THE CUBA R E \' I I-: W 



17 



AN ENGLISH VIEW OF CUBA 



AN EXTERNAL ASPECT OF HEALTH AND WEALTH- 

 ANTILLA WILL BECOME GREAT PORTS 



-NUE\ITAS AND 



The Foniiii of Xew York, for October. 

 contains an interesting article on Cuban 

 conditions of to-day, by the well-known 

 writer Sydney Brooks, some portions of 

 which follow. 



"The tirst thing that strikes one on 

 journeying through Cuba, in towns and 

 villages alike, is that few countries have 

 an external aspect of greater health and 

 cleanliness. The Cuban death rate as a mat- 

 ter of fact is lowest but one in the world, 

 and it was almost bewildering to be forced 

 to realize that Havana, with the terror of 

 whose name all Europe and America have 

 rung for three hundred years or more, is 

 to-da}- no longer a fever den. but one of 

 the favorite health and tourist resorts of 

 the West Indies. American energy' and 

 example and Cuban docility and good sense 

 have to be thanked for a transformation 

 in Cuba that is nothing less than a medical 

 and sanitary miracle. If Americans had 

 never done anything else for the island. 

 the}- deserve its lasting gratitude for hav- 

 ing put the fear of dirt into the Cuban 

 people. It is not the Piatt Amendment that 

 keeps the Cubans scouring and flushing 

 their streets and installing water supplies 

 and sewage systems. It is simply that they 

 have learned that such things pay for 

 themselves a thousand times over. Yellow^ 

 fever has become not mereh- obsolete, but 

 virtually impossible, and I do not believe 

 that am- questions of sanitation will ever 

 again oblige the L^nited States to intervene 

 in Cuban affairs. 



■'It is one of the most accessible spots 

 on earth, and yet one of the most neg- 

 lected. It is situated on one of the most 

 crowded and famous of trade routes, and 

 yet capital and modern sceince are only 

 just beginning to explore its resources. 

 There is perhaps no territorj- of its size 

 in the whole world so richh- endowed Avith 

 potential wealth, vet only about one-fif- 

 teenth of the island is under any sort of 

 cultivation, and its population hardly num- 

 bers more than two millions. In the eas- 

 tern provinces especially the disparity be- 

 tween the enormous storehouse of natural 

 wealth that only waits to be unlocked, and 

 the scarcity of men, money and highways 

 to unlock it, is palpable even to the most 

 careless traveler. 



"Xuevitas and Antilla on the north coast 

 and Santiago on the south will one day 

 seriously dispute the ascendancy of Ha- 

 vana. 



"The crving needs of the island are in 



tile split re of economic development and 

 legislation ; promotion of the right sort of 

 immigration : the inducing or forcing own- 

 ers of vast estates that now lie dorlict, 

 impassable and unimproved, and of no 

 present benefit either to their proprietors 

 or to the community, to bring their land 

 into the market or develop it themselves ; 

 the placing of a tax on unimproved land 

 and devoting its proceeds to the construc- 

 tion of highways : the question of sound 

 titles and furnishing a supply of cheap 

 credit, for the present rate of interest in 

 Cuba averages 10 per cent. These are 

 problems that will have to be settled be- 

 fore the island can attain to a prosperity 

 commensurate with its resources. 



"Some S.jOO, 000,000 have been invested in 

 Cuba in the past twelve years, mainly by 

 Americans and Englishmen. My impres- 

 sion decidedly is that twice as much could 

 be invested without over-stimulating the 

 productivity of the island. The soil and 

 climate of the island are as admirably fitted 

 for the cultivation of sugar as of tobacco ; 

 there are many parts of the island, I be- 

 lieve, where, without irrigation or the use 

 of fertilizers, sugar cane has been grown 

 profitablv and unintermittently on the same 

 piece of land for years : there are many 

 other oarts where no replanting is neces- 

 sary more than once in ten years. Ten 

 thousand square miles of Cuban land suit- 

 able for sugar are reported as awaiting 

 development : and the last few 3-ears have 

 shown that joint stock companies working 

 in Cuba on a large scale, with plenty of 

 capital, modern scientific methods and ma- 

 chinery and expert managers, can produce 

 the best and cheapest cane sugar in the 

 world, and, if put to it, could even under- 

 sell their beet rivals in the markets of 

 Europe. 



"As regards self-government, this is be- 

 ing tried under more promising conditions 

 in Cuba than obtained anywhere else in or 

 around the southern hemisphere. Never- 

 theless, in the nature of things a Cuban 

 republic cannot be other than an experi- 

 ment. To take a people, one-third of whom 

 are negroes and two-thirds illiterate, who 

 have just emerged from four centuries of 

 political torpor and servitude, who have 

 never had a chance of training themselves 

 in the business of government, who have 

 an inherited disposition, intensified by their 

 lamentable history, toward faction and in- 

 discipline, and who live in a climate which, 

 while delightful for a transient visitor, 



