Here is a country, small in extent, it is true, but as rich proportionally in natural resources as any in the world. It exports over $100,000,000 worth of the products of its soil annually. Yet less than half of its productive area is turned to account, and of its cultivated tracts only a small proportion is subjected to intensive treatment. Bad government and ill-judged commercial policy have retarded the development of the country which, under favorable conditions, might to-day be producing five times its output and supporting a population five times as great as that which it has. It is importing large quantities of foodstuff that ought to be raised upon its lands and paying substantial sums for foreign labor that should be supplied by its own people. The economic condition of Cuba is as unfavorable as possible to the welfare of its popu{121}lation. Foreigners own practically everything in the country. The Island is exploited for the benefit of everyone but the natives.
Additional capital is constantly coming in. New enterprises are continually being floated. In a way these are beneficial to the community at large, but, with the exception of the official class, they work little good to the natives. In fact, they decrease the Cuban’s chances of ever doing anything for himself. Capital and corporations create wealth, but precious little of it finds its way into the pockets of the guajiro, or the negro. What the country needs, if ever its people are to become prosperous, is a greater diversity of industries with opportunities for the little man, and an increase in the small land-owners. There is a bare possibility of the former condition coming about; the latter is beyond the bounds of hope. There is no public domain for disposal to homesteaders. Practically all the land in the Island is occupied or held for sale at high figures. A very small proportion of the peasant class own their holdings. Many of them are merely squatters and others maintain possession on defective titles.
The country that produces one great staple{122} by the agency of slave labor lays itself under a curse that will be felt long after the conditions are changed. For well-nigh a century sugar-cane has been the one chief source of Cuba’s wealth and it has cast a blight upon everything else. The sugar industry has exercised a detrimental influence upon the material welfare, morals, and health, and the independence of the people in general. But for it, blacks would never have been introduced into the Island in numbers sufficient to affect seriously the general population. But for it, the larger estates, growing out of the system of repartimiento, would long since have been carved into small holdings, the homesteads of peasant proprietors with some ambition and some opportunity to lead a life of manly self-support. The Island might not have been so wealthy, it might not have afforded such rich pasture for the professional politician to browse in, nor have yielded such comfortable profits to American and British stock-holders, but its people would have been happier and in the way of enjoying greater and more stable prosperity than the present prospect holds for them.
But this is an idle speculation. Foreigners own ninety per cent. of all the land in Cuba
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SUGAR-CANE READY FOR CUTTING.
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that is worth working, and, since this is the case, the more foreign capital that comes in, the better for the country. In other words, the only outlook for the Cuban is to serve as a hired man. If he had any bent toward the mechanical industries and could command a little capital, he might make innumerable openings in new directions for independent enterprises on a small scale.
Cuba should support a variety of manufacturing industries. It has the necessary materials,—wood, fibres, metal, hides, etc. It imports many commodities that are made from raw material exported by it. In many of these cases it would be more profitable for the country to produce the finished article. Before long, no doubt, the many opportunities long latent will attract enterprise, and industrial development along this line will take place. But even so, the Cuban can not hope to play a very prominent or profitable part in the movement. The extension of education and manual training may better fit him for mechanical pursuits but lack of capital will prevent his aspiring to any higher position than that of workman.
There is little doubt about the future pros{124}perity of the Island along the present lines of exploitation. There is good reason for believing that cane sugar will come into its own again, and that before long. Germany is likely to tire soon of coddling the beet cultivators in the face of foreign discrimination against them. Improvements in the cultivation of cane and in the selection of the plant are to be looked for. Labor-saving devices will be introduced into the fields. The invention of a satisfactory cane harvester would revolutionize that branch of industry.
The great future development of the Island will take place at the eastern end. Oriente is the most promising, and probably the richest, section of Cuba. Several large corporations have heavy investments in the Province. Its mineral wealth has hardly been touched. It is an especially favorable region for the cultivation of citrus fruits and coffee. These industries will be extensively prosecuted by Americans, of whom there are already a number located in colonies and individual plantations.
Cuba is growing constantly in favor with Americans as a health resort and, with the extension of roads fit for motoring, pleasure
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AN IDEAL ROAD FOR THE MOTORIST.
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seekers from the United States will travel on the Island in increasing numbers. There is a tendency among well-to-do Americans to make winter homes in Cuba and to build residences in the capital and suburbs. All this will lead to a better knowledge of the country and a great interest in its industries with consequent additional investment of capital. There appears to be little room for doubting that ultimately American money and American management will dominate the industrial and commercial affairs of the Island.
Only one retarding factor mars the prospect of progress—that is the deficiency of labor supply. Doubtless a large part will be for years to come imported from southern Europe, and this of necessity. If these, or a considerable proportion of them, could be induced to settle in the country they would form a desirable addition to the population. At present, few of them display an inclination to remain, but, on the contrary, make Cuba the means of furnishing them with sufficient money to set up in a small way of business at home.
The most easily available source of supply is the Jamaican negro, but he is not a valuable acquisition. His efficiency is calculated by em{126}ployers as less than half that of the Spaniard, or native of the Canary Islands. Negroes from the United States might seek employment in the Island, but the kind who would be of the most use can always fold work at home at as good a rate of wages as they would receive in Cuba.
It is not to be assumed that the native will never supply the greatest part of the labor employed in his country. He would be available to-day to a greater extent and with greater efficiency if American managers understood him better and accorded him more judicious treatment.
Dr. V. S. Clark, in a government report, makes such an excellent and comprehensive statement regarding the Cuban laborer, that an extensive quotation is justified.
Some of the opinions of Cuban workingmen are given in the following quotations from the remarks by American and English employers of broad experience. It is not possible to have perfect agreement in judgments of this sort, and naturally no attempt has been made to do so. But those sweeping denunciations of Cuba and everything Cuban that come from tactless adventurers and from men who have left their{127} own country because they are chronically out of sorts with the world have been omitted:
A railway manager: “A Cuban seldom has a real conception of what is meant by special qualifications. On railways a man might occupy in succession a dozen different posts, each requiring a special kind of training. We have an instance where the same man has been station agent, telegraph superintendent, and superintendent of locomotive power within a few months’ time.”
A contracting foreman: “In the mechanic trades men are constantly presenting themselves as applicants for any positions to be had, assuring us with the greatest apparent candor that they unite all the qualifications of expert masons, carpenters, painters, plumbers, and gas-fitters. We don’t employ such men any more. A modest range of acquirements is one of the best credentials a mechanic can offer us.”
A government engineer: “The labor cost of all kinds of construction is half as much again as in the United States. But with time and patience intelligent Cuban mechanics can be trained to keep pretty well up with Americans on the same job. They will not do this, however, unless they are paid for it.{128}”
An English railway manager: “After many years of experience in railway managing in Brazil and other South American countries, I must say that the Cuban labor is the dearest labor I have ever had under my charge.”
A factory superintendent: “We employ only Spaniards. They equal in industry and endurance the American workingman and are more steady and regular in their habits. I have had more than twenty years’ experience in Cuba as factory and plantation manager, and have seldom found Cubans efficient in occupations requiring physical endurance or manual skill. But they make neat and fairly accurate clerks.”
An army officer in charge of twelve hundred men in road construction: “The Cuban laborer is not as strong physically nor as intelligent as the unskilled laborer in the United States. He accomplishes about half as much work in a day as the latter. We bought a number of the iron wheelbarrows commonly used by American contractors for our work here, but the men were not strong enough to handle them successfully, and I had to substitute wooden ones in their stead.”
An electric railway manager: “You can not manage the Cubans with a club. The amount
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AN AVENUE OF PALMS.
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of work you get out of them depends upon the way in which you handle them. We find our men unusually distrustful because they have been so often cheated by their past employers. If their paymaster is a little late they jump at the conclusion that their money is not coming to them. It has taken time to win their confidence in the company. They do not understand how to take care of their own interests. Our unclaimed wage book shows that during the last two years many hundred men have not applied for all the pay due to them. Probably ten per cent. of the whole number of common laborers employed thus fail to collect their full wages. On our fortnightly pay-days fifty or sixty men fail to claim amounts ranging from one or two days’ pay to as high as $20 or $30 silver ($14 or $21 American). Of course such men are often imposed on, and a man who knows or thinks he is being cheated by his employer isn’t going to overexert himself in his service. An intelligent Cuban makes a good mechanic. He learns more rapidly than an American. It has taken me less time here to break in motormen than in the United States. In the last year or two we have trained most of our force of mechanics, repair men, and our{130} armature winders. They are about as efficient as Americans.”
The head of an electrical supply house: “Labor conditions in Cuba have not changed materially since 1890. Cubans make efficient mechanics in our line of business. We also employ them in contracting work, such as bridge construction, so that our monthly pay roll is sometimes over $6,000. They are slower than Americans, but are less independent and work longer hours. In electric fitting we get about as much service for the same wages as in New York. A man who has had long experience with the working people here, and who knows their language and how to treat them, will not have much trouble with his employees, and will find them fairly efficient.”
A railway superintendent: “Spaniards are the future laborers of Cuba. But they will work mostly under the direction of Cubans. The amount you get out of men depends upon how well you pay and feed them. It is worth the money it costs an employer to provide and compel his common laborers to eat a substantial meal before going to work in the morning.”
The variety of opinions here expressed illustrates the fact that the man in practical touch{131} with the labor question in Cuba usually has some aspect of the situation in mind which appeals to him from his own experience. As to labor efficiency, all agree that for manual labor the Spaniard excels the native Cuban. This is true of factory as well as field occupations. Cane-cutting must be excepted from the latter, for here the negro is the best workman; and in the machine shops, and some mechanic trades, where a certain dexterity of mind as well as hand is required, the more nervous and intellectual Cuban is at an advantage. There is practical unanimity in the opinion that the cost of labor is high, the only exceptions being in some trades requiring much skill and intelligence and where the men work under the direct control of their employer.
The emphasis laid upon the fact that the amount to be obtained from employes depends largely upon the way they are treated and the wages they are paid is significant, and it accords fully with the other testimony and with observation in different parts of the Island. At one place a gang of laborers was just completing what appeared even to the casual observer a rather scanty day’s work. The foreman looked up with a half-vexed smile and said:{132}
“Their wages have been lowered 30 per cent., and no driving will get more than two-thirds of the former amount of work out of them. They simply shrug their shoulders and say: ‘Poco dinero, poco trabajo.’ Little money, little work.”
Beneath a most unimposing exterior a Cuban laborer generally manages to cherish a considerable sense of personal dignity and he resents deeply, however unperturbed he may appear, the rough way of handling that has come to mean so little to his fellow-laborer in the United States. Perhaps the unexpressed contempt with which he is tolerated by some Americans is resented still more deeply. In any case, the very efforts put forth by employers and representatives to increase the amount of work done by employes often have the reverse effect to that intended. Tactful management is often one of the most expensive assets a foreign enterprise has to acquire in Cuba. Cuba is one of the most democratic countries in the world. Nowhere else does the least considered member of a community aspire to social equality with its most exalted personage. The language, with its conventional phrases of courtesy shared by all classes, the familiar family life{133} of proprietor and servant, master and apprentice, a certain simplicity and universality of manners inherited from pioneer days, and a gentleness of temperament that may be both racial and climatic, which shrinks from giving offence by assuming superiority of rank with others, have all contributed to render class assumptions externally less obvious in Cuba than in other countries where equal differences of race, culture, and fortune exist. The Cuban is naturally self-possessed. It is difficult to fancy him having stage fright. He is s............