te man, if
not laborious himself, is the cause that labor is in others. With all
its social and political discouragements, with the disadvantages of a
duty of about twenty-five per cent on its sugars laid in the United
States, and a duty of full one hundred per cent on all flour imported
from the United States, and after paying heavier taxes than any people
on earth pay at this moment, and yielding a revenue, which nets, after
every deduction and discount, not less than sixteen millions a
year--against all these disadvantages, this island is still very
productive and very rich. There is, to be sure, little variety in its
industry. In the country, it is nothing but the raising and making of
sugar; and in the towns, it is the selling and exporting of sugar. With
the addition of a little coffee and copper, more tobacco, and some fresh
fruit and preserves, and the commerce which they stimulate, and the
mechanic and trading necessities of the towns, we have the sum of its
industry and resources. Science, arts, letters, arms, manufactures, and
the learning and discussions of politics, of theology, and of the great
problems and opinions that move the minds of the thinking world--in
these, the people of Cuba have no part. These move by them, as the great
Gulf Stream drifts by their shores. Nor is there, nor has there been in
Cuba, in the memory of the young and middle-aged, debate, or vote, or
juries, or one of the least and most rudimental processes of
self-government. The African and Chinese do the manual labor, the
Cubans hold the land and the capital, and direct the agricultural
industry; the commerce is shared between the Cubans, and foreigners of
all nations; and the government, civil and military, is exercised by the
citizens of Old Spain. No Cuban votes, or attends a lawful political
meeting, or sits on a jury, or sees a law-making assembly, except as a
curiosity abroad, even in a municipality; nor has he ever helped to
make, or interpret, or administer laws, or borne arms, except by special
license of government granted to such as are friends of government. In
religion, he has no choice, except between the Roman Catholic and none.
The laws that govern him are made abroad, and administered by a central
power, a foreign Captain-General, through the agency of foreign civil
and military officers. The Cuban has no public career. If he removes to
Old Spain, and is known as a supporter of Spanish royal power, his
Creole birth