The opportunities for American labour in Cuba are circumscribed. If the climate were more temperate and the dangers of disease less there would undoubtedly be an influx of labour from the United States. Just as the restless and hopeful population of the Eastern States has migrated westward and to some extent southward in our own country, so it would find its way to Cuba if conditions allowed of extensive settlement and home-making. In the opinion of the author they do not, and hence the industrial rehabilitation of Cuba must rely upon other sources than the United States for its supply of labour. Of course Americans will settle in Cuba and do business in Cuba and possibly make their fortunes in Cuba. Not in the way they have settled up our own unsettled area by purchasing farms and building homes, but in projecting and pushing enterprises. In Cuba, sugar production has become two distinct industries: one the sugar factory and the other the colonia, or cane-raising farm, or estate. The central, or sugar factory, often owns large areas of land, but does not depend wholly upon its own acres for cane. Some factories depend more largely upon the colonias, or small farms which supply the cane. This cane the central brings to the sugar-house by the aid of narrow-gauge railways, extending over the estate and into adjoining farms. There are opportunities for farm labourers who can withstand a tropical climate, to settle on small areas of land and raise sugar cane. Every possible encouragement will be given this class of immigrants. Mr. J. White Todd, who lived twenty years in Cuba, has informed the author that in his opinion industrious immigrants from Southern Italy and Southern Spain will find ample opportunities in Cuba to establish homes and make a profitable living raising cane for the sugar factories. If they are willing to work, the owners of the centrals or factories will gladly secure them the land and tide them over the first crop. This class of labour and the Canary Islanders are the only ones likely to take up and work small sugar farms in Cuba. Heretofore the experience with the negroes has not been satisfactory, though under a better system of government it may be different. The success of the sugar factory depends so largely upon the available sugar cane of the district that the central is always glad to aid a labourer likely to become a thrifty colono.
In coffee and tobacco there are possibilities on a small scale, and also in fruit-growing, when roads and highways have been sufficiently improved to get the product to market. Herein lies the only feasible opportunity for small American capitalists who desire to live in a tropical climate. It is true, only a small portion of this wonderful Island is under cultivation. In time it might all be utilised, the larger part, of course, in sugar. In the chapter on Sugar the possibilities of this crop and its relation to the sugar-production of the world have been fully discussed. When continental Europe tires of paying a bounty for producing sugar, Cuba must take its place as the first sugar-producing country of the world; a place it would never have lost had it not been for misgovernment, war, and failure promptly to adopt modern methods when beet-sugar first became a factor in the world’s supply.
The particular lines in which the enterprise, ingenuity, and capital of the United States can be utilised in Cuba will undoubtedly be in the establishment of public and semi-public works and in the improvement of methods of production. Here are some of the enterprises likely to be taken up by American and English capitalists:
Sanitary Improvements and Water-works.
Street Railways and light railway transportation in suburban districts.
Gas-works and Electric Lighting.
Unifying and extension of railway system.
Establishment of better facilities for coastwise transportation.
Navigation between Cuba and the United States.
Wharfage, Lighterage, and Public Warehouses.