The underlying idea is that the goods 

 have been rented for a given period at a 

 specified rental with the option of purchase for 

 a certain amount at the termination of the 

 lease, as opposed to a sale of the goods with 

 the reservation of .some degree of control by 

 the vendor. 



A decision of considerable importance oo 

 this subject was recently rendered by one of 



