"Manufacturing: its importance and prospects. Having expressed our views concerning the production of leaf tobacco, we will now refer to its manufacture, an industry which has for several years dragged along, and which is of great importance and deserves the utmost attention. It is impossible to estimate how important an industry it would be to-day, if, instead of the setbacks it has received, its energies had been allowed to develop. The universal reputation which this leaf enjoys, owing to the excellency of its quality and the perfection of its manufacture, would increase threefold if the industry were promoted. In importance, it is to-day the second industry in the country, and in the provinces of Havana and Pinar del Rio it is the foremost. With 100,000 cwt. costing $4,000,000 in 1889, the following has been manufactured: For exportation 250,000,000 cigars $11,500,000 Local consumption 50,000,000 " 2,000,000 ----------- ----------- Total 300,000,000 " $13,500,000 "In addition to this, the manufacture of cigarettes represents from $3,000,000 to $4,000,000 per annum. However, the importance of this industry must not be gauged by these figures, but by the fact that the proceeds of this industry circulate rapidly and give life and movement to other industries that depend upon it, which in the city of Havana alone employ from 18,000 to 20,000 workmen, who, with their families, represent from 45,000 to 50,000 people. "We have cursorily glanced over its actual importance: let us study its future. Even if under the auspices of peace, with the adoption of proper measures for the future of the agriculture and production of tobacco a brilliant and promising future is assured, the same cannot be said, unfortunately, of its industry and manufacture. The future of the former is most promising; it has no rival in the world; there is only one Vuelta Abajo district. The latter, besides, handicapped as it is by excessive competition, has the insurmountable obstacle of being taxed by the treasuries of countries burdened by a heavy national debt; while other nations, like the United States, levy heavy duties on cigars to protect their national industry in its various phases. As a proof of what we say, we call attention to the following figures showing the gradual decrease of the manufacture of tobacco in this Island, a decrease which nearly reaches fifty per cent. of normal. The following will show how the exportation of cigars decreased from 250,000,000 in 1889 to 123,000,000 in 1897: EXPORTATION OF CIGARS IN NINE YEARS