Industry, Guided By A Greater Mass Of Knowledge, Has Been Better Directed.

The system of taxation that weighed on national industry and exterior commerce has been made lighter since 1791, and been improved by successive changes.

Whenever the mother-country, mistaking her own interests, has attempted to make a retrograde step, courageous voices have arisen not only among the Havaneros, but often among the Spanish rulers, in defence of the freedom of American commerce. A new channel has recently been opened for capital by the enlightened zeal and patriotic views of the intendant Don Claudio Martinez de Pinillos, and the commerce of entrepot has been granted to the Havannah on the most advantageous conditions.

The difficult and expensive interior communications of the island render its own productions dearer at the ports, notwithstanding the short distance between the northern and southern coasts. A project of canalization which unites the double advantage of connecting the Havannah and Batabano by a navigable line, and diminishing the high price of the transport of native produce, merits here a special mention. The idea of the Canal of Guines had been conceived for more than half a century with the view of furnishing timber at a more moderate price for ship-building in the arsenal of the Havannah. In 1796 the Count de Jaruco y Mopox, an enterprising man, who had acquired great influence by his connection with the Prince of the Peace, undertook to revive this project. The survey was made in 1798 by two very able engineers, Don Francisco and Don Felix Lemaur.

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