Prices of sugar, up to the year 1880, were still remunerative (4 to 4-1/2 cents per pound, centrifugals 96 test); but the compet.i.tion of beet sugars in Europe began to be felt more and more every day, causing a lower tendency towards the crisis in prices of the article which finally reached a value of only fifty per cent. of its former quotation.

Under such difficulties Cuba struggled hard. The Cuban army was disbanded after the war, and many persons who had come to towns for safety went back to work their fields and became a new contingent of cane growers. The system of cane _colonias_ was started all over with marked success. Canes were sold to the mills at remunerative prices and fresh impulse was imparted to the country.

In spite of all these efforts, Spain persisted in considering her colony a source of income. Our deputies to the Cortes went full of faith, but they came back fruitlessly as always. The same mistaken policy that ruled Cuba before was continued as ever, and the outbreak of February 24, 1895, was the inevitable result.

The crops gathered from 1879 to 1898 were:

1879 670,000 Tons.

1880 530,000 "

1881 493,000 "

1882 595,000 "

1883 460,397 "

1884 558,937 "

1885 631,000 "

1886 731,723 "

1887 646,578 "

1888 656,719 "

1889 560,333 "

1890 632,368 "

1891 816,980 "

1892 976,960 "

1893 815,894 "

1894 1,054,214 "

1895 1,004,264 "

1896 225,221 "

1897 212,051 "

1898 300,000 " (about)

Notice the decrease of production of the year 1896. We could have ground that year more than 1,100,000 tons of sugar, had it not been for the war.

The amount of the coming crop will depend entirely on the greater celerity that is to be given to the so-wished for political change. Any delay will be of disadvantage to all our productions. The proper season for cleaning cane fields has already vanished, and besides cattle are badly wanted and very scarce. Training for working purposes requires time.

If peace becomes a fact and all the available cane is ground, I would say that 500,000 tons might be reached.

Now I will call your attention to the distribution of our crops these few years back.

CROP OF 1893--815,894 TONS OF 2240 LBS.

Exported to the United States 680,642 Tons.

" " Canada 25,069 "

" " Spain 9,448 "

" " England 3,045 "

Local consumption whole year 50,000 "

CROP OF 1894--1,054,214 TONS OF 2240 LBS.

Exported to the United States 965,524 Tons " " Canada 24,372 "

" " Spain 23,295 "

" " England 10,528 "

Local consumption whole year 50,000 "

CROP OF 1895--1,004,264 TONS OF 2240 LBS.

Exported to the United States 769,958 Tons " " Canada 28,324 "

" " Spain 28,428 "

" " England 5,674 "

Local consumption whole year 50,000 "

CROP OF 1896--225,221 TONS OF 2240 LBS.

Exported to United States 235,659 Tons " " Spain 9,969 "

Local consumption whole year 40,000 "

CROP OF 1897--212,051 TONS OF 2240 LBS.

Exported to United States 202,703 Tons " " Na.s.sau 83 "

" " Spain 1,337 "

Local consumption whole year 38,000 "

[Ill.u.s.tration: CYLINDERS FOR GRINDING SUGAR CANE.]

The stock of sugar left in store on December 1, 1897, was 1888 tons, the smallest stock held at an equal date since several years. The returns and distribution of this year's crop are not completed yet.

Notice the proportion of exports to Spain in 1897 as compared with exports to the United States.

Mr. Adolfo Munoz del Monte, writing in the _Revista de Agricultura_, says:

"During the thirty years before 1884 the following cla.s.ses of sugar were made:

"First. White sugar nearly refined, manufactured with the aid of vacuum pans, filtered through bone-black, and purified in centrifugal turbines; and the inferior products of this manufacture.

"Second. White and brown sugar, manufactured and purified in forms.

Some estates use vacuum pans for these sugars.

"Third. Muscovado sugars manufactured directly from the cane juice.

"The best sugars of these three cla.s.ses were exported in boxes, and the inferior in hogsheads.

"Fourth. Raw sugar, made in vacuum pans and crystallised immediately in centrifugal turbines, there being two varieties of this cla.s.s of sugar, that extracted directly from the juice and the one extracted from the mola.s.ses resulting in the purification of the first product.

"In the year 1857 there was a universal crisis and after that time planters considered that the first cla.s.s mentioned was the most profitable, and machinery was improved at great expense for the purpose of manufacturing this grade of sugar. A plantation with this machinery could be improved only at great cost, and it would have been impossible to do so to any advantage had it not been for the reduced cost of labour owing to slavery, carried on at the time.

"In the meanwhile, the beetroot-sugar industry was progressing both in its agriculture and manufacture. No one in Cuba foresaw the terrible revolution that this industry was to suffer in consequence. It first became apparent in the crisis in 1884, which may be considered the most important event in the history of the sugar industry. This crisis, which came in a most sudden and unexpected manner, caused the reduction in the price of sugar which, though a benefit to the poorer cla.s.ses of the world, was the ruin of Cuba, as at the same time slavery was abolished without any compensation whatever, direct or indirect, at the time when the losses of a sanguinary civil war were being overcome.

"It may be stated that absolutely no one could foresee, either in the present or in the past generation, the revolution that since 1884 has shaken the industry; though the French colonists, fearing the compet.i.tion from the start, solicited the protection of their Government.

"The French colonists feared this compet.i.tion so much that fifty years ago they solicited from the French Chamber of Deputies a law prohibiting the cultivation of beetroot in French territories, offering to indemnify those who had commenced it. Experience has proved how just their fears were at that early date; but the French Government did not grant their pet.i.tion, because it was adverse to favouring monopolies, and besides, because Germany, having no colonies, could promote that industry without fear of the rivalry which has proved of material benefit to all Europe, including France itself.