after the establishment of the Cuban government. Despite the fact that during the year about three million dollars' worth of food was imported, the total of Cuban imports was less than in the preceding year; a circumstance due to the change in tariff rates. At the same time there was a very considerable increase in exports. It was an interesting circumstance, also, that there was a decrease in trade with the United States; a pretty effective reply to the complaint which some made that the new tariff had been improperly framed so as to give the United States a monopoly of Cuban trade. It did give the United States some advantages which that country had not enjoyed before, but on the whole it was probably as fair and impartial as it could well have been made. Commercial reports showed that Cuban imports from the United States were $26,513,613 in 1900 and $25,964,801 in 1901; and that Cuban exports to the United States were $31,371,704 in 1900 and $43,428,088 in 1901. Thus Cuban purchases from the United States were decreasing slightly, while Cuban sales to the United States were greatly increasing, and the balance of trade was growing more and more largely in Cuba's favor. CHAPTER XI The supreme work of the Government of Intervention, from the political point of view, was to prepare Cuba for complete self-government and then to relinquish the control of the island to its own people. It was with that end in view that General Wood filled all possible offices with Cubans. It was also to the same end that the municipal election was held in June, 1900, under a new election law. Soon after that election there came a call for another, of vastly greater importance. On July 25, 1900, the President of the United States authorized General Wood as Military Governor of Cuba to issue a call for the election of a Cuban Constitutional Convention, which should be representative of the Cuban people and which should prepare the fundamental law of the independent insular government which was about to be erected. General Wood issued the call, fixing September 15 as the date of the election. This call repeated and reaffirmed the Congressional declaration of April 20, 1898, concerning the purpose of the United States not to annex Cuba but to "leave the government and control of the island to its people." It also called upon the people of Cuba, through their Constitutional Convention, not only to frame and adopt a Constitution, but also, "as a part thereof, to provide for and agree with the Government of the United States upon the relations to exist between that government and the Government of Cuba." That was a most significant thing. It made it quite clear that the United States expected and intended that some special relations should exist between the two countries, apart from those ordinarily provided in treaties.