Industrial Cuba: Being a Study of Present Commercial and Industrial Conditions, with Suggestions as to the Opportunities Presented in the Island for American Capital, Enterprise, and LabourPorter, Robert P. (Robert Percival)
History
Industrial Cuba: Being a Study of Present Commercial and Industrial Conditions, with Suggestions as to the Opportunities Presented in the Island for American Capital, Enterprise, and Labour
Porter, Robert P. (Robert Percival)
Cuba -- Description and travel; Cuba -- Economic conditions
The fact is, Captain L. D. Baker, of the Boston Fruit Company, and the
other companies engaged in the banana and orange business of Jamaica,
have pointed a way out of the present difficulties, and that industry,
in the course of a short time, bids fair to be as important as the sugar
industry was in former times. Last year this single company shipped five
million bunches of bananas to New York. There are now over one hundred
thousand orange trees planted in Jamaica, which in a few years will be
bearing finely and give additional prosperity to the country. With the
American fruit market inadequately supplied, and the English market
practically untouched, there is hope both in Jamaica and
Cuba--especially Santiago province--for diversified industries created
by rapid transportation. The recent establishment of a fleet of fast
steamships between New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore, and
the various ports of Jamaica, and the probability that these or similar
lines will be established between the United States and Cuban ports, are
all factors of promise for the industrial future of both the British and
the American West Indies.
While Jamaica is a well-governed country, and its revenue is all
honestly expended for the public good of the people, it is far from an
economically administered government. Order is thoroughly established,
laws are obeyed, justice for the humblest is easily obtainable,
education is general, sanitary matters admirably administered, roads
maintained, the rights of all conserved, and the revenue honestly
collected and expended. In these particulars the government of Jamaica
differs widely from that which the author found in Cuba. In that unhappy
Island all is absolutely the reverse of this. The cost of governing
Jamaica, however, is nearly twenty-five per cent. of the value of its
commerce, whereas the cost of governing Cuba--if gauged by the actual
revenue raised--under Spanish rule ranged from 12-1/2 to 15 per cent. of
the value of its commerce. The comparison, however, is of little value,
because Cuba got nothing for the money exacted by taxation, while
Jamaica not only gets all, but also the taxpayers are informed in
advance of the purposes for which much of the money is wanted, and the
sums thus raised are rigidly applied to the purposes for which they are
appropriated. The most useful lessons for those responsible for
administering the affairs of Cuba can be learned by a study of the
Jamaica Budgets. The methods of raising the needed revenue are
intelligent and simple, and the method of expenditure not only enables
the authorities to get as much as possible for the money, but also makes
possible the strictest accountability. The Legislative Council of
Jamaica discusses every item of the budget as closely as the Town
Council of Glasgow or the County Council of London, both model public
bodies, so far as honesty of purpose goes, even if some of their
legislative experiments fail.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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