CUBA TO DEFAULT

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21050, 29 December 1933, Page 9

CUBA TO DEFAULT

❖ ! INTERNAL SITUATION ! sEiuors iSI CAR WORKERS IN 11.-tNCEN <>!' STARVATION | (Received December 28, 5.5 p.m.) HAVANA, December 27. I Tiie long-anticipated default "I j Cuba's enormous external debt apjpeared imminent to-day as the Secretary to the Treasury announced S unofficially that 3,000,000 dollars • owing to American bondholders I would not be paid on Monday. The j money will be used for back pay I owing to Government workers. ; He contended that contracts made by the former President, General i Machado, werr: illegal, and intimated i that the provisional President. Senor I Gran San Martin, would .-'oon pro- ! claim an official moratorium. Interj est and service charges due include 140 000,000 dollars on public works ■ bonds, and 20.000,000 dollars on 'short-term notes. both floa.ee. | through the Chase National Bank, I New York. | Meanwhile internal economic conditions arc becoming increasingly worse. . . . ' Continued labour agitation and j the Government's confiscation of many sugar mills have brought the 'island's chief industry to a virtual i standstill. One hundred thousand j sugar workers are said to be in | danger of starvation unless the mjdustry is revived. ' The anti-American spirit has been I intensified with the boycott of I American goods declared in several j cities in retaliation against Washing- | ton's no-recognition policy.