Word: tarafa
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...sweetens the world with its sugar. But Cuba's politics do not sweeten its foreign relations. Aside from the small matter of the Cuban lottery, which occasioned the temporary return of our Ambassador, General Crowder, to consult with the State Department (TIME, Aug. 13, Aug. 27) there is the Tarafa Railroad Bill...
...Tarafa Bill was passed in the Cuban House of Representatives and awaits action in the Cuban Senate. It would consolidate all Cuban railways aside from those that are the property of certain privately managed railroads which transport their sugar to private seaports, and would place a heavy tax on the use of these private roads. The sugar industry is in large part American-owned, and American interests protested to the State Department that the proposed tax would practically confiscate their railways and port facilities. At that stage of the proceedings Colonel José Miguel Tarafa, author of the bill, left Cuba...
Thus Colonel Tarafa arrived on the American scene, Tarafa the " empire-builder," "the Stinnes of Cuba." He made his case clear to Secretary Hughes. His bill, he said, was not to close the private ports, but to consolidate the railways of Cuba. As long as the sugar companies use their private railroads the "public" roads are at a disadvantage. He declared: " It is not difficult for any one to see that if the 180 sugar centrals in Cuba shall be allowed a private or sub-port . . . there can be no industry in Cuba except the American sugar industry." He proposes...
Against Colonel Tarafa's apparent disinterestedness it can be pointed out that he is President of the Cuba Northern Railroad, and expected to become President of the consolidated railroads. Until comparatively recently Matanzas was the greatest sugar port in the world, but it now has been succeeded by a port in Camaguey, unknown only a few years ago ? Puerta Tarafa, a private port, developed as an outlet for Tarafa's railway. Not long ago it was made a national or public port; consequently it will benefit by the new bill...
...Island's attenuated shape. It is cheaper for sugar companies to build a short road to the coast and put their sugar directly aboard ship than to patronize the " public" railways which run lengthwise of tile country, whose freight rates are expensive and whose service is inadequate. The Tarafa bill would improve the railways at the expense of the Cuban sugar industry. As Colonel Tarafa himself pointed out, Americans are about equally heavily interested in both industries. In Cuba it is sometimes said that the National City, Bank (New York) runs the sugar industry and the Rockefeller-Morgan interests...