THE CUBA REVIEW 



27 



A decade hence they will need well over 5,000,000. Where is it to come from? Cubans 

 appear to have good grounds for belief that the United States will have to rely more and more 

 on Cuba. The colono system — under which land owned by the company is allotted to planters, 

 or colonos, who plant, cut and deliver cane to the mill, receiving in return five pounds of 

 sugar for every 100 pounds of cane — appears to work satisfactorily. 



Tobacco remains Cuba's second largest industry, with a natural monopoly of the finest 

 cigars. Whether the true Havana cigar has, of late years, deteriorated, I hesitate to pro- 

 nounce opinion. Independent manufacturers on the spot impute such suspicion partly to 

 the Cuban rebellion and Spanish-American War, partly to importation of Mexican seeds that 

 followed, partly to strikes, political disturbances, floods and cyclones since 1905, partly to 

 change in the taste of smokers who prefer a light-colored wrapper and mild-flavored cigar, 

 l3ut chiefly to the American trust and its experiments in fertilizers and cultivation under 

 cheese-cloth, its alleged indifference to the nicities of manufacturing and its reputed passion 

 for "standardizing." 



In going over the trust's factories in Havana I saw no evidence that the old names and 

 recipes and methods and the varying yields of different plantations were being robbed of 

 individuality. I am persuaded that the trust, which owns 75% of the best vegas in Vuelta 

 Abajo, has rendered the industry considerable service by scientific analysis of soils, by practice 

 of testing seeds, and by many other wholesome innovations. 



Growing export of unmanufactured leaf of an inferior quality has hurt the great name of 

 Havana. Cuba last vear sent abroad, mainly to the United States, over 300,000 bales of 

 leaf, valued at nearly $17,500,000 (or about $5,000,000 more than her exports of manufactured 

 cigars), from which "Havana" cigars are manufactured at Tampa, London, Hamburg and 

 elsewhere. 



Retail business in the towns is mostly in hands of Spaniards, a good deal of the best skilled 

 labor is immigi-ant and migratory, the larger enterprises are almost wholly owned and managed 

 by Americans, Enghshmen, or "Germans, and the natives tend more and more to become 

 either mere squatters or dispossessed employees. The poorer, heavily mulcted by the tariff, 

 demorahzed by the lottery, and shut off from the soil, live in a state of carelessly incongruous 

 destitution; and a more economical government or one that would break up the large estates, 

 encourage small holdings and cultivation of foodstuffs now imported imder heavy duties, 

 establish rural credit, and concentrate on agricultural instruction, could do much to improve 

 their condition. President Menocal has shown abundant signs of recognizing this. 



Material development of Cuba will be affected by the course of politics. The outlook 

 in that quarter, while decidedly more promising, cannot be absolutely reassuring. After 

 four centuries of torpor, the Cubans, a third of whom are negroes and perhaps two-thirds 

 illiterate, have been set to work out a republic. 



They can do so only after repeated stumbHngs and backslidings, amid many scandals, 

 with frequent lapses from democratic ideals, continuous commotion, and, on part of the 

 American Government, extraordinary patience, sympathy and forbearance. 



Cuba is at last beginning to realize that its old and sinister reputation as a fever den w^as 

 due to no natui-al causes, but simply to the folly and ignorance of man, and that its present 

 position with the second lowest death-rate in the world is much more representative of its 

 real merits. 



General view of the sanatarium for Cuban consumptives in Havana Province, located four kilometers from 

 the car station at Jesus del Monte. The sanitarium was built between the towns of Arroyo Apolo and Arroyo 

 Narranjo, occupying the grounds of the old Asuncion farm, which is 354 feet above the sea level, in a very dry and 

 airy chmate. The cost of the sanitarium was §120,000. 



