THE CUBA REVIEW 



The Post on November 5th summed up the 

 results of the elections as follows: 



"The Liberals, considering the Unionistas 

 and Zayistas as comV)ined for the effects of 

 the opposition, will have a safe majority in 

 the lower house of the Cuban Congress. 



"The Unionistas will, with the present 

 holdover members, have 28 votes in the House, 

 an equal number being allotted to the Zayis- 

 tas. The Conservatives, counting with their 

 present number, will only have 43, which is 

 13 members less than the Zayistas and 

 Unionists wiU have." 



The Post says that in Havana Province 

 alone there appear as cast about 1,200,000 

 votes for congressmen, when the population 

 of all the six provinces of the island is less 

 than 3,000,000. This means of course that in 

 Havana Province very man, woman and child 

 must have voted. 



By presidential decree all gun 

 No Sports licenses which w-ere special or 

 on those authorized by the pay- 



Election Day ment of the regular fee were 

 suspended in October until 

 after election day November 1. This date 

 fell on Sunday, when cock fighting is per- 

 mitted. Therefore the secretary of govern- 

 ment issued a special notice suspending such 

 privilege on this particular Sunday in all parts 

 of Cuba, in order that there should be nothing 

 to keep the Cuban citizen from doing his duty 

 at the polls. 



New 

 Bond 

 Issue 



President Menocal, on No- 

 vember 3d, signed a decree 

 authorized to make under the 

 National Defense law an 

 emission of $5,000,000 treas- 

 ury bonds bearing interest at 6% and 

 redeemable within three years. 



These bonds will serve as a guarantee for 

 all state obligations, as surety or deposit for 

 all state, provincial or municipal contracts. 



The form in which the bonds are authorized 

 to be issued is to the thi-ee series, one of two 

 miUions, divided in bonds of $100 each and 

 known as series "A"; two millions divided 

 in bonds of $500 each, and which will be 

 known as series "B," and one million in 

 bonds to be divided into $1,000 each, to be 

 known as series "C." 



Payment for these bonds is to be made 

 in Havana, and final payment is to be made 

 before June, 1918. 



A bill recently approved bj^ 



Bonus for the Cuban house authorizes 



Tobacco the government to pay out a 



Exports bonus of $10 on each 1,000 



cigars exported; and 5% 



ad valorem of all leaf tobacco exported. The 



bonuses will be granted during a period of six 



months. 



This bill up to November 1st, had not been 

 signed by the president, owing to the objec- 

 tions of the Union of Tobacco Manufacturers, 

 who believed that if Cuba should give a 



bounty on the exports of cigars and tobacco, 

 the United States and also Great Britain 

 would undoubtedly raise the duty to exactly 

 the amount of the bounty, or premium, al- 

 lowed in Cuba, so that the manufacturers 

 would have no benefit whatsoever ; but on the 

 contrary might suffer more in the end, as they 

 would have to allow this extra duty to their 

 customers at once, while they might have to 

 wait a long time in collecting their bounty. 



The expected delay in the collection of the 

 bounty is due to a clause in the bill that pay- 

 ments should be made when there were sur- 

 I)lus funds in the Treasmy, for which at pres- 

 ent, owing to the European war, the outlook 

 is somewhat dubious. 



Another 



Amnesty 



Bill 



It is said in Havana that the 

 Asbertistas, as the followers 

 of General Asbert are called, 

 do not believe that President 

 Wilson is opposed to the for- 

 mer regaining his freedom, which would have 

 been effected by the Amnesty bill, but only 

 to the fact that the measure would have 

 turned loose a large number of criminals who 

 under the bill would have been freed with 

 General Asbert. 



The Asbertistas are trying new methods to 

 free their leader and hope to do so by intro- 

 ducing another amnesty bill which will par- 

 don any one who has been condemned with- 

 out having made an appeal. 



As General Asbert was governor of Havana 

 Province and was tried in the first instance by 

 the supreme court of the republic, there was 

 no appeal possible, as there was no higher 

 court to which an appeal could be made. 



This new biU will not help ordinary crimi- 

 nals who have exhausted every appeal possi- 

 ble. 



Holding that a number of pri- 

 Private vate detective agencies in 

 Detective Havana are employing shields 

 Bureaus and signs of distinction which 

 Restricted cause them to be confounded 

 with those of the secret police 

 and that in the investigation of certain crimes 

 the agencies interrupt the course of justice, 

 President Menocal has issued a decree curtail- 

 ing and prohibiting the wearing of such shields 

 and signs. 



He also prohibits these private agencies 

 from proceeding with the investigation of 

 cases in which punishable offenses are con- 

 cerned. These are properly the functions of 

 the pohce corps of the island, except in such 

 cases where citizens are obliged to co-operate 

 with the police in the investigation of crime. 



Havana's newspapers state that the Mayor 

 has received a proposition to establish a plan 

 in the city for making jerked beef. 



The organizers ask a four year tax exemp- 

 tion to enable them to build up the enterprise, 

 the first of its kind in Cuba. 



