THE CUBA R E \' I E W 



11 



There is a law which pro- 

 Cuban hibits alien children under 

 Students sixteen from landing in the 

 Barred United States unless accom- 

 panied by one or the other 

 of their parents. Twenty or thirty school 

 boys from Cuba who arrived during Sep- 

 tember at Xew York ran up against this 

 law through the zeal of the immigration 

 inspector, and were detained at Ellis Island 

 over night. They were the vanguard of 

 an army of about 1.000 sons of well-to-do 

 Cubans who arrive here annually to go to 

 school. 



The Cuban Consul-General at Xew York, 

 Sr. Mariano Rocafort, at once w-rote to 

 Washington and hereafter the children of 

 Cuba who want to go to school here will 

 bring certificates of their intent from the 

 American consulates in Cuba. 



The Cuban consul said that he knew the 

 officials here were within the letter of the 

 law, and to avoid further trouble he asked 

 his government to see that school children 

 be properly certified. 



A contract for 20,000 pairs 

 20,000 of shoes j-earh- for the Cu- 

 Shoes ban army is estimated as 

 Yearly sufficient to keep all the 

 shoemaking firms of the re- 

 public busy for eight months in the year. 

 The contract was recently awarded to an 

 Am.erican firm, but it raised such a storm 

 of protest by local shoemakers, four Ha- 

 vana factories suspending work, that the 

 contract was recalled. The contract 

 stipulates that the shoes must be made in 

 Cuba, and the shoemakers were satisfied a 

 Cuban-American firm secured the work. 

 United States. The republic purchased 

 1,ST2,626 pairs of shoes for the seven 

 months ending July, 1911, which w-as 

 130,000 pairs more than for the same pe- 

 riod in 1910. 



D. C Henry, an American 



Preliminary irrigation expert, appointed 



Examinations by the Cuban government 



to study this great question 

 in Cuba, is chairman of the government 

 commission and has already lieen busy with 

 preHminary examinations in Pinar del Rio 

 Province in the neighborhood of Guam and 

 Remates, where many small lakes and the 

 favoring topography of the land will make 

 irrigation comparatively easy. 



He speaks highly of the ability and ca- 

 pacity of the Cuban engineers and their 

 assistants. Maps of the adjacent country 

 are being made by the engineers attached 

 to the work. Soundings of the lakes are 

 taken and a daily record kept of the rain- 

 fall and rise and fall of the rivers and 

 lakes in that district. 



Railroad 



Lines 

 Az-ailable 



President Gomez has re- 

 ceived a petition of the 

 Chamber of Commerce of 

 Camaguey asking that the 

 Cuba Railroad be allowed 

 to open its telegraph lines to the public 

 services, establishing the same rates as the 

 government charges on the official lines. 



The reason given for this is that on the 

 lines of the Cuba Central Railroad there 

 are grown new towms which have no gov- 

 ernment telegraph and that while the gov- 

 ernment does not get ready to establish 

 its own system the telegraph service of the 

 railroad can be used. 



HA\ANA S CUSTOM HOUSE 



The collections for the month of Sep- 

 tember compare as follows : 



1911 $1,557,851 



1910 1. 534.830 



1909 1.563.S9S 



1908 1,276.186 



Old irrigation ditch at Guines, Havana Province, thirty 



miles from Havana. The only irrigation system in Cuba 



exists at this place. 



