14 THECUBAREVIEW 



FOREIGN OPINION OF CUBAN CONDITIONS 



VIEWS OF THE INDEPENDANCE BELGE, KOELNISCHE ZEITUNG, LONDON 

 TIMES, LONDON AND SATURDAY REX'IEW 



Gomez, the patriot general who rules the distracted island, seems to many foreign 

 observers, such as the Indepcndaiicc Beige (Brussels) and the Kolnische Zeitung 

 remarkably efficient, "a strong engaging man of the people and an extremely astute 

 politician," to quote one eulogy. British views are in the main no less flattering. 

 The Cuban government, says the London Times, for instance, has preserved unbroken 

 the admirable record set by the Americans in matters of public health and sanitation. 

 "Cuba, once the fever den of the West Indies, is to-day a favorite health and tourist 

 resort with one of the lowest death rates in the world." The island government has 

 done much to encourage foreign capital, to improve communication by building roads 

 and bridges and by dredging harbors, to develop education and to forward the agri- 

 cultural interests of the island. It has organized an efficient and well disciplined 

 force of rural guards and has preserved the public peace with vigor. These statements 

 accord with those of many European journals which have kept correspondents in the 

 island. On the other hand the London Times and the French dailies hint at "graft," 

 which, they fear, Gomez has tolerated in too easy-going a fashion. Gigantic corporations 

 have long found Cuba a paradise, if the conclusions of the London Standard, confirming 

 those of the Berlin Krciiz-Zeitiing, be well founded. The tedency of the Gomez ad- 

 ministration has been to grant concessions to cliques and financiers upon terms so 

 liberal as to be wholly inconsistent with the public interests. 



The London Spectator and the London Saturday Reviezv refer significantly to Cuba 

 as one of the richest and most productive areas for its size on the face of the globe. 



"Cuba as yet is only on the threshold of its development ; its resources have been 

 scarcely even surveyed, much less exploited ; it is doubtful whether more than one- 

 fifteenth of the island is under any sort of cultivation. Lying on one of the great 

 trade routes of the world — a route that will be more than ever crowded when the 

 Panama Canal is opened — it has, nevertheless, remained for centuries almost derelict; 

 the surplus capital of the investing nations is only now beginning to find its way 

 there ; and the population of the island, a little more than a mere two millions, is 

 ludicrously disproportionate to a country that could, and, in the future unquestionably 

 will, support four or five times that number. Yellow fever has been stamped out; 

 Cuba to-day has all but the lowest death-rate in the world; and the beauty of its 

 scenery and the brilliance of its climate are making it one of the pleasantest winter 

 resorts in the West Indies. A frostless land of perpetual June, where the thermometer 

 rarely falls below 60 degrees or rises above 90 degrees, where the water supply in 

 every province is fresh and abundant, where the distribution of the rainfall favors 

 luxuriant crops and their ready marketing, and where nearly all the staple agricultural 

 products of the tropical and sub-tropical zone are indigenous, Cuba deserves its name 

 of 'the indigenous Garden of Eden.' Like the western States of America thirty or 

 forty years ago, Cuba resembles a storehouse of unsuspected riches awaiting the men 

 and the money to unlock it. Apart from sugar and tobacco, it contains deposits of 

 three thousand million tons of iron ore, and some ten million acres of uncleared forest, 

 containing over fifty different varieties of hard w'oods : it offers a wide, and in many 

 ways a unique, range of opportunities to the small planter ; and, in addition to the 

 openings for capital that are always abundant when a rich but undeveloped country 

 begins to equip itself with the accessories and conveniences demanded by a modern 

 community, it also holds out a feasible prospect of building-up large industries on the 

 native supplies of sponges and textile plants." — Current Literature for July, 1912. 



Aliguel Mariano Gomez, son of the presi- A cabinet crisis was threatened July 4th. 



dent, was on July 16th given the degree of Secretaries Quiros and Carrera, it was ru- 



Doctor of Laws. He has been studying mored, having resigned. Later, however, 



law in the Havana University. it was said that the officials would not 



The Krajewski-Pesant corporation has ^^^^^ ^^e cabinet, 



announced that it was reorganized under The Lower House on July 3d passed a 



the laws of Delaware. The company has resolution appointing the Committee on 



obtained possession of the Havana Iron Laws as a special commission to investigate 



Works, the Erie Basin Iron Works and the lease made by the Department of Pub- 



the Havana Dock Co. Adolfo B. Horn lie Works of the swamp property which 



is president of the company. belongs to the state. 



