The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-09-25

would have to detain an American frigate
which might casually touch for coal and water
at Cadiz or Ferrol
The question then recurs shall our Gov
ernment turn deaf ear to all the appeals of
the revolted Cubans that we would observe
strict neutrality between them and their OPP
pressors; shall we allow these vessels, built
and manned in our harbor, to be used to
crush people whose only crime, like that OF
our own revolutionary forefathers, consists in
refusing to be taxed without representation
This is question which must be decided by
the Cabinet at Washington within the next
thirty days. To strip it of some of its dlfi1-
culties, the President availed himself OF an
invitation to proffer his mediation between
the Spanish Government and her colonlsts'
The Madrid Government, however, was too
weak to contend with the public sentiment
aroused by its adversaries against the very
PROPOSALS which, if made, it had promised to
entertain, and now, it would appear by the
latest advices our mediatory offices have been
deliberately withdrawn and we are left to de-
termine what part, as Government, we are
to take in a struggle which threatens to take
serious proportions.
To concede belligerent rights to Cuba in
the present temper of the Spanish mind
would be equivalent to acknowledging her
independence, and that would mean war.
Neither France nor England would be unwill-
ing to see our reviving commerce cut down to
the root again by privateers. Spain has very
little to lose, and much to gain, by war with
us. We should be the principal if not the
only certain losers.
The contingency of a war, therefore, must
now be deliberately looked in the face. Is
the Cuban cause our cause? Will our national
honor or any cherished policy be compro-
missed by the suppression of this rebellion?
Are we in any way responsible for the inhu-
manity of which Cuba is now the theatre, or
are we under any neighborly obligation to
employ force to stop ito stop brawl by
making a war-to extinguish a fire by de-
luge? Are we called upon to add several
hundred millions to our debt-to pile up the
burdens of taxation, already grievous to be
borne, upon thirty millions of Americans, and
tread the Drinks of national bankruptcy for
the next twenty years, in order to ameliorate
the condition of three or four hundred thou
sand subjects of foreign State? And on the
other hand, are we to stand by, consentine
like st. Paul to the stoning of Stephen, and
see a people murderously crushed in it's noble
efforts to follow an example which the noblest
of our ancestors set them scarcely hundred
years ago?
We have hoped that Spain would spare oul
Government and people the necessity of an
swering these questions. 1t would be wiser
for her never to force them to decision.
few weeks remain within which we are al
liberty to hope, even though we don expect
Spain to relieve us from the painful alterna
tive to which we are reduced. 1t is as well
therefore, for Americans to wait for any solu
tion of these questions which time may pos
sibly have in store, and not complicate the
situation by prematurely proclaiming polio,
for which, under the providence of God, M
necessity may arise.