ter, the statement of revenue and expenditure for the year The foreign trade for the year is given by General Bliss, Collector of Customs, as follows: Total Imports Total Exports $67,751,911.00 Of the imports, $28,469,251 came from the United States, and $39,282,660 from other countries. Of the exports, $50,016,318 was sent to the United States, and $16,486,215 to other countries. The deficit for the year 1901 exceeds $700,000. The deficit of this year, taken with that of the preceding year, gives ground for a legitimate comparison. During his incumbency, * For fuller details, see article on Revenues and Expenditures, Chapter XX. General Brooke accumulated a treasury surplus of nearly $2,000,000. General Wood, during his term, appears to have overspent his revenues by about $1,500,000. One year after the American withdrawal, the Cuban Treasurer reported an available cash balance of nearly $3,000,000. This was done in spite of an increase in the running expenses for items which did not appear in the Wood budget, such as the payment of a congress, a larger salary and appropriation for the executive, and the maintenance of a diplomatic corps and a consular service. It was also done with no appreciable diminution in the efficiency of government in the departments of law and order, education, sanitation, and public improvements. As a financier, General Wood was outclassed by both General Brooke and Señor Estrada Palma. CHAPTER XII THE END OF THE INTERVENTION THE opening days of 1902 found the Island of Cuba upon the threshold of a new life. The conditions under which the United States proposed withdrawal had been accepted. A national election had been held, and although another election was required for full determination, the personnel of the new government was generally known. On February 24, the second election was held, and Tomas Estrada Palma was formally chosen as Cuba's first President, with Luis Estevez as Vice-President. The elected Senators included some whose names had been made familiar to American readers by their participation in the military operations of the revolution, and the political operations which followed the termination of hostilities. So far as Cuba was concerned, nothing remained except the official organization of the various elements. May 20 was announced as the date of American withdrawal and of the definite establishment of the Cuban Republic. Economically and industrially, the Island was in a state of suspense and unrest. The struggle for tariff concessions in the United States was in active process. This will be treated in another chapter. Notwithstanding the fact that the generally predicted industrial disaster did not occur, there is no doubt that the situation was seriously menacing, and that a real ground existed for the wide-spread apprehension that was both felt and manifested. That the disaster did not fall is in no way due to any act of the United States. Its aversion was the result of other influences. Any consideration of the proceedings of the Government of Intervention during the year 1902 is necessarily subject to the individual view of America's justification for the policy which had been adopted in the matter of "sovereignty, jurisdiction, and control" over the Island. This applies throughout the entire experience, but especially to the closing days. Notably from the beginning of the Wood régime, there was shown an increasing tendency to ignore the declaration of the Teller Amendment, and a manifest purpose not only to administer the present affairs of the Island, but as well to essay regulation of its fundamental laws and governmental processes. Technically, this can only be regarded as a flagrant violation of a national pledge. The point was not broadly raised in the United States, and the American people, hearing no vigorous outcry of protest, assumed Cuban acquiescence and approval from the mere fact of Cuban silence. The Cuban point of view was that protest was useless. They were in the hands of a stronger power which, having adopted a certain course of procedure, was undoubtedly disposed to stand by its actions. The power, of course, existed. The moral or the legal right to exercise that power is distinctly open to question. In his report for 1902 (p. 271) General Wood says: "The work called for and accomplished was the building up of a republic, by Anglo-Saxons, in a Latin country where approximately seventy per cent of the people were illiterate; where they had lived always as a military colony; where general elections, as we understand them, were unknown; . . . in short, the establishment, in a little over three years, in a Latin military colony, . . . of a republic modelled closely upon lines of our great Republic." This appears to have been General Wood's interpretation of the only authoritative policy ever announced by the United States regarding its control of Cuban affairs, a policy declared by the American Congress in these words: "That the United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said Island except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the Island to its people." There is neither statement nor intimation here that the work called for or to be accomplished was the constitution of a republic, "by Anglo-Saxons," for those of an alien race, upon Anglo-Saxon lines. At no time during the preceding three years had there been manifested so definite a purpose as that shown during the months of 1902, in the adoption of autocratic monarchical methods for the establishment of a republic in a foreign land. In the issuance of official orders, during the preceding period, those orders were prefaced with the statement that "The Military Governor directs the publication of the following order." In numerous cases, in 1902, this was changed to "I, Leonard Wood, Military Governor, by virtue of the authority vested in me, direct the publication of the following order." At no previous time had interference with established laws been so direct and flagrant. On February 7 and on March 3, there were issued railroad laws which instituted an entirely new order in Cuban railway matters. The primary object of the law of February 7 was, undoubtedly, the definite legal establishment of the new railway from Santiago to Santa Clara. The law, in itself, has much to recommend it. It is a good law, and its operation will in all probability make for the general welfare of the Island. Nevertheless, the establish |