Assuming that the present tariff is maintained. it will mean a clean gift annually to Cuba of $30.000.000. Of course. the result of that annexation will be that immediately the labor values of Cuba will increase. It will mean. with our immigration laws and with our contractlabor laws extended to that island as a part of the Republic. restriction of the labor there and an increase of the production equal to the point of the limited labor supply and would increase the value of every unit of labor. just as it has in the Hawaiian Islands. and thus gradually the labor cost of production in the beetsugar farms and the canesugar plantations of Louisiana. Hawaii. and Cuba would be equalized. In the Hawaiian Islands. unfortunately. when we took them we had the very worst form of sugar production. The production of sugar was upon great plantations. where the laborers occupied the relation of serfs attached to the soil. We could not change that condition in a day. We could not restore the Chinese and Japanese who were there to their own lands. but the very result of the extension of our immigration laws and contractlabor laws was to so increase the price of labor and the independence of labor that the planters have been clamoring for a relaxation of these laws. The veryclamor of the planters indicates that the condition of the laboring classes has been improving. If we had been tie to our duty and provided a gradual system of dividing up these great plantations into small farms. there is no reason why the production of sugar could not be made an industry that will sustain as good a class of producers as any other farming industry.
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immigration