The Provisional Government and Cuban Stability 203tion. Magoon, advised by a fourteen-man commission from the
Liga Agraria, an organization of sugar planters, put great
stress on the problems of agricultural credit in his reports.
Despite the urgings of the sugar planters no action was under
taken to establish a government-backed agricultural bank as
then existed in the Philippines, Mexico, and France.
41
Beyond
the $5 million loaned in 1907 on a one year basis, the Provi
sional Government did nothing to ease the sugar planters'
credit problems. Magoon changed the tariff slightly to benefit
the Cuban cattle business, but rejected a proposed home
stead act as too radical for his government to sponsor.
In its relations with Cuban labor, the Provisional Govern
ment was far more solicitous than its predecessors, though
more from a fear of labor violence than a commitment to
the working man. During the occupation, a rash of strikes
swept Cuba involving the unions of the cigar-workers, masons
and plasterers, railway workers and trainmen, box-makers,
plumbers, broom-makers, and carpenters.^42 Generally the strik
ers wanted a 10 per cent pay increase and an eight-hour
working day. The Cuban labor movement was handicapped
by the competition between the native Cubans and the Spanish
immigrants, some of whom were anarchists. The strike was
a favorite device of the Spaniards to clean the Cubans out of
an industry; they would arouse the Cuban laborers, then take
the jobs themselves after the walkout.^43 The Provisional Gov
ernment blamed Spanish agitators for the few instances of
violence which marred the strikes, and would not intercede
for the employers. It did, however, allow railway strikebreak
ers to land and others to take strike-vacated jobs.
44
The
Havana businessmen, particularly the Spanish and English,
were highly critical of Magoon's "pro-labor" government. Some
formed a "Federation of the Producing Classes of the Island
of Cuba" to defend themselves from the strikers since the
government was so pliant.^45 For settling the cigar-makers'
strike in 1907, Magoon received congratulations from Taft
and General Edwards, chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs,
but in Cuba the governor was not so well treated: "I feel it
is my duty to report the existence of resentment toward me