Identifier: industrialcubabe00port (find matches)
Title: Industrial Cuba : being a study of present commercial and industrial conditions with suggestions as to the opportunities presented in the island for American capital, enterprise and labour
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Porter, Robert P. (Robert Percival), 1852-1917
Subjects:
Publisher: New York : Putnam
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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age of them and push their product forward tosupply the Cuban cane-sugar deficit, and so successful werethey that at the end of the insurrection of 1868, say in1878, Cuba was practically bankrupt. Competition withthe European beet-growers was difficult, and it was impos-sible to induce capital from the United States to restore thesugar industry of Cuba, owing to a lack of confidence inthe stability of the government of the Island. During the ten years of rebellion, the planters were ableto protect their property by paying regular taxes to theSpanish Government, and at the same time allowing a cert-ain amount to the insurgents, who agreed for this not todestroy the plantations. During this period they employedslave and coolie labour; but they were then subject to theMoret law, which was, in effect, that each planter shouldliberate a certain number of his slaves each year, and thiswas to continue until slavery had disappeared. Beforethis occurred, however, the treaty of Zanjon was made,
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Outlook in Cuba for Labour 77 whereby all slaves were liberated. By the Moret law,numbers were given to the slaves by the municipality, thename and number of the slave written on a slip, which wasput in a box and each year ten per cent, of the names weredrawn out. The owners were then officially notified thatcertain slaves, giving their numbers, were free, and this waspublished in a local paper. Most of these slaves remainedwith the planters. This law had a very good effect. Returning for a moment to the outbreak of the rebellionof 1868, it is necessary to refer to another sad page in thehistory of labour in Cuba; namely, the introduction ofcoolie labour from China. In 1869 the importation ofslaves into Cuba was stopped, and then commenced thetraffic in coolies, who were shipped from China, cargoes ofthem being landed at Havana. They were brought overunder a contract for eight years by a company in Havanawhich had its own line of steamers. The contracts weresold to anyone who wished t

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