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 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 [Illustration: SUGAR-CANE READY FOR CUTTING.] 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.