14 



THE CUBA R E \M E W 



PRESS AND INDIVIDUAL COMMENT ON CUBAN 



MATTERS 



WARNS AGAINST SELLING LANDS 



El Miindo, an Havana daily paper, 

 sees trouble ahead for Cubans if they con- 

 tinue selling their lands to Americans. 

 It said recently: 



"We have heard that some capitalists 

 and American business men have recently 

 notified their lawyers and representatives 

 in Cuba to purchase all kinds of farms. 

 They do not want to buy homes, for this 

 is not 'business.' This is all very well 

 for the women and younger people. What 

 they want to purchase is agricultural 

 lands. What they desire is 'the earth.' 

 When the Yankees took Puerto Rico, the 

 Puerto Ricans immediately tried to sell 

 them their lands, believing it to be good 

 business. The money was invested in 

 houses and mortgages. To-day all those 

 who sold their lands are, unfortunately, 

 unhappy, while the yankee purchasers are 

 entirely contented. They are the owners 

 of the land, that is to say, they are the 

 economical owners of Puerto Rico. This, 

 however, is forgotten by the Cubans. 

 They sell their lands, they part with them 

 with the same joy that the yankees buy 

 them. The great land-holders are not the 

 only ones that sell. The small ones also 

 sell. Cuba is not, as yet, very populous, 

 but it is on its way there. Let the Cubans 

 continue selling their lands, and let the 

 yankee continue purchasing them. They 

 will become poor as well as the others be- 

 come wealth}-. A\'hen we shall have neither 

 lands, nor commerce, nor mines, nor in- 

 dustr3% nor railways, what light shall we 

 have to the political or administrative 

 policy of the country? How can we 

 expect that foreigners who are solvent 

 will resign themselves to being governed 

 by the natives who are insolvent or land 

 poor." 



CANADIAN VIEW OF CUBA 



Commenting on a recent address of j\Ir. 

 Andrew Carnegie, delivered at the Cana- 

 ,dian Club in New York, in which he said 

 that if Canada got into difficulties, some 

 400,000 would cross the border to help 

 them, the Montreal Star, an influential 

 conservative journal, intimated that they 

 would remain in Canada and absorb it, 

 and cites the entrance of the United States 

 into Cuba as supporting their view. It 

 says : 



"They landed in Cuba to set free that 

 lovely and afflicted isle, and, though they 

 have formally withdrawn, notice has been 

 served upon the Cubans that they will be 

 allow-ed to govern their own affairs only 



as long as they d(j so in the fashion that 

 tlu'ir rescuers deem proper." 



SPANIARDS DOING CUBA's WORK 



"Ninety per cent of the laborers on the 

 plantations and in the mines of Cuba are 

 Spaniards," said Burton Vandyke, superin- 

 tendent of one of the largest iron works 

 in Santiago, at the New Ebbitt. "They 

 make good workmen, far better than the 

 natives of Cuba. In fact, the Cubans will 

 not work as laborers. They. are all right 

 in other lines of employment, but not as 

 workingmen. The Spaniards have almost 

 entirely taken the place of laborers of other 

 nationality. The wages paid are based on 

 an average of a dollar a day, but many 

 make as high as $3 by doing 'task' work. 



"Cuba is rich in minerals, but the devel- 

 opment of the island is retarded by the con- 

 tinued unrest due to the fear that at any 

 time, as in any Latin country, there may 

 be a revolution. I don't think that a re- 

 volution is imminent in Cuba. That would 

 not be correct; but there is always the ap- 

 prehension that some time there may be 

 an uprising. 



"I have given no attention to politics in 

 Cuba. That is a question that doesn't 

 appear to concern many Americans. There 

 is no doubt, I think, that if it were not for 

 the unsettled political conditions of Cuba, 

 American capital would feel safer in in- 

 vesting there, and there would be many 

 more Americans going there. At this time 

 I do not believe there are any more Amer- 

 icans in Cuba than there w^ere a few years 

 ago, although the opportunities for making 

 money in sugar plantations and in other 

 lines are manv." 



AMERICAN CONTROL GROWING 



The growth of Culja's sugar industry is 

 the theme of an editorial in the Haiaiia 

 Telegraph. It says : 



"The island's sugar industry has for 

 years been passing more and more into 

 American hands, but now. with the brilliant 

 prospects for the coming zafra, the move- 

 ment has received a great acceleration. 

 With sugar selling at seven reales, all ef- 

 forts to keep back a flood of American 

 capital will prove as futile as Dame Par- 

 tington's endeavor to sweep back the ris- 

 ing tide of the ocean with her Isesom. 

 The addition of a hundred millions to the 

 American capital invested in the island 

 will be a long step toward annexation, by 

 which the American people will profit, as 

 well as the Cubans." 



