Soup pastes (vermicelli, etc.) 287,200 Sandals 2,686,702 Playing cards 34,345 Felt hats 28,079 Cartridges 69,719 All other articles 614,196 ------------ Total $ 26,892,329 ------------ Gold ..... Silver $ 24,288,640 The most casual observer and the person of the most superficial knowledge in trade matters must be well aware that Spain is by no means as good a market in which to purchase such commodities as are noted above as is the United States, or as is any other country, for that matter; yet Cuba, by reason of iniquitous discriminating duties, was forced to buy these commodities of the mother country, and to pay a higher price for them than that at which they could have been bought elsewhere. And not only was the price exorbitant, but the articles were of inferior quality, and, especially in the line of all machinery and the appliances of modern industrial progress, the types were primitive and the models were as old and ineffective as the workmanship and material were poor. To any Government seeking the best interests of the governed, these discrepancies would have suggested themselves; and in the logic of location and the invincible combination of first-class goods, low prices, cheap freights, and quick delivery, the trade of Cuba would have been turned to the United States. The Spanish Government would have been the gainer by the greatly increased prosperity, progress, and wealth of her Island dependency. But Spain pursued a different policy, and by the overwhelming force of natural laws, regulating the relation of the governing to the governed, she has lost not only the trade of Cuba, but also the Island itself, and by trade laws not less immutable than those of civil government, the compulsory commerce she exacted from Cuba goes freely, naturally, and logically, to the United States. It is scarcely necessary to say what the Great Republic will do in the premises. The youngest of nations, it stands to-day to the fore with the oldest and the greatest of the powers of the earth in every field of human intelligence, industry, and endeavour, and it will scarcely leave the great work it has undertaken in Cuba to others for that final accomplishment which it is best qualified to carry to perfect completion. Cuba looks to the United States for encouragement, for strength, for education, for development, for business--for union, shall we say?--and, as her nearest neighbour, the United States will pledge itself that the Queen of the Antilles shall not look in vain. [Illustration: A SUGAR-CANE TRAIN.]