Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-04-27
LATE AFFAIRS
IN HAVANA
Mortgages Are Extended For
Two Years.
AMERICAN IDEAS PREVAIL
As is Shown by Changes in the Mail
Service--Rebuke to the
Cuban PessimiSts
AMERICAN IDEAS PREVAIL

New York, April pa dispatch to the
Tribune from Havana says:
Major Charles Fee, chief of staff to the
governor general, and Senior Desvernine.
secretary of the treasury, IN the lnsular
cabinet, returned today from Washing
ton, and their appearance at Nedado was
signalized by the PRONUNCIATION OF the
lon~g-looked-for mortgage extension de-
| cree. The new order is brief. simply an
| %nouncing that two years time from May
1 will be granted for the payment of
mortgages on realty now due, or which
may become due within that period.
General satisfaction is expressed at the
governments action in granting two
more years of grace, though the land
owners We're disposed to ask a greater
extension and radical separatist politi-
clans are a little exercised over the idea
that the authorities should give any legal
or political guarantee with two full years
to run.
Governor General Brooke has not yet
received from the secretary of justice the
decree he ordered prepared, abolishlng the
odious legal custom of incommunicado.
The decree, when issued, will go further
than the mere annulment of this one
, conspicuous abuse in the old Spanish
crimina code. 1t will eliminate many
other seventies now practlced in the
criminal administration and provide for
tiiS Al oPNAA
charges against a prisoner.
The multiplication of labor strikes DEM
onstrates the quick root American ideas
are taking in Cuba. A week or two ago
the employees of the United railroads of
Havana struck for higher wages, but
military eXigencieS soon broke the tie
up. In C~ienfuegos, the stevedores quit
work and secured a higher rate of wages.
At all the piers except that used by the
quarternlaster's department in Havana
there have been a half dozen minor labor
disturbances, Which seem to have Gull
minated in two strikes-one by the long
shoremen at the big San Jose wharf, and
the other by the employees of the Havana
Waterworks company In both cases
the strikers are holding out for a mate
rial increase in wages.
The Cuban mail service is almost be-
coming highly Amerlcanized Letter
boxes of the American model still frus-
trate native efforts to solve their mechan-
ism, the letter carriers are soon to don
a, uniform which will rival those of the
custom house employees and of the mu-
nicipal police. Early in May another in
novation is to be trled-a special mail
car with all modern convenience for
collection and distribution en- route. At
present, the railway mail clerk has to do
his work on the bench of a SecOnd-clasS
car. 1~
La Lucha, in it's Spanish edition to-
day has a timely rebuke for those native
extremists who are now painting the
situation in unrelieved black. No other
people, it says, have suffered a trans
formation so absolutely complete aus nave
the Cubans with fewer disagreeable IN
cidents and fewer disorders. a country
which. apart from the capitals and pro-
ductive %centers, has since August last
been left practically to itself, without
any other protection that it's inhabitants
| nn1111 ,,r,aIicn hoe oixyny, nvnnf Of i111u-
ment and moderation, since the political
disorders which nave occurred are moth
ing compared to what happened in other
countries under analogous circumstances.
The future of Cuba, La Lucha concludes,
so far from being insecure and uncertain,
appears both hopeful and 1attering.
Six cases of yellow fever have come to
light in the last 10 days, but with the
continuance Of cool, dry weather, no Sc
rious spread of the disease is anticipated.
The death rate of the city continues I'M
usually light.