The Far East and the New America, Vol. 6 PDF Download

Author: G. Waldo Browne
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781330492390
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Get Book

Book Description
Excerpt from The Far East and the New America, Vol. 6: A Picturesque and Historic Account of These Lands and Peoples, With the Following Special Articles China We have been able to open up many of the main roads, put the towns in order, and, in fact, scatter the people over the country in honest labour on public works, in return for which they have received either a daily wage of seventy-five cents or fifty cents and a ration. In some cases they have received three or four rations per day for ten hours' work, with no money, and by this method many labourers have been able to feed their families. Whenever we have heard of great destitution in any section of the province, officers have been sent there immediately with money and authority to start needed public works, such as those mentioned above. The result has been that, all through the province, the people have gradually gone to work in one way or another. Of course, they are desperately poor, yet all my officers and couriers, both American and Cuban, report no starvation, and, generally speaking, a quiet, contented condition of the people. It has been impossible to follow any hard and fast policy, but we have had to meet the different conditions in different parts of the province as best we could, giving more here and less there, but giving only just enough to make it possible for the people to reestablish themselves upon the most economical basis. After all, it has been a good deal like housekeeping on a gigantic scale, and, as some of our best and ablest men have sprung from the very poorest families, and their development under conditions of the greatest hardships and adversity has tended to foster the very qualities which have made them successful in after life, so will the desperate struggles which these little municipalities are now having tend to make them all the better in the future. They are learning the necessity of the closest attention to every little detail. In many of them men are serving in public positions for no salary, giving their whole time to establishing affairs upon a prosperous basis. Schoolteachers are working for less than their former salaries, as indeed are all the officials of the province, but they are working cheerfully, and the spirit which is developing among them promises much for the future. Disorders are few, and travellers passing through the province find everywhere open-hearted hospitality and cheerful greetings. The disposition of the people is buoyant and cheerful, and it is very improbable that any extensive police force will be needed, even in the wilder portions of the interior, after the people are once more fairly reestablished on their plantations. All that is wanted in Cuba to ensure good order is an army of workmen. Give them work, free them from militarism, and, with a moderate but efficient police force, good order will prevail. The disorders of to-day are but the disorders of hungry men without food and without money to buy it. They are willing to work, and every dollar of the revenues of Cuba, outside of the limited amount needed to establish the comparatively simple machinery of such civil government as is needed just at present, should be spent in work of a public character, which will tend to open the country once more to commerce, and to restore the towns and cities to a normal condition of cleanliness and sanitation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com