I want to stop here to repeat what I said yesterday. that when this matter was before the Committee on Relations with Cuba the Habana Club. composed of Americans. as I understand. telegraphed that nearly $80.009.000 of American capital was imperiled by our failure to pass that bill. It is impossible under existing conditions to obtain exact figures. but this sum may be accepted as a fail approximation of American investments in Cuba at the present time. A part of this sum is represented by the holdings of nonresident investors. a part by the property of nativeborn Cubans who have become American citizens by naturalization. though their property and their homes are in the island. and a part shows as the possessions. generally small in amount. of Americans who have gone to Cobs for permanent residence and business. * * * The railway and development scheme of the Cuba Company. In which English and Canadian capital is associated with American capital. will open to settlement and productive cultivation an area. hitherto little more than a vast wilderness. of 12.000.000 to 15.000.000 acres of the richest land in one of the richest spotsonthesurface of the globe. * * * I wish to say that the president of that company wrote a letter to the chairman of the Cuban Committee. in which he stated that they had bought 150.000 acres of that cheap land. He did not give the price. but I will venture to say that he did not pay above $3 an acre for any acre of itThe total of American investment in Cuban sugar production Is today probably not far from $40.000.0J0. about equally divided between Cubans who have taken out naturalization papers and those who are citizens of the United States by natural right. Of the amount held by the latter class. about twothirds is of a standing which antedates the insurrection of 1895. This is represented by such estates as the Constancia and the Soledad. both near Cienfuegos.
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naturalization