26 THECUBAREVIEW 



CUBA'S RICHES BARELY DEVELOPED 



SPLENDID OPPORTUNITIES IN THE EASTERN SECTION— REWARDS SURE 



IN THE SUGAR INDUSTRY 



Sydney Brooks, the well-known writer, again takes Cuba and its growing riches, which 

 he declared has been barely tapped, for his theme, and in the North American Review, writes 

 in part as follows concerning present conditions on the island, and the great development 

 the coming years promise. He says: 



Only within the last decade has Cuba begun to realize either herself or her assets. Even 

 now barely one-twelfth of the island is under any cultivation; fresh sources of agricultural, 

 mineral and industrial wealth are constantly being tapped. Nothing, a few years ago, would 

 have seemed more unhkely than that Cuba would be exporting over 1,000,000 tons a year of 

 the raw material of the American steel industry, or that a survey should show deposits of 

 three thousand million tons of iron ore. No one as yet has any precise idea of the wealth of 

 Cuba is capable of producing. It is one of the most accessible spots on earth and one of the 

 most neglected. It is on one of the most crowded and famous of trade routes — -that will be 

 more crowxled when the Panama canal is open — yet capital and modern science are only just 

 beginning to explore its opportunities. Its population numbers little more than two millions, 

 or about a fifth of what it could support in comfort. 



Of the many changes since Spanish rule, none is of more importance than the opening up 

 of the eastern districts. With the enterprise of Sir William Van Home in driving 600 miles 

 of track lengthways through the middle of Cuba, it is beginning to be realized that the economic 

 future may well prove to he in its eastern provinces, and that the long-worked soil of the 

 western parts may be outranked by the virgin soil of the east. Even now it is possible for 

 any well-organized concern to go into an uncleared wilderness, and in five or six years build 

 up a profitable industry in sugar, timber and fruit. 



Cuba Railroad itself is more than a common carrier. It is building ports and dredging 

 harbors; it is a large landowner and hotel }3roprietor, and has erected two of the most efficient 

 sugar mills on the island. 



The cities are rapidly equipping themselves with hotels, telephones, lighting plants, trans- 

 portation services, aqueducts, sewage systems, asphalted or macadamized streets, and so on. 

 The government, whatever its political shortcomings, has done much to develop the harbors, to 

 build main roads, to bridge rivers, to extend postal and telegraph systems, and to make the 

 path smooth for foreign capital. That average interest on the best security is 10%, and that 

 mortgages on unimpeachable property bring in a minimum of 8%, indicates the slenderness 

 of Cuba's financial resources. Considerable industries remain to be built up out of the 

 native supplies of sponges and textile plants; the rise in real estate affords many chances for 

 a rapid turnover that Americans have been quick to seize upon; nearly all staple agricultural 

 products of the tropical and sub-tropical zone are indigenous, and the small holder has a 

 wide range and there are some 10,000,000 acres of uncleared forest, containing over 50 varieties 

 of hardwoods, besides un worked deposits of copper, iron ore, manganese and asphalt. 



The greatest development is in sugar. It is now king in Cuba; tobacco is no longer, and 

 coffee has long since ceased to be. Value of the Cuban sugar crop is some $100,000,000 a 

 year, and the mere financing of it, where a man thinks himself lucky if he can raise money 

 at 12%, opens a tempting field for judicious speculation. To enter the sugar industry in 

 Cuba, as planter and mill owner and landed proprietor, is scarcely to speculate at all, so 

 unique are the conditions and so sure the rewards. There are many parts of the island where, 

 with little irrigation or fertilizers, sugar has been raised profitably for 100 years and more 

 on the same land. There are many others where no re-planting is necessary more than once 

 in ten years. The cane has nothing to fear from insects, and the windbrakes and light railways 

 and protective clearances, planted as a rule with sweet potatoes, have greatly mitigated 

 danger from fire. The supply of labor is, on the whole, adequate, tractable, and traditionally 

 skilled; and all economic conditions have been revolutionized in the past few decades. The 

 small mill has practically disappeared, and the small private plantation with it. Fifty years 

 ago there were over 1,000 mills; to-day there are less than 180. But the mills now are gigantic 

 structures owning, in some instances, over 200,000 acres of land, working over 100 miles of 

 railway, turning out 500,000 bags of sugar a year, commanding ample capital, employing 

 expert managers and up-to-date machinery, devoting the same painstaking, scientific study 

 and methods that Germany has lavished on the beet. The result is that Cuba to-day produces 

 the cheapest sugar in the world, and if put to it could undersell the beet in Europe. 



But Cuba at present has little call to think of Europe. Practically the whole crop goes 

 to the American market, which it enters on preferential terms; and this is a factor of the 

 first importance in insuring stability of the industry. Cuba depends on the United States, 

 but not so much as the United States depends on Cuba. Consumption by Americans increases 

 faster than that of any other people. They require already moie than 3,500,000 tons a year. 



