The age-herald., 1901-05-05
Havana. cuba. AprIl 20. 1eol.

Havana, Cuba. April 20. 1901.
 '-rhe Cuba Company" otherwise known as the Van Horne-Thomas syndicate-en- gagged in the survey of projected line of railway to connect Havana and Santa Clara ports with Puerto Principe, Bay amo and Santiago de Cuba are ''block- ed." the Insular Secretary of Public Works here having denied them permits to cross public roads or highways or to sink a spade upon any ground not al- ready their own by purchase. The con cession to construct railroad between Santa Clara and Santiago is held by an other company-an American syndicate, headed by General A. G. Greenwood, whose grant of authority came originally from Spain (through an old Frenchman's concession), being confirmed by the Gu ban revolutionary government as we'll as by Generals Lawton and Wood, the Unit ed States authorities at Santiago (both military and civic) before the Foraker resolution ever became a law. But when the latter went into effect Greenwood's men were advised to postpone making any survey pending its revision the sug- gestion was taken into consideration, and in consequence all work inaugurated was suspended. But what was their surprise. a few weeks later, to find that an ''En- glish' syndicate, headed by Sir William Van Horne of Canada, who never pre- tended to have charter to build a rail- road in Cuba, was making a survey of line of road to connect the same points mentioned in the Greenwood concessioni The Canadian and his American associ- ates in the enterprise are understood to have boasted that. being English cap nd ha Rr;4 foreign office to protect their investments neither the Cuban insular authorities, the military governor of the island nor the War Department at Washington would dare block their work; intimating that the Foraker bill could only be regarded as affecting Americans seeking conces- sions in Cubai General Greenwood pro tested against the Van Horne engineers as 'trespassers'' upon the line which his company had projected, and as violating his rights under concession ante-dating the passage of the measure introduced in Congress by the Senator from Ohio; but apparently his protests were not altogeth- CT effective. The Canadian Anglo-Ameri- cans leased the Santiago and St. Louis Railroad Heading westward from Santi- ago) from the Pennsylvanians owning the line. and have acquired in some way as yet unexplained. the Jucaro, San Fernan- do and Ciego de Avila Railway-a gov- ernment military llne along the old span ish trocha dividing the provinces of Peur- to Principe and Santa Clara and crossing the central portion of Cuba from North to South; and, through the purchase out right of strips ofand required along the route selected, have been for months en- gagged in grading sections of their pro- jected road, in open defiance of the law And where Cuban labor could not be had Jamaica negroes have been imported by the boat load for the work, notwithstand- ing the protests raised by the press and public throughout Cuba against the bringing in of any but white immigra- tion, or the engagement of foreign labor by contract, when thousands of natives are without employment and their fam flies in want But the refusal of the civil governor of Principe province and that of Santiago to allow the Van Horne sur vey parties to either cross public high ways or private property in pursuing their work, having recently been approv-