The cities will soon be all right again, and under honest municipal government, taxes on urban property will be paid. The influx of commodities of all sorts, to make up for losses and destruction by war and low stocks due to the blockade, will increase the custom-house receipts. The reduction of duties on machinery and railway supplies may increase the importations of these articles, and thus the lower rates of duty will yield a revenue which the present high rates, by making importations impossible, fail to do. By putting an end to smuggling, and by honestly administering the custom-houses, the United States Government may increase the revenue, but the proposed reduction of duties of the amended tariff in a measure offsets this. Unless, therefore, some new source of revenue is found practicable (and the Spanish seem to have exhausted all known means of raising revenue), reliance for the future will have to be on five of the six revenue sources above enumerated. If for the first year or two they should yield in all $15,000,000, it will probably be all the revenue that may safely be estimated. Much will naturally depend upon the foreign imports. The cable despatches from Havana, as this volume goes to press, indicate that the customs revenue will be fully up to the author’s estimates.

Aside from special imports, such as specie, leaf tobacco, etc., the value of the imports of merchandise proper into Cuba the last normal year (1895) was upward of $60,000,000. An average tariff rate of twenty-five per cent. on this valuation of imported merchandise would itself yield $15,000,000. As a matter of fact, the duties collected in 1895 were $14,587,920.57, on a total importation of merchandise other than specie of $61,443,334.65, or about an average of twenty-five per cent. To be sure, the nominal tariff rates were much higher in 1895 than they will be in 1899, but there is a possibility of making up for the loss by reason of lower duties by abolishing smuggling and honestly administering the custom-houses. It is impossible, however, to estimate on this, because, to do so with any degree of success, it would be necessary to reduce to figures the losses of revenue by smuggling, undervaluation, and misclassification. This is an impossibility.

The tariff which the Spanish Government enacted and put in force in the Island of Cuba in September, 1897, and which, with modifications in the shape of war taxes, was in force in ports of Cuba in possession of the Spanish Government until the change of government, January 1, 1899, is based upon the preceding tariffs. Both this tariff and its predecessors seem to lack rational basis, so far as Cuba is concerned, the aim apparently being to secure, by the means of exorbitant customs duties revenue for the Spanish exchequer and profits for Spanish subjects, without the slightest regard for the welfare of the people of Cuba. While the duties seem to have been levied with this idea, the classifications and methods of administration are so complicated and obscure that they easily lend themselves to every known species of revenue fraud, from false classifications and undervaluations to smuggling of the most barefaced character. In fact, the author, after a careful inquiry into the Cuban tariff and an examination of several hundred witnesses in Havana and other cities of Cuba, reached the conclusion that almost every form of revenue iniquity has been perpetrated upon the people of this Island by the ruling powers.

Not only was the tariff constructed in a way that compelled the Cuban producer to purchase the articles he needed and could not himself manufacture, of Spain, instead of in the cheaper markets, but also it levied almost prohibitive duties on such articles as Spain could not under any circumstances send to Cuba. For example, the Spanish exporter was able, by a discriminating duty of more than one hundred per cent. against other countries, to import from Minnesota to Barcelona American flour and reship it to Cuba at a price just below the price of the American article shipped direct to Cuba, upon which a duty nearly three times as great as that exacted from Spain had to be paid. On the other hand, Spain took little interest in such articles as machinery and railway supplies, including steel rails and locomotives, because she neither produced them nor could she purchase elsewhere and reship as Spanish production.

The amended tariff for the Island, which went into force January 1, 1899, was framed on the general plan of the “open door” for all nations; that is, the merchandise of all nations will be admitted on an equal footing, or at the same rate of duty. There is but one uniform rate of duty, and that, as far as possible, a revenue, not a protective rate. In a few cases, a protective rate has been allowed, for the purpose of encouraging Cuban home industry, but as over half of all the imports into Cuba are food products, not produced to advantage in the Island, the rates of duty rarely exceed twenty-five per cent. ad valorem. In this connection, it will be interesting to note the value of the merchandise imported, divided by schedules or classes (page 217).

It will be seen from the following exhibit that Schedule 12, “Alimentary Substances,” covering all food products, is the most important of all the schedules, representing more than half the total imports into Cuba during 1895, and aggregating over $31,000,000. Next in importance to this is Schedule 4, “Cotton and Manufactures thereof,” aggregating nearly $6,000,000, or ten per cent. of the total imports; Schedule 1, “Ores, etc.,” aggregating in the neighbourhood of $4,750,000, ranking third, and so on through the list.

TABLE SHOWING VALUE OF IMPORTS INTO CUBA BY TARIFF
CLASSES FOR THE LAST NORMAL YEAR, 1895-96
Number ofSchedule.Commodity.Value Imports,
1895-96.
ClassI. Stones, earths, ores, etc. $ 4,733,358.12
“ II. Metals, and manufactures of 2,063,281.95
“III. Pharmacy and chemicals 2,166,414.92
“IV. Cotton, and manufactures of 5,908,202.23
“V. Hemp, flax, jute, and other vegetable fibres and manufactures of 3,587,713.23
“VI. Wool, bristles, etc., and manufactures of 1,060,192.13
“VII. Silk, and manufactures of 315,010.00
“VIII. Paper and its applications 1,257,132.94
“IX. Wood, etc., and manufactures of 2,054,057.57
“X. Animals and animal wastes 3,880,209.64
“XI. Instruments, machinery, etc. 2,123,315.43
“XII. Alimentary substances 31,179,289.98
“XIII. Miscellaneous 1,115,156.51
$61,443,334.65

In conjunction with the above table, the following recapitulation of values of exports and reshipments into Cuba during 1895-96 is given:

RECAPITULATION OF VALUES OF EXPORTS AND RESHIPMENTS
IN CUBA DURING 1895-96
ExportsFirst
Quarter		Second
Quarter		Third
Quarter		Fourth
Quarter		Total
Classes of goods:
Timber$286,190.70$ 267,068.47$ 200,878.03$ 130,463.90$ 848,601.10
Cigars6,616,458.974,374,938.706,389,770.956,666,672.7124,047,841.33
Sugar26,288,456.9130,457,278.5010,679,269.557,572,016.3674,997,021.32
Molasses427,886.111,010,657.35152,205.658,846.301,599,595.41
Rum and liquors352,393.44292,808.18267,277.53121,991.001,034,470.15
Other articles1,332,714.862,538,509.692,738,024.011,112,242.447,721,491.00
Total35,304,100.9938,941,260.8920,427,425.7215,612,232.71110,285,020.31
Reshipment:
Foreign goods15,462.658,477.9117,567.0527,524.0869,031.69
Spanish goods61,343.0827,477.6228,718.1729,276.53146,815.40
Total76,805.7335,955.5346,285.2256,800.61215,847.09
Special exports207,477.55166,881.152,092,960.13153,326.302,620,645.13
Grand total$35,588,384.27$39,144,097.57$22,566,671.07$15,822,359.62$113,121,512.53