Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/281

 CUBA — POPULATION, FINANCES, MINERALS ccli Area and Population The area of Cuba is about 45,872 square miles. Ten per cent of the area is cultivated, 7 per cent is unreclaimed, and 4 per cent is under forests. There are large tracts of country still unexplored. The popula- lation of the island in 1894 was given as 1,631,090, of which 65 per cent was white, the remainder being negro. The capital, Havana, has 200,000 inhabitants; Matanzas (1892), 27,000; Santiago de Cuba, 71,307; Cien- fuegos (1892), 27,430; Puerto Principe, 46,641; Holguin, 34,767; Sancti Spiritu, 32,608 ; Cardenas (1892), 23,680. Education was made obliga- tory in 1880. There are 843 public schools in the Island, and Havana has a university. Consul Hyatt, of Santiago de Cuba, in a report dated Jan. 8, 1897, and printed in Consular Reports No. 197 (February, 1897), p. 262, says that the area of Cuba is about equal to that of the State of Pennsyl- vania, the length being 775 miles and the width varying from 30 to 160 miles. The productive soil, mineral wealth, and climatic conditions of the island entitle it to rank among the foremost communities of the world. The soil is a marvel of richness, and fertilizers are seldom used, unless in the case of tobacco, even though the same crops be grown on the same land for a hundred years, as has happened in some of the old sugar-cane fields. The mountains are of coral formation, while the lowlands of eastern Cuba at least seem to be composed largely of fossils of sea-matter from prehistoric times and are extremely rich in lime and phosphate, which accounts for their apparent inexhaustibleness. Although founded and settled more than fifty years before the United States, Cuba has still 13,000,000 acres of primeval forests ; mahogany, cedar, logwood, redwood, ebony, lignum-vitae, and caiguaran (which is more durable in the ground than iron or steel) are among the woods. If all the land suitable to the growth of sugarcane were devoted to tliat industry, it is estimated that Cuba might supply the entire Western Hemisphere with sugar. The island has already produced in a single year for export 1,000,000 tons, and its capabilities have only been in the experimental stage. The adaptability of the soil for tobacco culture has long been known. Cuba takes gi'eat pride in the quality of her coffee, and until the war the plantations were flourishing. The land is not suitable to the cultivation of cereals, and probably no flouring mill exists on the island. Finances The estimated revenue for 1897-98 was 24,755,760 pesos (a peso equals $0,965), of which 11.890,000 was from cu.stoms ; ordinary expenditure, 26,119.124 pesos, of which 12,602,216 pesos was for the debt, 5,890,741 pesos for the Ministry of War, and 4,036,088 pesos for the Ministry of the Interior. The extraordinary revenue was estimated at over 80,000,000 pesos. The debt was in 1896 put at about £70,220,000, of which £10,000,000, was due to the Spanish treasury. The interest on the debt is estimated to impose a burden of $9.75 per inhabitant. Minerals According to Consul Hyatt, Cuba is capable of taking high rank in mineral wealth. Gold and silver have not been found in paying quanti- ties. Copper was mined at Cobre by the natives before Columbus dis- covered the island, and there is strong proof that native copper was