HER BRIGHT FUTURE.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 362, 16 April 1903, Page 8

HER BRIGHT FUTURE.

CuH Will Bfrcome the Riviera

el inerfca ia fine.

ftotet K*llw*r BtUte DmwD«i , fffcaeeat mi€ c«ma« c«»ilti*M - BOMtl VMIUtiH tea- Tnnt ■ lifter hawing reached the age when Meat men are glad to retire end en joy the wealth gained by 40 twits of exacting work, Sir William Van Home, tie creator of the Canadian Pacific railtoad, has undertaken to give Cuba a ttow railroad system, which he himself describes below. The present writer, says the World's Works, once spent many interesting hoars watching tat day's work of this born "builder atsJ manager of railroads, who was thsa president of the Canadian Pacific. He had then completed the line across the continent and was arranging for its complementary fleet of steamships to the orient. Sir William's marvelous taaatery of details showed itself to his wondering visitor in a hundred ways. The commissary department was gone Into with a thoroughness which would have done honor to a New England housekeeper; dining cars, the company's hotels end steamships were examined into and decided upon; the standard size of the sandwiches to be •erred at the eating houses on the line was laid down in inches; he scrutinized (he copy of a dozen odTertisementsand a hundred other items of equally small import, apparently. Yet one carried away the notion that during his interviews with men who submitted these multitudes of details for his decision be was in reality training them how to stake their own future; and in proof of this one obserres that after his withdrawal from the presidency to become chairman of the board these identical assistants were moved up the ladder, and to-day conduct the road in thavery Eirr.fr set forth in those interviews.

Bailroad people will watch with great interest hit new enterprise in Cuba.

'The construction of this road," said Sir William, who has lately returned "from Cuba, "is essential to the development of the eastern end of the island, and this fact has prompted us to face obstacles of a serious and unusual nature. Under the conditions which now prevail in Cuba, conditions mainly due to the terms of the Foraker resolution, all application for public concessions must be referred to the United States military authorities, and we ere, therefore, proceeding on the basis of a private raMroad deing business on its own ground, right of way having been cheerfully accorded without consideration by tb* owners of the property through which our line passes. We are well aware that when our road is completed we shall not be able to open it for traffic without the sanction of the authorities, but we cherish the belief that by that time some decision as to the government of Cuba will have been reached, or, if not, that congress will recognize that the Foraker resolution is an. incubus to industrial enterprise in the island and afford relief. That the road will yield a handsome profit is absolutely certain. Cuba is the richest country I have ever seen, and the time will surely come when it will be the Bfriera of the United States. Wealthy Americans will build villas there by the hundreds and enjoy the ideal winter residence. When the railroad from Santa Clara to Santiago is completed its projectors will turn their attention to the mining and plantation industries of the interior. Eastern Cuba is rich in mineral resources and the land acquisitions of the development company in that part of the island are already large." The subscribers to the preliminary installment were, it is said, willing to take double the amount for which they set down their names, which means nothing more than the confidence of capitalists in Sir William,