CUBA 233 



since the collection of the statistics given. What changes the 

 deplorable conflict has wrought can only be surmised. Beyond 

 doubt, however, the population has at least been reduced to a 

 million inhabitants by emigration of non-combatants, destruc- 

 tion in battle, official deportation of suspects and political pris- 

 oners, and by the reconcentration. 



The rural population of the four western provinces of Pinar 

 del Rio, Habana, Matanzas, and Santa Clara has been totally 

 obliterated. Estimates of this extermination are all more or less 

 conjectural, but the Bishop of Habana is authority for the state- 

 ment that more than 400,(J00 people have been buried in the con- 

 secrated cemetery. 



The shaded portions of the accompanying diagram show the 

 depopulated portions of Cuba. 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION 



Cuba is divided into two dioceses, which are the archbishopric 

 of Santiago de Cuba, containing 55 parishes, and the bishopric 

 of Habana, containing 144 parishes. No Cuban-born priests are 

 found in any church of importance. In the cathedral chapter 

 at Habana there is only one Cuban, and only two natives have 

 ever obtained any especial preferment — the miter never. 



The same oppression obtains in the church as in the state, 

 the former being used for base ends in thousands of instances, 

 and against the protest of the authorities at Rome. \\ hile nom- 

 inally Catholics, and so holding that church responsible for 

 what they do, many Spaniards, in and put of Cuba, are very 

 poor Catholics in fact, and they do hundreds of things which 

 the church authorities by no means, approve. For example, 

 the Cuban native who becomes a Roman Catholic priest fares 

 about as badly as does the Protestant preacher. 



There is not a parish on the whole island that supports an 

 endowed school. Recently there was a crusade against the civil 

 marriage ceremony. The objection came because of the loss of 

 fees to the priest. The^ crusade was led by the Spanish-born 

 priest, who charges Cubans fees twice as high as he does Span- 

 iards. Parishes are farmed out on account of profits — not by 

 the church, but by the Spaniards. No priest gets these desir- 

 able parishes unless he happens to have been born in Spain. It 

 is the Spanish blood that contaminates the church, and not the 

 church that does the injury. It is partly the Spaniards' acts in 

 introducing abuses into the church that brought about the pres- 



