to be regarded as a commercial scale, was an experience of later years. The
reason for this will be found in the mistaken colonial policy of Spain, a
policy the application of which, in a far milder manner, cost England its
richest colony in the Western Hemisphere, and which, in the first quarter
of the 19th Century, cost Spain all of its possessions in this half of the
world, with the exception of Cuba and Porto Rico.




II

_NEW CUBA_


While there is no point in Cuba's history that may be said to mark a
definite division between the Old Cuba and the New Cuba, the beginning of
the 19th Century may be taken for that purpose. Cuba's development dragged
for two hundred and fifty years. The population increased slowly and
industry lagged. For this, Spain's colonial policy was responsible. But it
was the policy of the time, carried out more or less effectively by all
nations having colonies. England wrote it particularly into her Navigation
Acts of 1651, 1660, and 1663, and supported it by later Acts. While not
rigorously enforced, and frequently evaded by the American colonists, the
system at last proved so offensive that the colonists revolted in 1775.
Most of Spain's colonies in the Western Hemisphere, for the same reason,
declared and maintained their independence in the first quarter of the
19th Century. At the bottom of Cuba's several little uprisings, and at the
bottom of its final revolt in 1895, lay the same cause of offence. In those
earlier years, it was held that colonies existed solely for the benefit