Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chapter III THE REVOLUTION OF 1895 Spain’s fulfilment of the conditions of the Treaty of Zanjon was an appearance rather than a fact. It is true that the Spanish Constitution in its entirety was extended to Cuba, and that the Spanish law of civil procedure and the Spanish civil code were put into effect in the Island. Other reforms and improvements were also inaugurated. But it is also true that Cuban conditions and burdens remained with little or no real alleviation. Another important factor appears in the Cuban experience of this period. For a number of years, the Island had been faced with the competition of European bounded sugars in the marketing of her chief product. The production of beet sugar in Europe increased from 200,000 tons, in 1850, to 3,841,000 tons, in 1894. Prices were greatly reduced, and the profits of Cuban planters were heavily cut. As a general rule, the Cuban planter is a man who desires to make money in order that he may have money to spend, rather than that he may have money with which to make more money. He was called to face conditions which demanded improvements and economies in his business. His earlier experience had not qualified him to cope with such conditions, and a measure of economic distress resulted. This followed notwithstanding the advantages secured during the period of reciprocity with the United States. After the manner of his kind, in Cuba, as elsewhere, the planterlooked to his government to establish political conditions which would relieve his economic distress. He might quite as well have looked to the moon. Spain was not in Cuba for the purpose of encouraging either extravagance or profits in the business of Cuban planters. The revolt followed, chiefly, as a result of Spain’s failure to do her part in improving the economic…
