THE CUBA REVIEW 



GENERAL COMMENT ON CUBAN AFFAIRS 



NC ANTI-AMERICAN FEELING 



"Cuba is not enjoying a great degree of 

 prosperity at this time, because of the un- 

 certainty of what effect the new Democratic 

 tariff will have on the sugar industry of the 

 island," said Gen. Demetrius Castillo, su- 

 perintendent of the national penitentiary at 

 }{avana and former civil governor of San- 

 tiago Province, to a Washington Post rep- 

 resentative recently. "Not only are the 

 sugar planters depressed," he said, "but all 

 other business is suffering. The refiners 

 m the United States are delaying their 

 orders for the raw material and buying only 

 in installments, liccause they do not know 

 what the future holds. The Cubans are 

 not the only ones who are injured by the 

 new tariff; there are many Americans who 

 are largely interested in sugar plantations 

 in Cuba, as well as other foreigners. 



"There is no anti-American ■ feeling in 

 Cuba. There have been a few isolated 

 cases where residents of Cuba, not repre- 

 sentative Cubans, displayed feeling against 

 Americans, but the Cuban people and the 

 government are heartily in sympathy with 

 the American government and the Amer- 

 ican people. 



If the United States were to liecome in- 

 volved in war with Mexico or any other 

 power, Cuba would be the first nation to 

 offer its help to this country." 



"Cuba has a standing army of 10,000 

 men comprising infantry, cavalry and 

 artillery." 



THE CIENFUEGOS WATER WORKS 



"The city of Cienfuegos received at my 

 hands the finest water works and the finest 

 sewerage system in all Latin America," 

 said Hugh J. Reilly. Jr., in an interview 

 recently with a New York Times represen- 

 tative. "The day we turned the water on 

 there were 10,000 joints in thirty-two miles 

 of pipes that had to stand the test, and I 

 was a proud young contractor when I 

 found that every one of the joints was 

 standing up under the pressure. 



"New York City even cannot boast the 

 fine water pressure Cienfuegos has. There 

 is a 400-pound pressure on those mains in 

 places, and an average pressure of 175 

 pounds. The people gathered in the plaza 

 when the work was done and laughed at us 

 Yankees, who were preparing for a fire 

 hose test. They said we'd never get a 

 pressure, but when the water went spouting 

 up clear over the church steeple they went 

 wild with joy, and hundreds ran under the 

 spray to get a drenching in honor of the 

 occasion." 



CUBA AND JAMAICA 



Cuba and Jamaica are scarcely a hundred 

 miles apart as the bird flies. Both have 

 tropical, oceanic climates, and so far as 

 appears there is no great difference in their 

 soils. There is a most remarkable differ- 

 ence in their products. Cuba pins her faith 

 in sugar and tobacco. These two items 

 account for more than 90 per cent of her 

 exports, and sugar is by far the senior 

 partner. Jamaica has almost quit raising 

 sugar cane. About half her exports con- 

 sist of bananas. Coffee and cocoa are im- 

 portant items, together amounting to more 

 than $2,000,000 out of a total export trade 

 of $12,500,000. Logwood and logwood ex- 

 tracts form about 10 per cent of shipments 

 from the island, and rum — the original Ja- 

 maica product — is still made in small quan- 

 tities. Sugar forms a scant 5 per cent of 

 Jamaican exports, and tobacco is not men- 

 tioned. It is not easy to account for such 

 remarkable differences as shown by this 

 brief list. Perhaps the key might be found 

 in a study of land tenure and labor supplj'. 

 In Cuba much land is held in big estates, 

 and though slavery is abolished, the regi- 

 mentation of labor still prevails to a con- 

 siderable extent. These factors seem to 

 make for sugar production. Jamaica runs 

 more to peasant proprietorship. — Chicago 

 Journal. 



LIVING HIGH IN HAVANA 



"I don't think living can be so high any- 

 where in the world as it is in Havana. 

 One pays more for sugar there than one 

 pays in America. Grain alcohol, I happen 

 to remember, is very cheap there, but one 

 cannot make this an article of diet. To- 

 bacco is cheap, of course, and so is fruit." 

 — ■Mrs. Jose Godoy. wife of the Mexican 

 Minister to Cuba in the Newark Nczvs. 



SEED SELECTION IGNORED 



"One of the Cuban planters told me that 

 his father had always picked his seed from 

 the standing plant, but he, the son, had 

 never been interested enough to ask the 

 reason. My rustic friend was very polite 

 and also curt and posessed of some hurilor. 

 He entertained me royally, to the best of 

 his ability, as is the custom in the country. 

 He frankly told me that my ideas were not 

 new but that Iiis father put into practice 

 what I simply advised. Furthermore, he 

 was profuse in his thanks to me for re- 

 minding liim and his neighbors of a prac- 

 tice so hoary with age that Spaniards used 

 the idea long before they ever heard of 

 Cuba or the .American." — }rodcru Cuba. > 



