The present Jamaica tariff was evidently framed with the two ideas of revenue for the island and a market for British goods. Food products, for example, such as bacon, beef, beans, bread, butter, cheese, corn, meats, oats, oil, pork, rice, salt, sausages, wheat, sugar, tea, coffee, and many other staple articles are all on the dutiable list, some paying a fairly stiff rate of duty. On the other hand, many articles of merchandise, bricks, bridges, carts and waggons, clocks, diamonds, machinery, locomotives, and a host of other things, which England supplies the island, are all exempted from duty. Under a general ad valorem clause, 12-1/2 per cent. is collected on all articles not enumerated. The enumerated list of the Jamaica tariff is not large, so a large amount of merchandise has been actually imported under this clause. The proposed new tariff, which will probably go into effect next year, takes many articles off the free list and puts them on the dutiable list. It also increases the ad valorem rate to 16-2/3 per cent. This has been found necessary because there has been a deficit in the revenue. The new tariff is expected to yield £400,000, or about $2,000,000, and from internal revenue or excise £150,000, or $750,000, and £250,000, or $1,250,000, from appropriated revenue which will really come from the land and householders. Here it is summarised: Revenue from Customs ......................... $2,000,000 " " Excise .......................... 750,000 " " Appropriated Revenue (land and household taxes, etc.) ........ 1,250,000 ---------- $4,000,000 If this amount can be secured, the revenue of Jamaica will be a trifle more than expenditure, and the result will be happiness. If not, expenses must be reduced. Some members of the Legislative Council favour this latter plan. The Commission has the whole fiscal question now in hand, and within a short time will probably reach conclusions. There is much more of interest that might be said about the present economic condition of Jamaica, but the points herein brought out appear to be the only ones that bear especially on the problem continually facing the reader in a volume dealing with the industrial and commercial reconstruction of Cuba. It will also be interesting to compare the British method of colonial administration with the idea set forth in the previous chapter by the Marquis de Apezteguia, whose point of view in such matters is wholly Spanish. That is, the idea of possession is paramount. The Marquis evidently has no faith in the ability of the United States to administer the affairs of Cuba as a trust. CHAPTER V THE AMERICANS IN SANTIAGO