THL 

 CUBA RLVILW 



'ALL ABOUT CUBA" 



Copyright, 1913, by the Munson Steamship Line 



\'OLUME XII 



DECEMBER. 1913 



Number 1 



GOVERNMENT MATTERS 



THE NEW LOAN 



MORGAN & CO. VERSUS SPEYER & CO. 

 NATIONAL BUDGET 



THE 



President Menocal made a 

 The direct appeal on December 



$15,000,000 3d to the Liberal members 

 Loan of the Lower House in an 



effort to get them to aid 

 him in his efforts to get a national loan of 

 $ir),000,000. He showed the obligations 

 which the coimtry must meet and indicated 

 that if the loan was not obtained it would 

 be necessary to inaugurate a period of 

 economy that would render impossible the 

 realization of many of the public improve- 

 ments and other beneficial projects which 

 they themselves desired as well as the ad- 

 ministration. 



The Liberals through Senator Gonzalo 

 Perez and Congressman Carlos Mendieta, 

 chairmen of the parliamentary committees 

 of the Senate and the House, said they were 

 ready to aid in the work proposed by the 

 President and to that end would give their 

 preference to such laws as had the charac- 

 ter which had been mentioned by the Pres- 

 ident. In order to carry this out they also 

 promised the appointment of a committee 

 which shall confer with the leaders of the 

 Conservative Party on such bills as may 

 require immediate action and proceed in 

 accordance with the wishes of the Pres- 

 ident. 



The semi-official announcement was made 

 in Xew York on December .5th that within 

 two or three weeks the Cuban government 

 will float in Xew York through J. P. Mor- 

 gan & Co. the authorized $15,000,000 loan 

 whose negotiation was held up by Liberal 

 members of the Cuban Congress who until 

 recently refused to give President Menocal 

 the necessary authority. 



P.ut a new and more serious complication, 

 says the Neiv York Tribune, is threatened 

 Avhich may delay the flotation and cause 



more trouble to the government of Pres- 

 ident Menocal, who, it is asserted on seem- 

 ingly reliable authority, will refuse to abide 

 by the agreement which the Cuban govern- 

 ment has with Speyer & Co., bankers, of 

 Xew York. Under that agreement the new 

 loan would have to be negotiated through 

 that firm, provided Speyer & Co. offered a 

 price equal to the highest price which any 

 other responsible bidder might oft'er. 



If the negotiations exclude Speyer and 

 Co. in favor of Morgan & Co., it will surely 

 result in an appeal by the banking firm to 

 the State Department at Washington and to 

 President Wilson to compel the Cuban gov- 

 ernment to live up to the agreement. 



The agreement between the government 

 of Cuba and Speyer & Co. was ratified by 

 President Jose ]\Iiguel Gomez. At that 

 time the Xew York bankers made a loan of 

 $16,500,000 to Cuba to be used to pave the 

 streets of Havana and to build a sewer 

 system in that city and Cienfuegos. besides 

 building a water system in the latter city. 

 This loan, as all those contracted by the 

 Cuban government, had the approval of 

 ^Vashington before it was made. Paragraph 

 VII of that agreement reads in part: 



"... .to protect and maintain the credit of 

 the government and to avoid impairment of 

 tlie market value of the bonds, which are 

 to be delivered hereunder by the govern- 

 ment during a period extending to August 

 1. 1912, the bankers shall have the prior 

 right to purchase all bonds which it may 

 negotiate prior to the beginning of the 

 period of amortization, to wit, .August 1, 

 1919, at a price equal to the highest price 

 which any other responsible bidder may 

 offer hereafter." 



It is reported that even if Speyer & Co. 



