The Times published on Thursday a most interesting account of
the situation in Cuba. Economically, the island is beginning to prosper aga in. There is plenty of work for the people, now numbering 1,572,000, the sugar plantations have revived, and will in 1902 produce 900,000 tons, 67,000,000 lb. of tobacco were grown this year, and the little farmers are growing fruit, for which the demand in the Union is un- limited. Socially, the great grievance is the badness of the police, which does not prevent brigandage in the country dis- tricts, though the towns are orderly, and of the Courts, which are described as utterly corrupt. Politically, the people assent to the protectorate of the United States, and parties are solidifying into two,—the Independents, who wish Cuba to be as Chili, and the Annexationists. who would rather the island merged itself in the Union. The latter party is growing, and if encouraged at Washington will probably win; but there are at least two retarding causes not mentioned by the writer in the Times. The sugar-growers of the South dread the import of free sugar from Cuba, and the wirepullers
not feel confident as to the Cuban vote.
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