10 



THE CUBA REVIEW 



GENERAL COMMENT ON CUBAN AFFAIRS 



The Rev. C. W. Frazer is the Episcopal 

 minister at the Cape Cruz sugar planta- 

 tion in the Province of Oriente. He has 

 lived for ten years among the Cubans, 

 speaks very interestingly of them and 

 their customs. 



"The Cubans differ from Americans very 

 radically, just as all Latins differ from 

 Anglo-Saxons," he said recently to a re- 

 porter of the Savannah (Ga.) Press. "They 

 have their own individual traits very dis- 

 tinctly marked, and Americans who come 

 there on business and other enterprises can- 

 not hope to change them over to suit their 

 own ideas. The main trouble with all 

 Americans who come to Cuba is that they 

 forget that they are in a foreign country, 

 and endeavor to make the Cubans, who are 

 Hving according to their own customs and 

 habits and manners of many years, change 

 about and conform to American ideals. 

 Which is a manifestly absurd thing to try 



"The Latin differ essentially from the 

 Anglo-Saxon in that they hate to come 

 directly to the point about anything. We 

 like to come straight to the point — they 

 like to go in the most round-about way. 

 They hold it to be a sign of weakness m 

 a man for him to tell the truth right away. 

 They think he is a fool and an idiot to 

 come right out and state the direct facts 

 in a case. This is to them a sign of a lack 

 of mentahty and of weakness of which a 

 man ought not to be guilty. However it 

 a Cuban lies to you and drives a hard bar- 

 crain with you he will come around after- 

 wards and laugh at you and joke with you 

 about it. If an Anglo-Saxon hes, though. 

 he will try to conceal it the rest of his Ute. 



than all other interests combined. Since 

 Cuba became an independent nation, 

 American capital has acquired control of 

 fully 50 per cent of the sugar plantations, 

 and the Americans are extending their 

 holdings. There is very little American 

 money invested in public utilities, and few 

 Americans are in municipal business afifairs. 

 "Opinion regarding free sugar is divided. 

 There are those who favor it, but there are 

 others, and I am among them, who believe 

 that free sugar will not help Cuba. We 

 have a preferential duty of 25 per cent, and 

 with free sugar to all countries, Cuba will 

 not be able to take advantage of the pref- 

 erential." — Dionisio Velasco, a business 

 man of Havana, in the Washington (D. C.) 

 Post. 



The old Spanish regime, incapable of pre- 

 serving public order and protecting hfe 

 ?.nd property, was not a field for invest- 

 ment of capital on an expanding scale, 

 says the New York Telegraph. Meanwhile 

 American investments have made of that 

 island the chief sugar producing unit in 

 the cane growing world. Spanish, Cuban, 

 American and German planters vie with 

 each other in developing Cuba's sugar pos- 

 sibilities. The savanna lands insure enor- 

 mous expansion and rapidly increasing 

 output. 



"H the capitalists of Cuba have per- 

 mitted the English to control the railways 

 and the Spanish to become the merchant- 

 men of Cuba, they have certainly not al- 

 lowed the foreigners to surpass theni in ul- 

 timate predominance of interests in the 

 ■elands, for the sugar industry is far greater 



In the September issue of the Canadian 

 Magazine, Mr. C. Lintern Sibley tells the 

 story of "Van Home and his Cuban Rail- 

 way." It is interesting to notice that Sir 

 William paid full heed to the Cuban's 

 punctilious regard for manners when he 

 was manipulating his island road. 



"When he got his railway builders to- 

 gether, he laid down two imperative rules, 

 which were as follows : 



Rule 1. — When you meet a Cuban, never 

 allow him to be the first to off with his hat. 



Rule 2. — When a Cuban bows to you, 

 always bow twice in response." 



F. R. Johnson, manager of the export de- 

 partment of the Standard Sanitary Manu- 

 facturing Company of Pittsburgh, recently 

 returned from a trip of six months, during 

 which he covered Cuba and other southern 

 countries. 



In Cuba the last crop of sugar, though 

 a bumper, sold for very low prices, conse- 

 quently the people in the country are re- 

 stricted for funds, and the wholesalers are 

 trying to collect and expanding credits as 

 little as possible until they can get their 

 money in. Cuba is a good buyer, he asserts. 



They now have express trains with sleep- 

 ers on many of the roads, where formerly 

 accommodations were rather limited. There 

 are also many good hotels in the island 

 to-day. 



Altogether Cuba is a fine country, Mr. 

 Johnson finds, both for business and com- 

 fort. 



Cubans are peculiar. They condemn, 

 they praise, they accuse, but when you ask 

 for evidence, legal proofs, it is not forth- 

 coming. It is enough for them that they 

 say so — that somebody else said so — that 



