na Province, and 75 miles in Pinar del Rio. The remainder of
the island had none. Some work was done during the First Intervention
and more was done under the Palma government. At the time of the Second
Intervention, there were about 380 miles. That is, the United States and
the Cuban Republic built, in six years, nearly 40 per cent, more highway
than the Spanish authorities built in four hundred years. During the Palma
regime, plans were drawn for an extensive road system, to be carried out
as rapidly as the financial resources permitted. Not unlike similar
proceedings in this country, in river and harbor work and public
buildings, politics came into the matter and, like our own under similar
circumstances, each Congressman insisted that some of such work as could
immediately be undertaken, some of the money that could be immediately
spent, should benefit his particular district. The result was that what was
done by the Cubans was somewhat scattered, short stretches built here and
there, new bridges built when there might or might not be a usable road to
them. The Cuban plan involved, for its completion, a period of years and
a large appropriation. It called for comparatively small yearly
appropriations for many roads, for more than four hundred different
projects. Then came the Second Intervention, in 1906, with what has seemed
to many of us an utterly unwise and unwarranted expenditure for the
completion of certain selected projects included in the Cuban plan. It may
be granted that the roads were needed, some of them very much needed, but
there are thousands of miles of unconstructed but much needed roads in
the United States. Yet, in this country, Federal, State, county, and town
treasuries are not drained to their last dollar, and their credit strained,
to build those roads. From the drain on its financial resources, the island
will recover, but the misfortune appears in the setting of a standard for
Federal expenditure, in its total for all purposes amounting to about
$40,000,000 a year, far beyond the reasonable or proper bearing power of
the island. But the work was done, the money spent, and the Cubans were
committed to more work and to further expenditure. I find no data showing
with exactness the mileage completed by the Magoon government, which came
to an end in January, 1909, but a Cuban official report made at the end of
1910 shows that the combined activities of the respective administrations,
Spanish, Amer