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 employers 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 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.”