The whole situation in Cuba is somewhat peculiar.  The business of the island, that is, the commercial business, the purchase and sale of merchandise wholesale and retail, is almost entirely in the hands of Spaniards.  The Cuban youths seldom become clerks in stores.  Most of the so-called “dependientes” come out as boys from Spain.  It is an old established system.  These lads, almost invariably hard workers, usually eat and sleep in the place of their employment.  The wage is small but board and lodging, such as the latter is, are furnished.  They are well fed, and the whole system is quite paternal.  For their recreation, education, and care in case of illness, there are organizations, half club and half mutual protective association, to which practically all belong.  The fee is small and the benefits many.  Some of these are based on a regional plan, that is, the Centro de Asturianos is composed of those who come from the Spanish province of Asturia, and those from other regions have their societies.  There is also a general society of “dependientes.”  Some of these groups are rich, with large membership including not only the clerks of today but those of the last thirty or forty years, men who by diligence and thrift have risen to the top in Cuba’s commercial life.  Most of Cuba’s business men continue their membership in these organizations, and many contribute liberally toward their maintenance.

This system more or less effectively bars Cuban youths from commercial life.  Nor does commercial life seem attractive to more than a very limited number.  This leaves to them, practically, only three lines of possible activity, the ownership and operation of a plantation, a profession, or manual labor.  The greater number there, as elsewhere, are laborers, either on some little bit of ground they call their own or rent from its owner, or they are employed by the proprietors of the larger estates.  Such proprietorship is, of course, open to only a few.  The problem, which is both social and political, appears in a class that cannot or will not engage in manual labor, the well-educated or fairly-educated sons of men of fair income and a social position.  Many of these take some professional course.  But there is not room for so many in so small a country, and the professions are greatly overcrowded.  The surplus either loafs and lives by its wits or at the expense of the family, or turns to the Government for a “job.”  It constitutes a considerable element on which the aspiring professional politician can draw for support.  Having such “jobs,” it constitutes a heavy burden on the tax-payers; deprived of its places on the Government pay-roll, it becomes a social and political menace.  If a Liberal administration throws them out of their comfortable posts, they become noisy and perhaps violent Conservatives; if discharged by an economical Conservative administration, they become no less noisy and no less potentially violent Liberals.  But we may not criticize.  The American control that followed the insurrection of 1906 set no example in administrative economy for the Cubans to follow.