No effort is made to improve the Venezuelan product, a part of which is exported to Cuba for cigar making.
He is the first Venezuelan president to be actively tackling poverty.
Two lines of steamboats afford regular communication between San Juan and New York; one of them runs to Venezuelan ports and one to New Orleans; and there are lines to Cuba and direct to Spain.
By three several protocols signed Germ n at Washington in February 1903, it was agreed that Italy certain claims by Great Britain, Germany and Italy, on Versus behalf of their respective subjects against the Venezuelan government should be referred to three mixed commissions, and that for the purpose of securing the payment of these claims 30% of the customs revenues at the ports of La Guayra and Puerto Caballo should be remitted in monthly instalments to the representative of the Bank of England at Caracas.
The arbitrators by their award in February 1904 decided unanimously in favour of the blockading powers and ordered payment of their claims out of the 30% of the receipts at the two Venezuelan ports which had been set apart to meet them.