Among the great Havana companies are the famous Henry Clay and Bock Company, Limited, with a capital of $2,500,000; the Partagos Company, of London, capital $1,500,000; H. Upmann & Company, a German corporation, and many others (120 in all), of varying nationalities; but no American companies.[16] Of the total exports of cigars and tobacco from Cuba, Havana ships by far the largest percentage, estimated at from ninety-five to ninety-nine per cent. of the whole. The largest number of cigars (188,755,000) were shipped in 1888, out of a total shipment to all countries of 219,892,000. In 1896, owing to the high tariff in the United States, the exports dropped to 60,000,000, estimated, and the entire shipments of Cuban tobacco to the United States decreased from 26,771,317 pounds, valued at $10,613,468, in 1896, to 4,410,073 pounds, valued at $2,306,067 for the first nine months of 1897. The tobacco interests of Cuba have suffered, as all others have, from Spanish greed, dishonesty, and misrule; and now that the new era is at hand, changed conditions for the better will develop at once. No more fitting conclusion to this chapter could be made than to present the following clear and comprehensive statement of Mr. Gustavo Bock, of the Henry Clay and Bock Company, Limited, of Havana, on the production of tobacco in Cuba, its manufacture, its necessities in the present difficult situation, and the quickest and best means of improvement. Mr. Bock prepared this valuable report especially for the author. "The war, with its sad and distressing consequences, has been the principal cause of the destruction of the farms employed in the cultivation of tobacco and the ruin of the tobacco industry. "The principal causes of destruction are three: 1st. Depopulation of the country. It is an undoubted and recognised fact that the scarcity of men employed in the country has greatly reduced the production of tobacco, limiting it to small zones, where at great expense and sacrifice a small production has been obtained. This reduction in the population is estimated at sixty-five per cent., as may be seen by the statistics of the districts of Guane, Remates, Grifa, Cortes, and Sabalo, in the province of Pinar del Rio, to which--not to make these notes too long--we will limit ourselves. Before the war there were 36,000 inhabitants in the province named, and the average production of leaf tobacco was 60,000 to 65,000 bales. To-day there are scarcely 6000 inhabitants, and the last crop was barely 6000 bales; and these were produced thanks to the efforts of a foreign syndicate, which, risking its capital, and with few hopes of future compensation, began the work of reconstruction, thereby saving thousands of families from a certain death.