New-York tribune., 1921-12-25
Cuba Continues
Effort to Solue
Sugar Problems

Especial Foreign Financial Correspondence
HAVANA, Cuba, Dec. 24.-Like Jap
anese mice that run incessantly in cir
cles, the Cuban government and the
commercial world OF this small repub-
lie are rushing in blind endeavor seek
ing some pathway that will lead to a
solution of the tremendous problems
that confront them, and General
Crowder, for eight months special rep
rcsentative Of President Harding ac-
lively engaged in taking inventory, has
stood on the edge Of the circle like the
Statue Of Liberty pointing-where !?
If not skyward, at least to pathway
that if followed would bring the gov
ernment out of the chaos in which it
finds itself to-day more deeply mired
than ever before, but no cuban living
who loves his own people can or will
follow that pathway OF reorganization
and readjustment. because it is con-
sidered by President Zayas to-day as
entirely too radical and severe.
Manufacturers and exporters from
the north are seeking to return to the
point of origin thousands of cases of
merchandise that have lain on the
docks for months waiting payment and
acceptance by Cuban customers. Fif-
teen thousand cases of canned fruits
are being shipped back to California,
and Cuba still has enough canned
fruits to last the island two years.
Other Merchandise
The same may we'll be said Of other
classes OF acknowledgement and
hardware, machinery, etc, and only in
havana does one see even q semblancc
of business, and that on cash basis
buying from hand to mouth. In the
interior the people are buying only the
barest necessities and thousands of
laborers are working for their keep
two meals day Fifteen months ago
laborers commanded $S to $40 day to
clean the cane fields. These are the
laborers working for two meals day!
The Tribune correspondent has lust
returned from a trip throughout the
interior and finds that merchants in
different lines are averaging but 10
per cent of their purchases of 1920.
Two kinds of foreclosures are taking
place n the business world in Cuba
one where the creditor is really and
truly a creditor and has a legitimate
right to foreclose, and the other where
the merchant through connivance with
friend gets the latter to enter as
creditor and by foreclosing beat the
legitimate creditors out of their claims.
Sugar Remnant
The disposal of the remnant of the
sugar crop 100000 tcns-tbey call
this remnant!) seems to concern
everybody far more than the plight of
the government whose checks COM
mand discount of about 10 per cent
If you want them cashed without undue
delay. The question as 10 whether the
financial commission that controls the
sale of Cuban sugar should be dis
solved and the entire lot of sugar
thrown on the market and sold at the
best price it may bring, or whether
the commission by an agreement with
the American Sugar Refining Company
may have the entire balance of the crop
refined and sell the product to Euro
pean countries is the chief topic in
Havana
Meanwhile the projected law pro-
hibit'ng opening the new grinding sea-
son until February seems to have been
dropped because two mills have ALREADY
begun grinding cane and others will
follow this week.