THAT the wounds of Cuba will soon heal with the rapid promotion of work, is undoubtedly true. This is the struggle the United States is now entering upon, and the employment of the people should be the first aim of those responsible for the management of affairs. There will naturally be many disappointments, some disillusioning. The condition of labour in the Island requires the most serious attention of our Government. A brief history of it during the present century may elucidate the existing situation.

In 1815, after the Napoleonic wars, the principal nations of Europe came together and agreed upon the Treaty of Vienna. An important provision of this Treaty was that henceforth slavery should be abolished. Spain, in common with other nations, signed this agreement, but, as is her habit, kept it not. The horrors of slavery were continued in her colonies, and in the middle of the present century almost reached the depths of inhumanity. At this time the population of Cuba was nearly a million people, and the traffic in human flesh and blood was a prosperous and profitable business. How long it would have continued is impossible to say, had not England interfered. After painful delays, much threatening, and innumerable broken promises on the part of Spain to observe the Treaty of Vienna, England agreed to give that country two millions of dollars to compensate those who owned “slave factories” in Havana, provided the nefarious business was stopped. Spain simply pocketed the money, told her noble sons engaged in the slave business in Cuba to look out for British cruisers when bringing slaves, assured them that no harm beyond the loss of cargo should come to them if caught—and the plantations of Cuba continued to be supplied as usual with slaves. Interesting facts in relation to conditions in Cuba during this period, when British cruisers kept watch of Spanish slave-ships, have been recently given in a series of articles in the Century Magazine, written in 1859.

According to this chronicle, the Spaniards in Cuba were in open sympathy with the slave-dealers, and a story is told of a slaver chased by a cruiser into the harbour of Havana, the shores being lined with people cheering the slaver. The cruiser would have effected a capture, but the slaver, dodging into a corner of the harbour, came to anchor, and her officers told the slaves on board to jump overboard and swim ashore, as the British were cannibals and would eat them all if captured. The slaves escaped to the shore, where the Spaniards picked them up and laughed at the British and the trick.

The same writer notes that by law the British must sell captured slaves by a mixed commission at fifty dollars each for a seven years’ term of labour. These slaves were known as emancipados and each wore a tin tag on his neck, showing the date of his sale and the date of the expiration of his slave service; but emancipados, strangely, seldom reached the end of their terms; the Spaniards prevented that, by taking the tag from an emancipado whenever one of their slaves died and putting it on the corpse. This was sufficient evidence that the emancipado was dead, and the Spanish owner had a new slave. As for the general condition of the emancipado, it was much worse than that of the real slave, for his master, knowing he must soon lose him, treated him cruelly, by overwork and starving, and when at last the poor emancipado had his freedom, he had neither strength nor health to enjoy it.

A Cuban gentleman, now over threescore years and ten, told the author, in Cuba, that nothing in ancient or modern history exceeded in horror the slave-trade of Cuba during this period. In spite of England’s watchfulness, it could be made profitable, even if occasional mishaps sent a shipful of unhappy Africans, chained together below decks, to the bottom of the sea, or a catastrophe set fire to the load of writhing humanity, fettered to prevent escape. Naturally a large percentage died on the voyage, and the condition of those landed was so awful that a description would be impossible in these pages. It will suffice to say that upon one occasion a young Cuban, who had been sent down by his employer to land some of these unfortunate creatures, was so impressed by the awful spectacle that he shot himself through the brain with a revolver and died on the spot.

So long as this traffic continued, and the plantations of the Island were supplied by the unhappy African victims of man’s inhumanity to man, there was no labour trouble in Cuba. Under such conditions sugar-growing was a comparatively simple process, and those engaged in it became wealthy. The day of reckoning, however, was at hand. After repeated disappointments, England succeeded in absolutely stopping further importations of slaves into Cuba. Up to the time of the breaking out of the insurrection of 1868, black labour had been almost exclusively used on the sugar estates of Cuba. Bad as slavery is at the best, there was in Cuba probably the worst system ever known. The work was of the hardest, the climatic conditions severe, and the unhappy victims of cupidity were ill-treated and brutalised. With such a beginning, continuing in one form and another until 1885, how could such conditions produce aught but dissatisfaction and misery at the present time?

The same causes demoralised the Cubans. They were reared in luxury and idleness and looked upon work as fit only for slaves. The owners of plantations were rich men, their children were educated abroad, and, as a rule, spent most of their time in foreign travel. A large proportion of them were simply alien landlords. Unskilled in business, when the change took place and the slaves were freed, these people were not prepared to meet the new conditions which confronted them and to adjust themselves to a new form of life. Here the Spaniard, who is always anxious for gain, took advantage of the situation, and at the end of the rebellion of 1868-1878 the Cuban planters, who were formerly rich, found themselves impoverished. Their slave labour had been taken from them, their opportunities for further employment of contract coolies had been lost, and they found themselves in need of outside assistance. The Spaniards and some others responded by advancing money to them at the current rate of interest (twelve per cent.), but the planters, unaccustomed to economise, could not pay expenses and interest, and year by year their debts grew heavier. Some managed to continue operations, but many broke down under their burdens and their plantations went to satisfy their creditors, chiefly Spaniards. Short of labour, the crops declined; and to add to their troubles, beet-sugar made its advent. The European beet-growers, with a clear knowledge of conditions in the Island, were quick to take advantage of them and push their product forward to supply the Cuban cane-sugar deficit, and so successful were they that at the end of the insurrection of 1868, say in 1878, Cuba was practically bankrupt. Competition with the European beet-growers was difficult, and it was impossible to induce capital from the United States to restore the sugar industry of Cuba, owing to a lack of confidence in the stability of the government of the Island.

CANE CUTTERS.
CANE CUTTERS.

During the ten years of rebellion, the planters were able to protect their property by paying regular taxes to the Spanish Government, and at the same time allowing a certain amount to the insurgents, who agreed for this not to destroy the plantations. During this period they employed slave and coolie labour; but they were then subject to the Moret law, which was, in effect, that each planter should liberate a certain number of his slaves each year, and this was to continue until slavery had disappeared. Before this occurred, however, the treaty of Zanjon was made, whereby all slaves were liberated. By the Moret law, numbers were given to the slaves by the municipality, the name and number of the slave written on a slip, which was put in a box and each year ten per cent. of the names were drawn out. The owners were then officially notified that certain slaves, giving their numbers, were free, and this was published in a local paper. Most of these slaves remained with the planters. This law had a very good effect.

Returning for a moment to the outbreak of the rebellion of 1868, it is necessary to refer to another sad page in the history of labour in Cuba; namely, the introduction of coolie labour from China. In 1869 the importation of slaves into Cuba was stopped, and then commenced the traffic in coolies, who were shipped from China, cargoes of them being landed at Havana. They were brought over under a contract for eight years by a company in Havana which had its own line of steamers. The contracts were sold to anyone who wished to buy them, at from four hundred to five hundred dollars per contract. The conditions of a contract were that the Chinaman was to serve for eight years. He was to be paid at the rate of four dollars per month, with rations, and was to receive two suits of clothes and a blanket. If ill for fifteen days, his wages were to be deducted and his time lost.

One of the conditions of the contract was that at the end of eight years he was to be considered a citizen of Cuba with such privileges as were extended to Spanish subjects. Before the expiration of the eight years, however, those holding these Chinese contracts were notified by the Spanish authorities that at the expiration of the contract of any coolie in their employ they were to deliver said coolie to the authorities of the locality where they were at work. Here, the authorities placed the coolie on public land, obliging him to work for the municipality, and held him there until someone offered to take him under a new contract. This was entirely by force and not optional on the part of the coolie. The conditions of the new contract were for four years more at seventeen dollars per month, twelve dollars of which were to be retained by the municipality, and five dollars were to be given to the coolie. At the expiration of the four years, if the coolie’s conduct had been satisfactory to his employer, then the municipality was to return to the Chinaman the money it had retained. The treatment of these coolies was quite as severe as was ever meted out to an African, and when this condition of affairs was learned by the Chinese Government, a commission was sent to Cuba to investigate. A report was made to the Chinese Government, which resulted in the prohibition of further coolie emigration from China to Cuba.

Confronted by the loss of his slaves and by the prohibition of further contracts for coolie labour, the Cuban was at a loss whither to turn for help. His only hope lay with the Spanish peasants and the Canary Islanders, and these, in as large numbers as could be secured, were imported. They were much more valuable than the slaves or the coolies, but jealousies arose among the Cuban labourers, and the newcomers, being less numerous, were unable to protect themselves and in many instances were forced into the towns for protection, thus leaving the planters quite as short of labour as before, and at the same time increasing the complications of the labour problem.

In this condition we find Cuba to-day. The great problem will be how to obtain labour for the plantations, for the mines, and for agricultural purposes, in order to carry on the work of industrial reconstruction. All sorts of schemes have been suggested, but upon examination of the conditions in Cuba, it is feared they will prove impracticable. The life of the labourer, in consequence of the lack of diversified employment, and the fact that labour in Cuba is the severest kind of toil, has few attractions. If the Spanish soldiers are willing to remain and take up peaceful pursuits, it will aid in the solution of the problem. Possibly Italians may be induced to emigrate to Cuba, if assured of a stable government and plenty of work. The opportunity (small allotments and homes) is limited, and the drudgery on large plantations, without family life, is not likely to attract those from Europe who are ever eager to seek homes and broader opportunities in the United States.

When in Cuba, the author visited many plantations and talked with many planters and overseers on the labour question. The extracts from notes taken on the spot will be found instructive on this point. The following excellent explanatory account of farm labour was prepared by an American who has spent the best part of his life on Cuban plantations and is now working a prosperous colona, or cane farm:

“From the 1st of December to the 1st of June an average of about 350 people were employed; of these ten per cent. were Canary Islanders or Spaniards, ten per cent. negro women and boys (white women do no field work), twenty per cent. native whites, and about sixty per cent. negroes and mulattos. From the 1st of June to the 1st of December an average of about 150 were employed. Women do no field work during this period.

“During harvest I give the negro women preference and pay them the same salaries as the best male labour; they are more constant, their work is usually well done, and each one keeps her man straight, which is an appreciable item.

“Next I prefer the negro, because he is, as a rule, a more faithful worker than either the native white or mulatto, the most of whom are addicted to gambling, and they cannot be depended on from one day to another.

“For stowing cane on the cars, ploughing, ditching, road repairing, and railroad work, Canary Islanders and Spaniards are preferable; they are more used to this kind of work, more constant, and have fewer vices.

“For cane cutting, carting, planting, and cultivating, native labour, in particular negro labour, is preferable; because the natives, being experts, work more rapidly, the cane plant suffers less injury, bringing in more remunerative returns, and its life is prolonged, which is a big item to the farmer; the natives are also much less addicted to smoking in the field, and danger from this source is materially reduced. But as a rule they are dishonest, and untruthful in the extreme, and this is general and applies both to whites and blacks, the latter being the champions. Canary Islanders and Spaniards are cigarette smokers and they are dangerous in the cane fields.

“At the present time labour is very poor and very much demoralised. Many of the abler men are in the insurrection, a great number of those remaining have seen mothers, wives, and children dying a lingering death from hunger; some could obtain work for their food, while others earned a salary of from six to eight dollars per month in depreciated Spanish silver. Provisions were high, and the Government increased taxes on meats and other necessaries, until these poor ignorant people, bent down by great sorrow and seeing no help for themselves, gave up in despair and became indifferent.

“During the past crop, as well as at the present time, I employ a considerable number of Asiatics, but many of these are opium smokers and much debilitated, and we calculate on sixty per cent. only being at work, while forty per cent. are resting in their barracon.[9]

“During the summer months wages for field labour averaged about $17 per month. Cost for maintaining labour averaged about $7.50 per month in gold; cost for maintaining overseers, foremen, carpenters, cooks, stewards, guards, etc., amounted to about $12 per month.

“Rations for each man per day were as follows:

“Clear beef, one pound, or its equivalent in tasajo or salt fish.

“Rice, one pound, or its equivalent in beans, peas, macaroni, etc.

“Lard, two ounces.

“Coffee, one ounce.

“Sugar, two ounces.

“Bread, six ounces, or instead of bread, sweet potatoes, plantains, or melanga.

“Sweet-oil, bacon, salt, and spices sufficient to season the food.

“During the winter months, cabbage, tomatoes, and turnips are served every day without regard to rations.

RULES AND REGULATIONS

“When a labourer enters his name on the pay-roll he receives his machete or hoe, tin plate, tin dipper, and spoon, the same being charged to him and credited when returned.

“Time-keeper makes his rounds twice every day.

“Away from the batey[10] smoking is absolutely prohibited, and the penalty is immediate dimissal.

“Salaries are paid any day between 11 A.M. and 1 P.M., Sundays excepted, to those who desire the money.

“Except in case of sickness, meals are charged to those who are not at work.

“To the sick such medicines as we have are given free; the most prominent of these is quinine.

“If a man remains in the barracon sick for more than two days he is sent to his home, or to a hospital. If it is an injury received in the service of the colona, he is cared for until able to work again.

“The bell tolls at 4 A.M. for the people to get up; at break of day, after having drunk a cup of coffee, they go to the field; at 11 o’clock they return to breakfast; at 1 o’clock they again go to the field; at 6 o’clock they come in to dinner, and at 8 o’clock the bell sounds silence, after which absolute quiet is enforced. The negro is fond of his music and dancing, and this is permitted at seasonable hours, and sometimes the overseer gives special permission to prolong their amusements beyond the usual hour.

“Gambling is prohibited, but the rule cannot be successfully enforced.

“In the dry season (at mid-day) when the people are in the batey, sentinels are stationed on the hills to give timely warning of cane fires.

“Armed guards patrol the fields by day, and guard the cattle at night—this applies to times of peace.

ADVANTAGES OF LARGE COLONAS OVER SMALL ONES

“During my experience in this vicinity I have never known a single instance where a small colona prospered or was able to extricate itself from debt, and this condition is owing to various causes. A colona employing from three hundred to four hundred men can be carried on more economically than one employing from one hundred to two hundred men. The high-salaried men in the one are very nearly the same as in the other, but the small farmers with fifty or two hundred acres fare much worse. These purchase everything they require at retail, often paying from fifteen to thirty per cent. more than the large farmers, who purchase at wholesale and receive rebate for prompt payment. A small farmer employing ten men requires a cook; the larger, employing three hundred men, requires but two cooks. The small farmer is always cramped for money, has but a limited credit with the central, and outside of that none, except with an occasional country storekeeper, who may consider the risk and accommodate him by charging exorbitant interest. The money which ought to be expended on the cane fields goes to pay this interest, his fields get to such low ebb that the cane no longer pays the expense for harvesting, he can obtain no money for replanting, fails to pay his rent, and the owner of the land takes possession of what remains, resulting in some other poor fellow stepping in only to repeat his predecessor’s experience.

“The cost for preparing, breaking up, cross-ploughing, making, furrowing, seed cane, planting, cultivating, wear and tear to implements, and weeding one caballeria[11] of cane to maturity, and doing it well, is from $1400 to $1600, according to conditions of soil, salaries, etc., and under normal conditions will here require from three to four years before the farmer can see any profits, and then only by intelligent management and good soil; soil which requires planting every three to five years will ruin any man.

“The average yield of cane per caballeria in Guabairo for 1895 was about 71,500 arrobas,[12] and the cost per one hundred arrobas for weeding, cutting, carting, and delivering to the central amounted to about $1.84.

“During the crop time we employed from one hundred and fifty to two hundred Chinamen; of the balance of the labourers, probably there were more negroes than Spanish, with the white Cubans in a distinct minority. The Chinamen we have here now make very steady workmen, but they are weak, and not able to do as much work per day as either a negro or a Spaniard can do in the field. The best workmen we have, if we can get enough of them, are the negroes. One negro in cutting cane, can do as much as two of any other class; but I do not think this country is adapted for the American negro, from what I have heard of him, as he would have to put up with hardships here, and a style of eating and living which, I imagine, is not as good as he has in the southern part of the United States. The immigration of Chinese is prohibited, although a few manage to get in at a time. I do not know of any other restrictions on immigration. I do not believe the Jamaica negro would make a good workman; for, from what I have heard of him, he is very lazy, and would not be at all a desirable labourer. Thus our only hope for labour is to retain here the Canary Islanders, because they are harder working and can stand the climate better than others. They are men who can save money here, and that in itself is proof that they must be steady workmen, because they earn so little. Galicians are also good workers, but so far as I know of the men working here, the Canary Islanders are the best. The white men are mainly employed as stevedores in the batey, though they are also good labourers in the field.

“As a rule the labourers are not married. The families of the married labourers live in the villages in the neighbourhood. The men must sleep in the batey at night. Sunday they work half a day, and get paid for a full day, provided they have worked five full days during the week; otherwise they only get half a day’s pay. The men sleep in large rooms called barracones; sleeping in hammocks, and not taking their clothes off. Many of them possess but one suit, and on Sundays, after breakfast, they go to a stream, wash their clothes, lie around until they are dry, and then put them on again. For the better class of workmen, employed in the factory, the machinery helpers, etc., we have bath-houses. These men have rooms, and as a rule they are unmarried. Most of the labouring men, if they have families, when they are paid off, go away for a day, or a day and a half, and take their money to their families, and then come back to work. Those who are not married, keep on working or stay off a few days. It is quite uncommon to find a labouring man who can read and write. Their chief vice is gambling, the Cuban and Spaniard being similar about this, though we try on this estate to prevent gambling as much as possible. The Chinese gamble and smoke opium. The bell rings at 8 P.M., at which time the men are supposed to be in their barracones, and are not supposed to walk around the batey, this rule not being enforced except during the last two years.

“The price of labour, in 1895, for cutting cane, etc., before the insurrection commenced, varied from fourteen dollars to twenty dollars per month, Spanish gold. This has fallen off to from twelve dollars to fifteen dollars, Spanish silver, paid during the past crop for the same labour—in American gold about fifty-five per cent. of this. The maintenance per month per man is nine dollars, Spanish gold. This fall in wages was necessitated by the fall in the price of sugar, and by the fact that but few plantations in the neighbourhood were able to continue working.”

Labour seeking employment in Cuba must face these conditions. That the field will prove sufficiently attractive to tempt immigration in large numbers, even from the poorer sections of Europe, is doubtful. Still, with more prosperous times, the Canary Islanders may try their fortunes in the future as they have tried them successfully in the past; and so with Italians, Spaniards, South and Central Americans, and even the Southern negro of the United States, despite the fact, as stated above, that the American negro will not come to Cuba because the work is too hard and the food and accommodations too poor. But the American negro will, unwittingly, no doubt be the pioneer of a new labour era in Cuba. With the coming of the new order and new people, will come higher ideas of labour, and that which has ennobled labour in the United States will have its elevating influence among the labouring people of Cuba. Herding labourers in barracones like so many cattle, sleeping them, feeding them, bathing them, with less care than is shown to fine cattle, ruling them with whip and spur, making no provision or allowing no time for their mental or moral improvement, regarding them merely as so much live stock, but of less value than cattle, because when too old to work they cannot be slaughtered and eaten, it is small wonder that the crying need of the sugar-planter for two centuries has been sufficient and efficient labour. When the planter, under the newer influences which shall soon prevail, learns that by education, by the adoption and enforcement of sanitary regulations, by the establishment of homes, by the observance of the decent amenities of life, by the liberalising of religious belief, by the recognition of human rights, and by the general uplifting of the sentiment of work, a sufficiency of labour may be easily secured, and its efficiency guaranteed, the problem so long unsolved will be made as clear as day, and Cuba will enter an era of prosperity for all classes that will astonish and attract the world.

There is at this time a steady increase in the demand for labour on plantations and, in Santiago Province, for the mines. While in Cuba the author received one cable despatch calling for fifteen hundred labourers for the mines, while three large planters stood ready, among them, to employ a thousand men to work in the sugar fields. In the neighbourhood of the sugar plantations all the able-bodied men had either been killed in battle, died of disease and starvation, or were still in a state of practical destitution, hidden away in the insurgent camps. Those who offered themselves for employment were, as a rule, too weak to endure the hard labour. Three years of privations and lack of food had destroyed their stamina. To be sure, there is surplus labour in Havana,—able-bodied labour,—but those who applied there had no means of transportation to the localities where they could obtain work. Through a suggestion made by the writer to an enterprising American concern, four hundred of these Havana labourers were sent to Santiago. It is estimated that at least three thousand additional labourers could be well employed in these mines at once, if it were possible to send them from the spots where starvation stares them in the face to the localities where work can be obtained for those able to endure, as already indicated, the hardest toil under trying climatic conditions. Many Spanish soldiers desire to remain in the Island. They have formed alliances in Cuba; some of them have married and have families there. These men have come before American officials and entreated them to aid in finding them employment of some kind, either as Civil Guards, in the mines, or on the plantations. As a rule they make industrious and faithful labourers. Attention is called to an extract from a letter written by a prominent business man of Havana,—the man, in fact, who in October was employed to send the four hundred labourers from that city to Santiago:

It is believed this indicates clearly and without exaggeration the present conditions in Havana as regards would-be labourers and their suffering for want of work. During fifteen years’ experience in operating iron mines in Cuba, those who know say, the labour question there has always been the unsolved problem, as never during that time have they been able fully to supply their wants in this direction. If the number of labourers has not in normal times been sufficient to satisfy the requirements of all industries in Cuba, how much will it fall short under the new conditions? The only hope for the renewal of prosperity in the Island is, first, the rehabilitation of the sugar industry; second, a revival of work on the tobacco plantations; and third, a full complement of men in the mining districts. These industries are the basis of the prosperity of the Island. A better distribution of labour will aid somewhat, and if this is accomplished intelligently by the United States Government, employment can be found for thousands whose presence in Havana without work is a menace to the city. It should be borne in mind that the Cuban harvest is in the winter months, and therefore plans should at once be inaugurated by which those who want work can be immediately brought to those anxious to give them employment. A small expenditure of money in this direction now will save a large expenditure in the future in some other and less desirable ways.

It is useless to try to create new industries until the old and strong industries of the Island are re-established. If it is difficult, after the Spanish soldiers leave, to secure the necessary labour for the plantations, producing, as they will this year, a maximum of 400,000 tons of sugar for export, where are the labourers coming from to produce the high-water mark of 1,100,000 tons of sugar? The process of industrial reconstruction will necessarily be slow and depend in a large degree upon the stability of the Government and the rapidity with which the people settle down to work. There is no possibility, however, of a surplus labour supply. Work can be found for all capable and willing to perform hard labour now that the affairs of the Island have passed into the hands of the United States military authorities and the new customs tariff has gone into force. From this time the work of repairing the dismantled sugar plantations should go forward and thousands of labourers will be required. Whatever may be the future of Cuba, the present must be provided for and life and property and the right to labour be protected.

The disposal of the insurgent troops is so intimately interwoven with the labour problem that it is difficult to separate the two. Some of the insurgent troops should be, and probably will be, utilised as Civil Guards, supplementing the United States forces; but those who are not needed for this purpose should be systematically aided as far as possible in any endeavours they may make to secure work. Men with hardly clothes to cover their nakedness, who have existed for three years on a diet that would kill the ordinary American labourer in three weeks, and who have practically foraged for their daily existence, must be helped a little before they can stand alone—helped at least to the extent of food and raiment and transportation to the locality where there is work in abundance.

Lastly, in this connection, the need of homes in Cuba is one of the most pressing. The condition of those who labour on the plantations is truly deplorable. They literally have none of the necessities of civilisation. A complete state of savagery would be preferable to the condition of those employed on the sugar estates, who toil from early sunrise to sunset on rations of the plainest sort, and live in huts built of the bark of palm trees and thatched with the palm leaf.