New-York tribune., 1868-10-07
4NNEXATION or CUBA.


North America, ultimately to unite its fortunes
with ours We hold that contiguity, common
interest in the navigation of the great chain of
lakes and rivers which traverse the heart of
our continent our common origin, language,
and representative institutions, foreshadow and
commend such o fusion. Canada stood aloof
from our fathers in their Revolutionary strug-
gle because her population was almost entirely
French in origin and Roman Catholic in faith
now that she has become preponderantly
Anglo Saxon and Protestant, she gravltates
resistessly toward us. 1t is mt war alike with
her essential interests and with ours that long
line of demarkation froR the Gulf of ST. Law
renee to Puget's Sound should bristle with an
tagonist armaments and be studded with
double row of custom-h houses. We shall soon
need her Timber, Grain, Cattle, and Wool
she has like need of our Cotton, Sugar, Agri-
cultural Machinery and Manufactures; and
these mutual wants will in time command and
secure a union like that between long jealous,
hostile belligerent, England and Scotland. So
confident of this are we that we profoundly
deprecate any and every attempt to hasten the
desired consummation. We would not have
the Canadas unite with us otherwise than by
the free choice Of their people.
Looking southwark, wo perceive radically
different condition. The Mexicans and the
mass of our people are as unlike as the IN
habitants Of two conterminous countries well
can be. We have very little common interest
in navigabe waters, or in anything else; and
our present boundary, with some slight rectih-
cation around the head OF the Gulf of Cali
fornia. so rs to give us port there, IS perhaps
"a advantageous as could wei be devised We
heartily trust that Mexico and the United
States may long remain friends and virtual
allies, but that the former may never be alb
sorbed into our Union.
With regard to Cuba, the case is somewhat
different. She lies near our coast, opposite the
month of our greatest river; our trade with
her is large and our intercourse steadily in
creasing Cuba is fertile, thrifty, and rich; she
would be regarded rs an acquisition by any
maritime nation. The time may come when
her people, with those of most other of the
West Indies, will seek and find conscnal shell
ter under the flag of our Union.
But important insular acquisitions imply that
we are 10 be henccforth great Naval power;
and naves, always costly, tend to become
steadily more and moro so. Steam and Iron
have doubled their cost within the last twenty
years; Nitro o-Glycerine and Electricity may
double it again within the next twenty. The
fleets whcreWith Nelson Won the great sca-iight
AT Trafalgar and silonced the batteries of Co
penhagen would be Iidded and sunk in an
hour by half dozen iron-clads, armed with
the big guns of our day. Our people, impatient
of heavy taxation, are not ready to MAINTAIN
such costly naval armamcnts "a would be re-
quired by the possession of great and rich
islands out of sight of our continent. If the
lesson taught Dr. Franklin by his whistle has
NOT been utterly lost on his c0untrymcn, they
will panse and think before they consent to an
extension of their empire beyond the Gulf
Stream.
And, if it were settled that Cuba was a prize
10 be coveted by us, we should still most ear
nestly protest against its acquisition under eX-
isting circumstances. Spain is in the throcs of
n long-needed benclcent revolution. Long
crushed beneath the sway of despotsm and SUI
perstition she has resolved to be henceforth
free at home, and liberal in her foreign policy.
The offer of thirty thousand soldiers, by her IN
famous ex-Queen, to garrison Rome and keep
Italy dismembered, is not likely to be repeated
by her new government, no matter what may be
its precise form, or who may be its titular head.
Spain, shaking off tho rule of B0urbons aud
bigots, becomes our natural and hearty ally Her
renovation is pledge of sympathy and security
to us in case of any possible combination OF
despots and reactiOnists to our prejudice. PTln-
chile and interest concur ia commencing her
present rule to our warmest and heartest
affection.
The proposal of The Mobile Register that we
should take advantage of her present confusion
of authority to acquire Cuba should be secuted
and execrated by our people. Its morality is
that of the thief who takes advantage of fire
in his neighbor's house to plunder that neigh
bors cash-box. Spain prizes Cuba IA her chief
level; and this is the sentiment, not OF her
Court and aristocracy merely, but OF her whole
people. Many Cubans desire independence;
some would supplement it by annexation; and
il may in time be a question whether their
wishes should not be paramount to those of
the mother country. But the world has yet to
see whether the just complaints of Cuba against
the natural incidents and fruits of despotic rule
will not be heard and needed by tho Liberal
ascendency Just established at Madrid; mean
time, any attempt by us to take advantage of
Spain's embarrassment tn aggrandize ourselves
mt her expense, would expose MS to the remon-
strances of other governments and to the loath-
ing and scorn of republicans and refomers
throughout the civilized world.
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