THE 

 CUBA REVIEW 



LIBRARY 



NEW YORK 



"ALL ABOUT CUBA." botanical 



GARDEN. 



Copxright, 1909, by the Munson Steamship Line. 



Volume VIIL FEBRUARY, 1910. NUMBER 3. 



CUBAN GOVERNMENT MATTERS. 



A Year of the New Government — Sugar Crops Large and Trade Good — 



Revenue Needed Raised Without Pressure — No Yellow Fever and 



No Disorder — The July Elections a Test for Cuba. 



A year ago, on Jan. 28, 1909, the Government of Cuba was for the second time 

 transferred from American to Cuban control. During the year the crops, which 

 are tlie basis of the islands prosperity, have been good and prices for them have 

 been fair. The sugar crop of last winter was the largest in the history of the island, 

 and the crop now being cut and ground will in all probability considerably exceed 

 its predecessor. Only once during the past twelve months has there been an in- 

 surrectionary demonstration, and that occurred soon after the installation of the 

 present government, and was an affair of such small consequence that it was easily 

 suppressed. 



There has been some political confusion and notably a lack of party harmony. 

 The fusion, so long worked for, between the two faction^ of the Liberal party, the 

 Miguelistas and the Zayistas, is really further away than at the beginning. 



While expenditures have been increased and a new loan floated, in the main, 

 Cuba has raised the revenue needed without pressure on its industry, wealth and 

 population. 



The imports of the last calendar year of the United States were $107,334,712, 

 over $28,000,000 more than in 1908. Our exports to Cuba in the same period were 

 $48,217,689, $5,766,000 more than in 1908. 



These larger exports to Cuba mean more food, more clothing, more furniture 

 and more plantation supplies. Not an acre on the island but has doubled in value 

 under freedom and independence. 



Cuba has gone through the j^ear without pestilence and disorder. A third of its 

 children are at school, where a sixth were ten years ago. Illiteracy is disappearing 

 and is far below Spain to-day. But that Cubans do not yet thoroughly appreciate 

 their voting privilege is shown by the election in December, 1908, when only 

 260,000 votes were cast, out of 420,000. 



The coming July Congressional elections will tell whether the lesson has been 

 learned. The question is not so much which party shall return the greater number 

 of candidates to Congress as whether the independent republic, unaided by United 

 States supervision, can conduct an absolutely fair and peaceful election. If the 

 results are accepted peacefully by the losing party Cuba will have crossed a serious 

 danger line. The elections will be entirely under Cuban supervision and the places 

 of forty-one congressmen will be filled. 



General Orencio Nodarse, who resigned as Postmaster General recently, was 

 found guilty February 3d of the charge of shooting Senor Torriente, editor of La 

 Politica Comica, on August 3d last. General Nodarse was sentenced to three years, 

 four months and eight days in the Correctional prison. 



