National Affairs: Cuba

The Latin races like their food and their politics highly seasoned. Just at present Secretary of State Hughes and President Coolidge are tasting the Cuban dish and finding it a bit too ” hot.” There are two matters in question. One is the recent lottery bill (TIME, Aug. 13); the other is the Tarafa railroad bill.

The Troubles. Several months ago Cuba floated a loan of $50,000,000 in the U. S. with the understanding that certain reforms would be carried out. The lottery was scheduled for a cleanup. But when the loan was consummated the lottery was not reformed or abolished. It was made worse. This lottery is a Government institution. Thirty per cent, of the sales are appropriated by the Government as revenue. Seventy per cent, are distributed in prizes. Drawings are held three times a month; about 35,000 tickets are sold for which the Government gets $19.40 a piece; the first prize is $100,000 and smaller prizes are so distributed that about one ticket in 20 wins. Agencies are supposed to resell these tickets for $21. Instead the tickets are resold for $25 or even $30. This is why the agencies are a source of graft. There were formerly about 1,000 agencies, each worth $200 or $300 a month. The number of agencies was recently increased by the Cuban Congress to 2,000. These posts are an excellent bit of patronage for the President and the party in power. It was the recent increase of the number of agencies and consequent graft which occasioned the summoning of the American Ambassador, General Crowder, to Washington. The other trouble is of even more recent origin. It was occasioned by the passage of the Tarafa railroad bill by the Cuban House of Representatives. This bill provides for a holding company to operate the consolidated railroads of Cuba, and for the closing of 47 ” private ” or sub-ports and the operation of only 25 public seaports. There are many sugar companies which own their own railroads, and export sugar from their own ports. About one-third of the Cuban sugar crop is handled in this way and about 85% of Cuban sugar companies are owned by Americans. The Tarafa Bill would require that private ports be used only when reached over the consolidated railways or by shipment over the sugar companies’ roads with a graduated tax of from five to twenty cents per hundredweight on the sugar shipped—a tax that the sugar companies say is prohibitive. The sugar companies and certain copper interests in like position are protesting at Washington that the Tarafa Bill is conflscatory and are asking intervention. It happens that the Cuban public railroads are also owned in large part by Americans. The railroad companies would profit by the bill. So their representatives are also in Washington, protesting against the sugar companies’ protest. Colonel Jose Miguel Tarafa, author of the bill, sailed for this country to present his side of the case, in support of the railroad companies. Colonel Tarafa is himself a large capitalist reported to have a considerable interest in both sugar and railroads, but his sugar interests are not such as to be injured by the bill. The State Department meanwhile considered the question of whether the bill can legally be regarded as confiscatory and asked President Zayas of Cuba to have the Cuban Senate delay action. At Senor Zayas’ request the Senate tabled the bill until hearings could be held.

The Significance. The high art of politics as a money-making game has never been sufficiently esteemed in this country to induce a full appreciation of that art as it is practiced in Cuba. Without casting any reflections on President Zayas or others, one may note that the campaign for the next Presidential election there is just opening. Patronage plays an even larger part in Cuban politics than it does in the U. S.

The Director of the lottery is Alfredo Zayas, Jr., son of the President. Before him Norberto Alfonso, uncle of the President, had the post. Many of the lottery agencies are in the hands of other members of the President’s family. The younger Zayas is responsible only to his father for the administration of the lottery. Of course not all the “profit” of the lottery agencies goes to the President’s family and followers. Some (about half, it is said) goes to the members of Congress, some to the press, which is fairly well under political control. The corruption in the Loteria Nacional is more or less an open secret, but the Cuban public views it with characteristic Latin indifference. The situation would not be nearly so bad if lottery tickets were sold without profiteering as they are in Spain, Italy and South America generally.

The Tarafa Bill, in the opinion of many Cuban observers, is likely to pass unless the U. S. takes a hand. There is considerable sentiment for the bill in the public ports which expect to profit by it. In the country districts there is said to be much sentiment against it in the fear that it will throw large numbers of Cubans out of work. However, the support of Tarafa and others may well be worth more to the Zayas group in the coming election than support from the country districts. Most of the Havana papers did not discuss the bill, although the House of Representatives continued to discuss it even after its passage—chiefly to condemn those who opposed it. The Possibilities. Under the Platt Amendment to the Cuban Treaty, the U. S. Government has the right to intervene in Cuba if American interests are threatened. This step is most unlikely, however, unless more serious difficulties arise. Action through diplomatic channels is more probable. Meanwhile President Zayas announced (perhaps by way of appeasing the U. S.) that a Cuban loan of $7,000,000 negotiated in the U. S. during the War will be paid off within a few days. This is said to be the first war debt to this country to be liquidated.