Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1913-01-17
atlisesllaaeuus Readins.
HAvANA'S PORT AWAKENING
City Does Large Business, but Has
Poor Docking Facilities.

fOOT DoCkinS fdSi'tiSS'
The Havana correspondent of the
Christian Science Monitor says that
the Cuban capital is just awakening
to the peed of better wharf facilities.
He says:
The capital of Cuba has a popula-
ton of $4,000 people. The island is
extraordinarily rich and fertile. The
rich and well-to-do almost universally
live in Havana; they come there to
spend their money, to buy their clothes
and their household effects, even when
living on the plantation or in other
cities and towns. In consequence Ha-
vana is more effectively Cuba than
Paris is France.
1t is estimated that IS per cent of all
the importations of the port are con-
sumed in the city itself, and only Is
per cent is transshipped to other parts
of the island.
A curious feature of the commerce
of Havana is the fact tnat for all prac-
tical purposes there is no back coun-
try"-no supporting farms and manu-
factures. With a few trifling eXcep-
tions there are no manufactures in Gu
ba, outside of the tobacco industry,
Even the refined sugar used almost al
together in Havana is imported from
the United States, although the cane
from which 1t came was grown perhaps
in Havana province.
The result Is that all the clothes one
wears, all the food one eats, all the
furniture one lives with and most OF
the material of which ones house is
constructed have come across the sea
and tito the port of Havana. For this
reason the commerce of the city Is ex-
ceptionally large in proportion to the
population. The annual foreign COM
merce of Havana amounts to a greater
figure than that of any of the Atlantic
seaboard ports excepting New York,
Boston and Philadelphia.
With such a commerce, amounting
in 1911 to $71,219,293, and with every
man, woman and child in the city SO
directly dependent upon the sea-borne
freight, one would fancy that the ia
ci!ities of the harbor would have been
of the greatest On the contrary, until
very recently the port has been one of
the most backward and Unconditional
that can be imagined.
The harbor itself Is beautiful land
locked bay with a short and narrow
entrance, difficult in bad weather, but
quite safe when once achieved.
Once entered, there is a main bay
fronting which is the old city, formerly
within the wall, and now substantially
containing all the commercial estab-
lishments of Havana. On the left Is a
bay known as the Marimelena, having
large area of water carrying from IL
to 20 feet of depth and making a good
anchoring ground for ships. On the
right Is a second bay, known as Guasa-
bacoa, in which there has accumulated
so much silt and mud as to be quite
useless for boats of even four foot
draft.
Up to within a few years the system
in vogue universally (and still at this
date partially employed) was for ships
to anchor in the open bay and to light
er their cargoes ashore. The merchan-
disc was unloaded from the lighters
upon public wharves, which parallel
the shore line in front Of the CONNER
cial city.
These Wharves were only partially
covered by corrugated iron roofs and
the loss from wetting in the heavy
down-pours Of tropical summer can be
we'll imagined. 1t seems incredible that
a system so medieval and wasteful
could have been perpetuated even to
this year 1912. But the lighters are still
at work and the public wharves still
crowded with valuable and often per-
ishable cargoes.
The lighter men were rich and pow
erful politically and commercially. The
enforced rehandling Of the cargoes was
the life Of their business. The portion
of the bay where piers or wharves
! could be built were very few and re-
stricted. There were numerous rocky
shoals, long stretches of very shallow
water along the shore, wide expanses
of soft swamp between shallow water
and dry land.
The task of individual improvement
was too staggering. The government
tremendous duties to perform in the
shortest time, then Cuban, with great
deal Of what mechanical men call lost
motion" 1t is true that for a decade
there has been a tax on all imports of
25 cents a ton for port Improvement
This yielded about s350,O0O year and
was frittered away on the various
ports of the island.
One year something would be par
TALLY done in one port and the next
year something partially done in anoth-
er depending on influence brought to
bear upon authority. This is not essen
TALLY Latin or Cuban. the same thing
occurs each year in the congress Of the
United States.
A few Of the smaller shoals in Ha-
vana were removed, but the great bay
of Guasabacoa were left full of wrecks
and mud, absolutely useless. The bay
of Marimelena was as Columbus found
it and the only deep anchorage was in
the main bay directly fronting the city.
Years ago there had been slight eff
fort to benefit the situation by the con-
struction of some piers and warehouses
known as San jose" The piers, how
ever, were very inadequate without
deep water approaches and only a
small portion of even the Spanish ships
were able to use them.
The first break came by the con-
struction by the Havana Central rail-
road, an English corporation, of pier
at Paula. This was wooden structure
upon wooden piles, but of adequate
length and width. Very shortly after it
went into use it was destroyed by fire.