The CUBA REVIEW 



13 



office of the long distance service will have a capacity of 40,000 telephones with a 

 branch office in the Vedado with a capacity of 6,000 and a smaller one at the Produce 

 Exchange with a capacity of 500 phones. Suburban lines have also been finished to 

 Marianao, Regla and Guanabacoa and the whole local service will go into operation 

 in June. The company is also making plans to extend its long distance service 

 to every important town throughout the island. It is probable that it will also 

 acquire the local rights of most of the old companies operating under the Spanish; law, 

 the concessions of many of which have but a short time to run. — J. R. C. 

 Havana, April 23d. 



Evidently the public will welcome a betterment in Havana's telephone service. 

 The Telegraph of that city has an editorial on the coming new service of which what 

 follows is an extract : 



"Considering the whole teleohone question seriously — is there anyone in Havana 

 but would like to have a real telephone system? 



"The telephone law of July, 1909, and the president's decree thereunder, have 

 brought a telephone almost within our reach. It is our understanding that within 

 a month or two the concessionaires will begin to put in the new automatic service. 

 Who those concessionaires are seems to us to matter very little — were our worst 

 enemies to offer us a good telephone we would, after our years of residence in Havana, 

 accept it with tears of gratitude." 



The Nezv York Press of May 6th says the stocks of the Cuban Telephone Company 

 appeared on the New York curb May 5th at 40, has a concession from the Cuban 

 Government which covers the entire Island. The company began business on September 

 10, 1909, by purchasing the plant of the Havana Telephone Company and the Havana 

 Subway Company for $3,250,000 of its capital stock and $1,211,000 of its first mortgage 

 bonds, and assuming obligations of about $15,000,000. Earnings from September, 1909, 

 to March 31, 1910, show $164,976 earned from telephone rentals, and miscellaneous, 

 $5,251, making total gross income of $170,228. After payment of expenses a surplus 

 of $107,672 is shown. — Nezy.< York Press. 



No 



Race 



Problem 



At the banquet in honor 

 of Vice-President Zayas on 

 April 28th in Havana, Juan 

 Gualberto Gomez in his 

 address took occasion to ex- 

 press an opinion regarding racial differen- 

 ces in Cuba, or rather the lack of them, 

 which opinion he thought was that of Dr. 

 Zayas and of all Cubans. He said that 

 there was no race problem in the island ; 

 that the whites and negroes were equal be- 

 fore the law and justice, and that those 

 who were perverse attempted to establish 

 dividing lines, and to propound a problem 

 that has been settled in Cuba when she 

 issued forth as a free nation. He said that 

 the whites may look to their Caucasian or- 

 igin and the negroes to their African proce- 

 dence, but that neither whites nor negroes 

 in Cuba cared anything about that, because 

 liberty had come to the country through 

 the effort of the two. 



President Gomez on April 12th signed 

 an appropriation for $8,000 to be used for 

 the improvement of the water conduits of 

 the Santiago de Cuba aqueduct. 



A newspaper has been started at Santia- 

 go de Cuba and issued its initial number 

 April 7th. Its name is El Conservador de 

 Oriente. 



The 



Wireless 

 Service 



A further extension will 

 probably be granted the 

 United Wireless Company 

 to continue its station in 

 Vedado, Havana. The com- 

 pany was authorized by President Palma 

 in 1906 to establish its station for an un- 

 limited time, but in September, 1909, the 

 present government, having established a 

 service in the island, ordered the United 

 Wireless Station to be removed. 



The intervention of the American min- 

 ister prevented this and also secured a de- 

 cree extending the hfe of the station. 



On May 4th the Cuban Department of 

 the Interior denied the application of the 

 company to continue the station, but the 

 American minister, after a conference with 

 Secretary Lopez Leyva, again secured — it. 

 is believed — a further extension. 



The Department of the Interior has de- 

 nied the application of the National Signal- 

 ling Company to establish wireless stations 

 in the country to be used for interior and 

 foreign service. 



Dr. Erastus Wilson, the well-known den- 

 tist of Havana, who was among the first 

 to introduce into this city the use of mod- 

 ern, up-to-date apparatus, died on April 9th 

 after a brief illness. 



