“Manufacturing: its importance and prospects. Having expressed our views concerning the production of leaf tobacco, we will now refer to its manufacture, an industry which has for several years dragged along, and which is of great importance and deserves the utmost attention. It is impossible to estimate how important an industry it would be to-day, if, instead of the setbacks it has received, its energies had been allowed to develop. The universal reputation which this leaf enjoys, owing to the excellency of its quality and the perfection of its manufacture, would increase threefold if the industry were promoted. In importance, it is to-day the second industry in the country, and in the provinces of Havana and Pinar del Rio it is the foremost. With 100,000 cwt. costing $4,000,000 in 1889, the following has been manufactured:
| For exportation | 250,000,000 | cigars | $11,500,000 |
| Local consumption | 50,000,000 | “ | 2,000,000 |
| Total | 300,000,000 | “ | $13,500,000 |
“In addition to this, the manufacture of cigarettes represents from $3,000,000 to $4,000,000 per annum. However, the importance of this industry must not be gauged by these figures, but by the fact that the proceeds of this industry circulate rapidly and give life and movement to other industries that depend upon it, which in the city of Havana alone employ from 18,000 to 20,000 workmen, who, with their families, represent from 45,000 to 50,000 people.
“We have cursorily glanced over its actual importance: let us study its future. Even if under the auspices of peace, with the adoption of proper measures for the future of the agriculture and production of tobacco a brilliant and promising future is assured, the same cannot be said, unfortunately, of its industry and manufacture. The future of the former is most promising; it has no rival in the world; there is only one Vuelta Abajo district. The latter, besides, handicapped as it is by excessive competition, has the insurmountable obstacle of being taxed by the treasuries of countries burdened by a heavy national debt; while other nations, like the United States, levy heavy duties on cigars to protect their national industry in its various phases. As a proof of what we say, we call attention to the following figures showing the gradual decrease of the manufacture of tobacco in this Island, a decrease which nearly reaches fifty per cent. of normal. The following will show how the exportation of cigars decreased from 250,000,000 in 1889 to 123,000,000 in 1897:
| EXPORTATION OF CIGARS IN NINE YEARS | |
| In 1889 | 250,467,000 |
| In 1890 | 211,823,000 |
| In 1891 | 196,667,000 |
| In 1892 | 166,712,000 |
| In 1893 | 147,365,000 |
| In 1894 | 134,210,000 |
| In 1895 | 158,662,000 |
| In 1896 | 185,914,000 |
| In 1897 | 123,417,000 |
“On the other hand, the exportation of leaf tobacco has increased fifty per cent.; from 177,000 bales exported in 1889 by the port of Havana, the exports in 1895 had increased to approximately 250,000 bales. It is easy, then, to understand the actual condition of the tobacco industry and its dependencies, and that of the numerous families who live by the work that this gives them; their future cannot be promising, unless laws are immediately enforced to protect them and raise them from the abject state in which they find themselves.
“Cause of decline. Besides the high customs tariffs on imported cigars abroad, among which we may mention those of the Argentine Republic, as well as the internal taxes of those countries where tobacco is a source of government revenue, one of the main reasons of the decline of the Cuban industry originated in the McKinley bill, which compelled many manufacturers to move their factories to the United States, owing to the want of protection on the raw material, thereby causing a considerable decrease in the production of the Island, and increasing in the same proportion that of the United States, in which country the manufacture has reached the enormous sum of 5,000,000,000 cigars per annum.
| EXPORTATION OF TOBACCO TO THE UNITED STATES | |||
| In 1889 | 101,698,560 | cigars | $3,970,034 |
| In 1890 | 95,105,760 | “ | 4,113,730 |
| In 1891 | 52,015,600 | “ | 2,742,285 |
| In 1892 | 54,472,250 | “ | 2,859,941 |
| In 1893 | 46,033,660 | “ | 2,424,425 |
| In 1894 | 40,048,330 | “ | 2,131,981 |
| In 1895 | 39,579,400 | “ | 2,050,367 |
| In 1896 | 40,601,750 | “ | 2,091,856 |
| In 1897 | 34,017,583 | “ | 1,868,610 |
“Mode of protection. To protect and promote the prosperity of this industry it is necessary: 1st. To maintain the suppression of export duty on cigars ordered by the local Government of this Island on the 31st of last December, both on cigars and cigarettes and packages of cut tobacco, as well as on tobacco in fibre or powdered, which are considered as industrial products thereof.