THE CUBA REVIEW. 



Governor Magoon has reor- 

 Cuban ganized the Cuban Consular 



Consulate service. On May 22 the fol- 



Changes. lowing changes were or- 

 dered : 



Consulates at Vigo, Gijon and Avites in 

 Spain ; St. Mazaire and Bordeaux in France, 

 Glasgow, Scotland, and Baltimore, Md., are 

 made second-class consulates. The vice- 

 consuls at Barcelona and Liverpool, Ricardo 

 Herrera and Nicolas Perez, are named as 

 consuls to tfhe two first-named places. 



S'erafin Garcia Menocal is the new consul 

 to Baltimore. ' 



Francisco Rayneri is vice-consul at 

 Glasgow, and A. G. Garceni and Carlos 

 Vasseur fill the same post at St. Nazaire 

 and Bordeaux, France. 



Mr. Edward Patterson, of the London 

 consulate, is now vice-consul at Bergen, 

 Norway. 



Alfredo Lopez Frigo, of the legation at 

 Mexico City, and Octaoro Lamar fill the 

 vacancies at Barcelona and Liverpool and 

 the Mexico City post will be filled by 

 Jose Robelda Conill. 



Shanghai, Genoa, Montevideo and Brus- 

 sels are made consulates general, and 

 Benjamin Giberga, Mario Garcia Velez, 

 Calixto Enamorado and Antonio B. Z'a- 

 netti are consuls of the first class at these 

 cities. 



The honorary consulate at Kansas City, 

 Kan., has been abolislhed and a new office 

 established at Kansas City, Mo. 



The post of vice-consul at Progreso has 

 been abolished and that of Merida has 

 been made a second-class consulate. Jose 

 Caminero, formerly at Progreso, is appoint- 

 ed to the post at Merida. 



W. W. Lindsey & Co.. of 

 More Philadeilphia, contracting 



Bridges. . engineers, have secured 

 the contract from the Oli- 

 ver Co., on May 23, for the construc- 

 tion of 25 bridges, using goo tons of steel 

 on the road between Havana and Guane. 

 The same company will build the 

 bridges between Bayamo and Manza- 

 nillo. 



The bridge over the Cautillo River near 

 Jiguani, in Oriente Province, on t'he road 

 to Bayamo, has now been completed. 



Engineers from Havana arrived at Sagua 

 la Grande June 1 to begin the works for 

 the defense against inundations from the 

 river. The expense will be about $25,000. 



The National Meteorological Station has 

 been moved froim the roof of the Treas- 

 ury Building in Havana to new quar- 

 ters at Triscornia and new apparatus has 

 been installed. The station is under the 

 direction of Dr. Luis G. Carbonell. 



Work on the new $190,000 custom house 

 in Santiago de Cuba has commenced. 



The Department of State 



No Cuban will likely recommend soon 



Usury Lazus. that a usury law be drafted, 



which will place the legal 



rate of interest on all contracts at 12 per 



cent, per annum. 



At present no usury law is in force in 

 Cuba, and it is possible for money sharks 

 to charge government employees and other 

 unfortunates ten per cent, and over per 

 month. 



Said a writer in a recent magazine ar- 

 ticle: "The moneyed' man has no ade- 

 quate security that he will ever get his 

 money back. He therefore charges in- 

 ordinate interest and demands inordinate 

 security. Usury is. accordingly, one of 

 the curses of present-day Cuba. On the 

 other hand, labor is almost absolutely 

 unprotected. There is no such thing as 

 the mechanic's Hen or its equivalent. In 

 Cuba the laborer is considered last. Not 

 until farmers and laborers are reasonably 

 sure of the fruits of their labor will there 

 be industrial tranciuillity in Cuba, and 

 commercial tranquillity will flow at once 

 from industrial tranquillity." 



He says further that it is 



The Key already recogniz^ed by all in- 

 fo the telligent Cubans that Cuba, 

 Panama being the key to the Panama 

 Canal. Canal, can never be per^ 

 mitted by the government of 

 the United States to pass into hostile 

 hands, or, by incompetent administration, 

 to become a source of international 

 peril." 



This being recognized, the conservative 

 elements of Cuban societ". without much 

 regard to party, smile at the prospect of 

 an end to the "Intervention." They de- 

 clare that no end is possible and that, 

 after all, it is not the' form of interven- 

 tion but the fact of American control of 

 the situation which interests them. 



The Custom House col- 

 Havana lection at Havana for May 



Collections, aggregated $1,379,889.04. In 

 May of 1907 the collections 

 amounted to $1,477,533.69, and in May, 

 1906, to $1,690,936.18 



The decrease since January of this year 

 as compared with the 1905 and 1906 has 

 been marked each month. 



The petition of the State Employees' As- 

 sociation for a half holiday on Saturdays 

 during the summer has been granted by 

 Governor Magoon. From now to Septem- 

 ber 26 all government offices in Havana 

 will be closed after twelve o'clock on Sat- 

 urday. 



The bureau of revenue cutters of the 

 Treasury Deoartment is at present ar- 

 ranging to place wireless apparatus on 

 all the large revenue cutters owned by 

 the government. 



