The Sun.
London, England, 1850-06-17 00:00:00

CUBAN GRIEVA.S iCES•

Although we received by express la tt night We: in-
' telligence from the United States, we ea m only conjecture
the results of an expedition, whose. performance has
hitherto been so inadequate in its pri m rise as to leave in
the minds even of those most sangui na to its failure
an unpleasant doubt whether they h lose yet heard the
last of the affair. The fete of Mr. Cobden deters us
from indulging in political prophecy. We shall not un-
dertake to say whether the conduct. of General Lopez
has been that of a skilful leader or a c misumnsate coward.
Whatever may be our private auspic ie ins, we shall not
charge the Auserihan Cabinet with an .open participation
in au an act of piracy until their yin dication shall have
appeared, if, indeed, after the humilit Wing compliance of
Lord Palmerston in the case of the it. lierisoned negro at
Charleston, they should think it worth while to offer
auy to a Government whose policy h: Ls exemplified the
exact converse of the Roman red a- -who spare the
strong to trample on the weak. But; we believe that
at a crisis like the present, when. even Spanish ob-
stinacy has , been so far conqe at ed as to lead
the Court of Madrid to acknowl edge the justice
of the colonial complaints, by sending out Count Mirasol
on a mission analogous to that of Lou xl Durham in Ca-
Earle twelve years ago, it may not be uninteresting to
our readers to know something both o f the nature of the
Cuban grievances, and cf the general . state of opinion
among the planters and proprietors of the island. First,
as to the rate of taxation imposed by• the mother-coun-
try. On examining the Cuban tar ifir, we find 2,860
articles enumerated as imports. Of these just 25 are
allowed to enter free of duty. On 13 ;more the ad yak-
rem charges range from 2 per cent. to Thi- per cent. These
38, therefore, may be considered as sc imperatively un-
taxed. Of the remaining 2,822, more, than two-thirds,
or 1,908 articles, are rated at 27,i per- cent.; while the
remaining 824 pay 33* per cent., or o: as-third of their
actual market value. Among tiff- latter, or most
highlystrxed class, we find a large p re portion of those
articles most necessary for the a a ats or c =forts
of the colonists. Horses, flour, so tre salt provisions
(of which- enormous quantities a re, introduced as
food for aegrors working on es ti %tee), nearly all
articles of clothing, the machinery used for the
sugar-mills, carts, and other requi seres for agricul-
tural improvement, are all subjec :e d to this enor-
mons impost. Not to trouble Our r' tiers with details,
we may say, generally, that out cf a i ae pulation of about
1,200,000 inhabitants, of whom one- half, being held in
a state of bondage, cannot be consist wed as consumera
on their own account, 3,000,000 of d sllars are annually
screwed, in the shape of import dude s alone, while even
here, Ise every resident in Cuba soon .Iturns to his cost,
the total loss of the planter is very in i dequately repre-
sented by the total gain of the (-xebec, suer ; for, in the
first place, it is only as a special far ea it—or, in other
words, by means of a bribe—that the im ported goods are
allowed to be passed and brought i ate, the market at
once; the appraiser, moreover, is a Gov srnment officer, and
being very badly paid, or sometime is not paid at all,
takes care to snake good the deficien, sy by a few private
negotiations of iris own ; then the n allege duties have
to be added ; and lastly, there is a es x on all articles
sold by retal, of uncertain and vari able amount, but
which serves to enrich the local taxaga herers. every one
of whom is sent out, as Englishmen re ceived Esat India
appointments in the last century, to ao cumulate his for-
tune as soon as he can, and then make room for a
successor. But these form a small frs ction only of the
financial grievances of the colony. Who in any
country except Cuba ever' heard of a tax directly dis-
couraging cultivation, because levied on the amount and
value of the crops raised at home by the farmer? The
Creole planter cannot cut an acre ,sf cane on his own
land without previously paying 2 per cent. on the al-
leged value of the produce. If he raises Indian corn,
or any other grain crop, he pays 10 per cent. The
monopolies in the hands of the Captain-General furnish
an equally fertile source of plunder r. To take a single
instance, an arroba of moat, weighing 251bs. English,
costs the purchaser five dollars and a half. Upon this
the Government charge is three dol !ars, or more than
one-half of the whole value, We .have not time, nor
would our readers have patience, to
,go through a long
list of similar enormities, from which the only difficulty
is to select. A tax of 6 per cent. on the transfer of real
estate—a similar charge (independsont of the price of a
licence) on all goods sold in shops- -an impost on law
expenses, on deaths, on registry of bit ths, on free gifts of
whatever kind, no matter how small the amount, on the
wearing of a uniform, on the erection of e ny public build-
ing—these, and a hundred more, iieserve hardly to be
mentioned in themselves, because only feel:Ding part of
the regular system of the country. But there
are other impositions, which, though illegal, can hardly
be called unavowed, and being enforced by the ,supreme
authority, armed with absolute power, are just as regu-
larly submit'ed to as though they had originated with
the Government of Spain. To begin—all ottices are
bought from the Captain-General, who, as may well be
imagined from the preceding details, knows their value
too well to part with them cheaply. Again, a nominal
law against gambling-houses serves as a means of ex-
torting from particular individuals privileged to keep
them a round sum for their secret licence. The fact of
the Captain-General's receiving so much per head on
every slave imported, and of his consequent unwilling-
ness to discourage the slave-trade, is too notorious to re-
quire farther mention. We are afraid of being supposed
to allude to certain transactions, well known to the in-
habitants of the great commercial towns of England, in
reference to the Exposition of next year, if we add that
in Cuba one of the heaviest extortions complained of by
the residents comes in the shape of voluntary subsosip-
tions for the repair and maintenance of public buildings,
and for other such purposes, which the delicacy
of the authorities will not suffer them to
put down to the account of the island treasury,
And lastly, from every court of justice throughout the
colony there is an appeal, immediate and irreversible, to
the Captain-General in person; who, of course. only to
prevent his time being unduly taken up with trifles, con-
descends to receive, by way of acknowledgment of his
services as a judge, a suns which, to save trouble, he
fixes in each case himself. In conclusion, we will only
add that the total amount, avowed and unavowed, which
the Government and the officials between them contrive
to squeeze out of the pockets of the Creoles, is genes
rally estimated at not much less than 5,000,0002 ster-
ling per annum. From this brief and imperfect out-
line of the financial administration of Cube—aamhinag
all four of the qualities which Adam Smith has noted
as most likely to produce discontent in the mind of
the people—namely, great expense in collecting, in-
equality as regards different classes, fluctuation from
time to time, and encoursgement to the smuggler—
we shall turn to the police of the island and personal
liberty of the subject. Durine eighteen consecutive
months of the government ef General Miceli, 200 per-
Sons, many of high rank and respectability, were trans-
ported to penal settlements, and above 700 sentenced to
perpetual banishment. When ()Tonne' had held office
a little more than a year (in 1844) an attempt at revolt_
took place on the part of the negroes of four or five
estates. The actual mischief done was not much greater
than in the case of Smith O'Brien's memorable attempt
in Ireland, but it was quite enough for the authorities to
act upon. Martial law could net, indeed, be proclaimed,
for the best possible reason, that martial law is the habi-
tual government of Cube, and has been so ever since
1825; but a military tribunal was forthwith established,
before which, by the express orders of the Captain-Ge-
neral, suspected parties might be examined by torture or
otherwise. Into a detail of the proceedings of this lay
inquisition we have not space to enter; bat some idea
may be formed of the kind of justice administered
when it is stated that cf Cubans, unconvictrd, untried,
but put to the question by flogging and half-hanging.
ninety-six were returned as having died under the hands
of a single egent of police, seventy-two were butchered
by another, and seventy by a third. Many of these
victims wercs free coloured man, holding property to a
large amount, and in some instances their guilt was well
known to have consisted solely in their 'stealth. The
exact number of officials err played in this laudable work
we are unable to give, but believe it to have exceeded
twenty-five.. The reader will draw his own conclusion
as to the total amount of bloodshed, and we may add
teat it was never satisfactorily ascertained that any
general or widc-spresd conspiracy existed, the outbreaks
which gave rise to the suspicions of the governor having
been purely local, and a very general belief existing
throughout the island that their simultaneous occurrence