be.
Why then, Young Senor, he will learn that it will be many years before
he finds out whether the man to whom he is paying the rent is really the
owner of the land. And if he wishes to buy, it is worse than a lottery.
In this part of the island no surveys have been made--except a circular
survey with no edges marked--and land titles are all confused. Then the
lawyer-Rats thrive."

"It's not like that near Havana," put in Stuart.

"Havana is not Cuba. Only three kinds of people live in Havana: the
Rats, the tourists, and the people who live off the Rats and the
tourists. They spend, and Cuba suffers.

"For the land tax, Senor, is not all! Nearly all the money that the
government spends--that the Rats waste--comes from the tax on imports.
No grain is grown in Cuba, and there is no clothing industry. All our
food and all our clothes are imported, and it is the guarijo who, at
the last, must pay that tax. Young Senor, did you know that, per head of
population, the poor Cuban is taxed for the necessities of life imported
into this island three and a half times as much as the rich American is
taxed for the goods entering the United States?

"Even that is not all. Here, in Cuba, we grow sugar, tobacco,
pineapples, and citrus fruit, like oranges, grapefruit and lemons. Does
America, which made us a republic, help us? No, Young Senor, it hurts
us, hinders us, cripples us. In Hawaii, in Porto Rico, in the southern
part of the United States, live our sugar, tobacco and fruit
competitors. Their products enter American markets without tax. Ours are
taxed. What happens? Cuba, one of the most fertile islands of the West
Indies is poor. The Cuban cultivator, who is willing to be a hard
worker, gives up the fight in disgust and either tries in some way to
get the dollars from the Americans who come here, or else he helps to
ruin his country by getting a political job."

Stuart, listening carefully to this criticism, noticed in Vellano's
voice a note of hatred whenever he used the word "American." Connecting
this with his own suspicion that Cecil was head of a conspiracy against
the United States and that this supposed fisherman was evidently the
Englishman's tool, he asked, casually:

"Then you don't think that the United States did a good thing in
freeing Cuba from Spain?" he hazarded.

To the boy's surprise, his companion burst out approvingly.

"Yes, yes, a magnificent thing! But they did not know it, and they did
not kn