TRADE OF THE UNITED STATES WITH CUBA 249 



from the United States to that island for the ten years ending 

 June 30, 1897. 



The principal article imported is sugar, the largest importation 

 of which was in the fiscal' year T893-'94, when it amounted to 

 949,778 tons of 2,240 pounds, or over one million tons of 2,000 

 pounds. This was equivalent to 30 pounds or more per capita 

 of our population, and constituted about one-half of our total 

 consumption. The next item in importance is tobacco, the im- 

 ports of which reached their highest figures in 1895-'96, when 

 they amounted in point of value to considerably more than one- 

 third of the total value of our own tobacco crop. The only other 

 class of imports that calls for special mention consists of fruit 

 and vegetables, which had a value in 1892-93 of nearly two and 

 one-half million dollars. ' 



The principal articles of export are, as will be seen from the 

 table, meats, breadstuffs, and manufactured goods, the trade in 

 all of which articles was rapidly assuming very large dimensions 

 at the outbreak of the insurrection. Coal, coke, and oils were 

 also exported in considerable quantities ; indeed, so diversified 

 were our exports that there is no considerable section of the en- 

 tire country that was no.t to a greater or less degree benefited 

 by the market for our agricultural, mineral, and manufactured 

 products that existed in Cuba. 



Between 1893-94 and 1896-97, however, our imports from 

 Cuba suffered a decline of 75.7 per cent, and our exports to the 

 island a decline of 61.7 per cent, the imports being reduced to 

 less than one-fourth and the exports to little more than one-third 

 of their previous volume. .During the first year of the insurrec- 

 tion our trade fell off over thirty million dollars, during the 

 second year a further sum of eighteen million dollars, and dur- 

 ing the third year a still further sum of twenty-one million 

 dollars, making a total decline of sixty-nine - million dollars in 

 the annual value of our foreign trade, and of a branch of it, 

 moreover, that is carried almost entirely in American bottoms. 



Is it any wonder that, entirely aside from the humanitarian 

 considerations that have prompted the United States govern- 

 ment to seek to put an end to the unfortunate conditions so 

 long prevailing in the island, some justification for such inter- 

 vention should have been found in the well-nigh total paralysis 

 of our commercial relations with that once extensive and profit- 

 able market? 



J. H. 



