The Latin races like their food and their politics highly seasoned. Just at present Secretary of State Hughes and President Coolidge are tasting the Cuban dish and finding it a bit too " hot." There are two matters in question. One is the recent lottery bill (TIME, Aug. 13); the other is the Tarafa railroad bill.
The Troubles. Several months ago Cuba floated a loan of $50,000,000 in the U. S. with the understanding that certain reforms would be carried out. The lottery was scheduled for a cleanup. But when the loan was consummated the lottery was not reformed or abolished. It was made worse. This lottery is a Government institution. Thirty per cent, of the sales are appropriated by the Government as revenue. Seventy per cent, are distributed in prizes. Drawings are held three times a month; about 35,000 tickets are sold for which the Government gets $19.40 a piece; the first prize is $100,000 and smaller prizes are so distributed that about one ticket in 20 wins. Agencies are supposed to resell these tickets for $21. Instead the tickets are resold for $25 or even $30. This is why the agencies are a source of graft. There were formerly about 1,000 agencies, each worth $200 or $300 a month. The number of agencies was recently increased by the Cuban Congress to 2,000. These posts are an excellent bit of patronage for the President and the party in power. It was the recent increase of the number of agencies and consequent graft which occasioned the summoning of the American Ambassador, General Crowder, to Washington. The other trouble is of even more recent origin. It was occasioned by the passage of the Tarafa railroad bill by the Cuban House of Representatives. This bill provides for a holding company to operate the consolidated railroads of Cuba, and for the closing of 47 " private " or sub-ports and the operation of only 25 public seaports. There are many sugar companies which own their own railroads, and export sugar from their own ports. About one-third of the Cuban sugar crop is handled in this way and about 85% of Cuban sugar companies are owned by Americans. The Tarafa Bill would require that private ports be used only when reached over the consolidated railways or by shipment over the sugar companies' roads with a graduated tax of from five to twenty cents per hundredweight on the sugar shipped—a tax that the sugar companies say is prohibitive. The sugar companies and certain copper interests in like position are protesting at Washington that the Tarafa Bill is conflscatory and are asking intervention. It happens that the Cuban public railroads are also owned in large part by Americans. The railroad companies would profit by the bill. So their representatives are also in Washington, protesting against the sugar companies' protest. Colonel Jose Miguel Tarafa, author of the bill, sailed for this country to present his side of the case, in support of the railroad companies. Colonel Tarafa is himself a large capitalist reported to have a considerable interest in both sugar and railroads, but his sugar interests are not such as to be injured by the bill. The State Department meanwhile considered the question of whether the bill can legally be regarded as confiscatory and asked President Zayas of Cuba to have the Cuban Senate delay action. At Senor Zayas' request the Senate tabled the bill until hearings could be held.