ually. Other lines of industry worthy of
mention, but not possible of detailed description here, include sponges,
tortoise shell, honey, wax, molasses, and henequen or sisal. All these
represent their individual thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars,
and their employment of scores or hundreds of wage-earners. Those who start
for Cuba with a notion that the Cubans are an idle and lazy people, will
do well to revise that notion. There is not the hustle that may be seen
further north, but the results of Cuban activity, measured in dollars or in
tons, fairly dispute the notion of any national indolence. When two and a
half million people produce what is produced in Cuba, somebody has to work.

XIV

_POLITICS, GOVERNMENT, AND COMMERCE_

The British colonists in America were in large measure self-governing. This
is notably true in their local affairs. The Spanish colonists were
governed almost absolutely by the mother-country. A United States official
publication reports that "all government control centred in the Council of
the Indies and the King, and local self government, which was developed at
an early stage in the English colonies, became practically impossible in
the Spanish colonies, no matter to what extent it may have existed in
theory. Special regulations, decrees, etc., modifying the application of
the laws to the colonies or promulgating new laws were frequent, and their
compilation in 1680 was published as Law of the Indies. This and the _Siete
Partidas_, on which they were largely based, comprised the code under which
the Spanish-American colonies were governed." There was a paper provision,
during the greater part of the time, for a municipal electorate, the
franchise being limited to a few of the largest tax-payers. In its
practical operation, the system was nullified by the power vested in the
appointed ruler. It was a highly effective centralized organization in
which no man held office, high or low, who was not a mere instrument in the
hands of the Governor-General. Under such an institution the Cubans had, of
course, absolutely no experience in self-government. The rulers made laws
and the people obeyed them; they imposed taxes and spent the money as they
saw fit; many of them enriched themselves and their personally appointed
official household throughout the island, at the expense of the tax-payers.

A competent observer has noted that such terms as "meeting,"
"mass-meeting," "self-gov