Not all of this quite remarkable gain may properly be credited to the influence of the reciprocity treaty.  The purchases of the island are determined, broadly, by its sales.  As the latter increase, so do the former.  Almost invariably, a year of large export sales is followed by a year of heavy import purchases.  The fact that our imports from Cuba are double our sales to Cuba, in the total of a period of years, has given rise to some foolish criticism of the Cubans on the ground that, we buying so heavily from them, they should purchase from us a much larger percentage of their import requirements.  No such obligation is held to exist in regard to our trade with other lands, and it should have no place in any consideration of our trade with Cuba.  There are many markets, like Brazil, British India, Japan, China, Mexico, and Egypt, in which our purchases exceed our sales.  There are more, like the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Central America, and numerous others, in which our sales considerably or greatly exceed our purchases.  We do not buy from them simply because they buy from us.  We buy what we need or want in that market in which we can buy to the greatest advantage.  The Cuban merchants, who are nearly all Spaniards, do the same.  The notion held by some that, because of our service to Cuba in the time of her struggle for national life, the Cubans should buy from us is both foolish and altogether unworthy.  Any notion of Cuba’s obligation to pay us for what we may have done for her should be promptly dismissed and forgotten.  There are commodities, such as lumber, pork products, coal, wheat flour, and mineral oil produces, that Cuba can buy in our markets on terms better than those obtainable elsewhere.  Other commodities, such as textiles, leather goods, sugar mill equipment, railway equipment, drugs, chemicals, and much else, must be sold by American dealers in sharp competition with the merchants of other countries, with such assistance as may be afforded by the reciprocity treaty.  That instrument gives us a custom-house advantage of 20, 25, 30, and 40 per cent, in the tariff rates.  It is enough in some cases to give us a fair equality with European sellers, and in a few cases to give us a narrow margin of advantage over them.  It does not give us enough to compel Cuban buyers to trade with us because of lower delivered prices.

Cuba’s economic future can be safely predicted on the basis of its past.  The pace of its development will depend mainly upon a further influx of capital and an increase in its working population.  Its political future is less certain.  There is ample ground for both hope and belief that the little clouds that hang on the political horizon will be dissipated, that there will come, year by year, a sane adjustment to the new institutions.  But full assurance of peace and order will come only when the people of the island, whether planters or peasants, see clearly the difference between a government conducted in their interest and a government conducted by Cubans along Spanish lines.