According to these figures, the custom-house receipts of Cuba fell from $14,708,509.10 in 1895 to $9,648,369.94 in 1897-98. While the value of the tax receipts handed to the Spanish Bank for collection for the fiscal year 1896-97 exceeded $5,000,000, the actual money collected was only $3,266,583.37, while for the next fiscal year, 1897-98, out of receipts aggregating in the neighbourhood of $4,500,000, only $2,377,742.21 was realised. The exhibits show that rural real estate, which, under prosperous conditions, should yield in taxes from $880,000 to $1,000,000, is incapable of paying anything. Out of receipts aggregating in 1897-98 over $800,000, the Spanish Bank only collected $89,661.98 from these properties. Nor will it be possible in the reconstruction of the Island to secure revenue from these sources, for the burned and destroyed estates are yielding nothing to their owners. City property which, in times of prosperity, should yield upward of $2,000,000, or even $3,000,000, in 1897-98 only yielded $1,140,230.12. This tax, however, and the receipts from customs will be the first to recover, as the immediate effects of permanent peace and honest government will be felt in the cities and towns and seaports. Lotteries will become a doubtful, if not impossible source of revenue. The collections from internal revenue may keep up to the estimate, though the income from State property and miscellaneous revenues seems upon examination a rather doubtful resource for the new government to rely upon. Judged from the actual revenue collected in 1897-98, had present conditions prevailed, it is extremely doubtful if the real revenue collected for 1898-99 would have reached more than half the rosy estimates put forth by the Marquis Montoro. The fact is apparent to those who know existing conditions in Cuba that the people of the Island are just now in such an impoverished condition that the agricultural interests are simply incapable of paying taxes.