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 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: “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.”