Expenses per year about $110,000 5% interest on $500,000 25,000 Cutting and hauling 185,000 Loss on transportation, etc. 6,375 Profit for plantation 120,000 -------- $446,375 CHARGEABLE TO MILL 20% expense of yield $180,000 5% interest on $1,000,000 50,000 Net profit 216,875 -------- $446,875 The beet-sugar competition of late years, and particularly that of the German product which is supported by a bounty, has had a very depressing effect upon the Cuban industry. This was considerably relieved by the countervailing duty placed upon bounty sugar by the Dingley Bill of 1894. The effect of this was to place the latter products on exactly the same footing, so far as the United States market is concerned, as though they did not enjoy the advantage of a bounty. The competition is still severe, however, on account of the vast quantity of Germany’s production and the lower cost of it. This is due, not to cheaper labor, but to more scientific and intensive methods. In fact, the future value of Cuban sugar is dependent not upon the cost of producing it so much, as upon the cost of production in Germany, and the extent to which the commodity may be admitted duty free into the United States from Hawaii, the Philippines and Puerto Rico. On this subject, Mr. E. F. Atkins is quoted as follows in _Industrial Cuba_: “With new capital and skill the average cost of production in Cuba can be reduced, and with either free sugars or a uniform rate of duty in the United States, assessed upon all sugar (a countervailing duty to offset foreign bounties being always maintained), she can hold her own and recover her prestige as a sugar-producing country, but the margin of profit in sugar manufacture is so small, and the world’s capacity for production so great, that Cuba cannot recover her prosperity in the face of any advantage to be given to sugars from other countries entering the United States. At current prices in Cuba, cane is worth to the planter the equivalent of $2 to $2.50 per ton net, out of which price he must pay for his planting and cultivation, cutting and delivery to the nearest factory or railroad point. As the cost of cane production consists almost entirely of labor, and wages in Cuba, for some years previous to the insurrection, ranged about the same in Spanish gold as similar work commanded in the United States, the profits in this branch of the business have not been great, and have been dependent upon skill in management, quality of lands, and proximity to the factories.