Executive powers are con ferred upon the President, who is assisted by a cabinet of nine officers, the Secretaries of State, of Justice, of Government, of the Treasury, of Public Works, of Agriculture, Commerce and Labor, of Public Instruction and the Fine Arts, and of Health and Charities and of the Execu tive Department The Cuban Assembly, on 11 July 1917, approved a measure passed by the Senate creating the Cabinet office of War and Marine. Both President and Vice-President are elected indirectly, by an electoral college, for the term of four years; and they cannot serve more than two consecutive terms. The legislature or National Congress is composed al the- Senate (24 members) and the ..House: of Representatives (83 members). are elected indirectly for eight-year terms, four senators for each province, and the Senate is renewed by halves every four years. Represen tatives are elected by popular vote for four-year terms, at the rate of one representative for every 25,000 inhabitants. Every male citizen 21 years of age or over has the right of suffrage: The House is renewed by halves every two years. Congress meets twice each year, on the first Monday of April and and the regular sessions last 40 days or more. The judiciary consists of a National Supreme Court, six superior courts, courts of first instance and minor courts. Justices of the Supreme Court are appointed by the President with advice and consent of the Senate.
Education.— The census returns of 1907 show that there were then in Cuba 31 per cent of illiterates. This good showing was the result of the establishment of the present ele mentary and secondary school systems, by which each municipality was required to have a school board and every town to have schools, at which the attendance of all pupils within school age should be obligatory. On 30 June 1915 there were 2,686 school buildings, 4,931 teachers and 289,692 pupils in Cuba with an average attendance of 183,947. There are six secondary schools or *institutes* maintained by the government, one in each province. Annexed to each of these is, with the one exception of the province of Havana, a special school of land surveying. Attached to the Institute of Havana are schools of commerce, navigation, stenog raphy and typewriting and other special branches of learning. In these various institutes there were over 2,000 students in the fiscal year 1915-16. The University of Havana has three faculties: liberal arts and sciences, medicine and pharmacy and law. In the fiscal year 1915-16 there were in attendance at the University 1,432 students. Very liberal provisions have been made by the government for the mainte nance of the elementary and secondary schools of the nation. The Department of Public In struction and Fine Arts is divided into two sections, one having charge of the elementary schools and primary education and the other directing the normal and high schools, the National University, the School of Arts and Crafts, the School of Painting and Sculpture, the National Conservatory of Music and Dec lamation, the National Astronomical Observa tory and the national and other public libraries. The establishment of normal schools in the provinces was authorized by law in 1915.
Army and Navy.— The regular army and rural guard together have 444 officers and 11,000 men. The navy, according to the Official Bulle-: tin of the Treasury Department (Havana, Jan uary 1916) has 18 vessels— the Cuba (2,055 tons), Patria (1,200), Hatuey (538), Baire Yara (339), 10 de Octobre (208), 24 de ebrero (208), 20 de Mayo (141), Enrique Villuendas (132) and nine other boats of less than 100 tons.
The staple products of Cuba include tobacco, sugar, coffee, cocoa, potatoes, tropical fruits and cereals. As early as the 16th century the sugar industry was established under the special protection of Spanish sovereigns, but at the beginning of the 20th century, after more than 300 years had passed, only about 7 per cent of the area of the island was devoted to the sugar crop. In other words, about 2,000,000 acres out of the total 28,000,000 acres. During the 17th and 18th centuries the annual output was about 28,000 tons. This increased to 75,000 tons in the first quarter of the 19th century, to 200,000 tons in 1840, and to nearly 300,000 tons in 1850. The increase is significant, for it was directly occasioned by the withdrawal of an annual allowance of $1,000,000 that Spain made to the Cuban administration out of the revenues from Mexico. The loss of Mexico to the Spanish Crown dosing that source of income, Cuba was thrown upon her own resources, with the result that she turned her attention more earnestly to the development of this profitable form of agriculture. The period 1853-68, in which the amounts produced increased from 322,000 to 749,000 tons, was in a restricted sense Cuba's Golden Age. Not until 1891 was a greater amount obtained. The million mark was passed in latt and 1895.
The insurrection beginning in 1895 reduced the crop of the following year to 225,221 tons, and the continuance of hostilities in 1897 and 1898 forced the output of those years down to 212,051 and 300,000 tons, respectively. With the restoration of peace in 1898, a new era of development began; and though four years passed before the injuries to mills and fields could be fully repaired, the conditions at the beginning of 1903 justified the hope that the prosperity of the best years before 1896 would be regained. In the year 1840 the output of beet-sugar for the world was but 50,000 tons, principally grown in France. From that date the production of this competing industry in creased so rapidly that in 1894 it was 3,841,000 tons, and naturally this enormous addition to the world's supply caused a reduction in the price of cane-sugar which seemed ruinous, and indeed proved to be ruinous to the planters of many sugar-growing countries. But in Cuba the problem of producing sugar at a profit, despite the constant tendency toward lower prices, has always been met. It was solved in the great crisis. of 1884, and in more recent years whenever presented. In 1902-03 improve ments in agricultural methods, machinery and management effected a reduction of the cost of the standard grade on some of the larger estates to much less than two cents a pound. Such results could not have been achieved unless the soil and climate were in the highest degree favorable to the growth of sugarcane. Yet large districts in which the soil is equally good had never been touched by the plow. In the fiscal year 1912-13 the sugar crop of Cuba was 2,443,986 tons. This had been in creased in 1915-16 to 3,007,915 tons. The value of sugar products exported from Cuba to the United States in 1915 was $193,476,972; and in 1916, $266,743,554, exclusive of molasses and confectionery which, in 1916, were valued at $4,338,429. In this latter year the total Cuban sugar crop was valued at over $360,000,000. produced 696,067 gallons of rum in 1915 and 420,517 in the following year. An addi tional cane product was alcohol, of which the output was 649,722 gallons in 1914, and 2,021,116 gallons in 1915.