The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-26
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
EDITORIAL Opinions OF the Leading Journals
Upon Current TOpics-ComDlled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.

Wednesday, against the thirty new gunboats
building for the Spanish Government and
now nearly completed, is more regular pro-
ceeding than their seizure by the order Of
the President last August as it will bring the
rights of their owner before proper tribunal
for judicial decision. 1t is to be presumed
that those rights, whatever they may be, will
now be determined by lao, and no longer be
the sport of executive caprice. Spain either
has a right, under our laws, to procure these
boats to be constructed within our jurisdic
tion, or she has not. The strong personal
sympathies Of President Grant and the Cuban
insurgents ought not to have, and before an
upright judicial tribunal cannot have, the
slightest weight in the decision of this i'm
portant question.
Spain has Just reason to complain that the
judicial proceedings which have at last been
initiated were not taken in August, 1mme-
diately after the seizure of the boats. 1t may
be true that she will have suffered little prac-
tical inconvenience by the delay, if they are
now promptly released, as the work of con-
struction has gone on without interruption,
and the Spanish Government probably would
not have sent them to Cuba one by one, but
in O feet under the convoy of ships of war.
But if they are not released, the injury done
to Spain by the delay is great and inexcusable
When the Spanish Government entered into
the contract for building these gunboats
it, of course, supposed that there was mol legal
impediment; otherwise it would have procured
them to be built in England or some other
country 1t certainly would not have inten-
tionally done SO senseless a thing as to waste
money in causing them to be built within q
jurisdiction where it did not feel secure
against their being seized and forfeited for O
violation of the municipal law. If there was
reasonable doubt of her right, it was the
plain duty of our Government to bring the
question before competent tribunal for de-
cision and save friendly nation from vio-
lation of law and a misapplication of money.
The law was precisely the same in the begin
ming of August, when the gunboats were
seized, that it is at present; and the relations
of our Government to the Cuban insurgents
have undergone no change. All the reasons
for judicial proceeding which exist at present,
equally existed then. If Spain had not clear
right to complete the boats and take them be-
yond our jurisdiction, the question ought to
have been determined as soon as it arose in
form susceptible of adjudication in order that
friendly power might have had an opportu
nifty to desist from an unintentional violation
of our laws.
We suppose the truth to be- that the ad-
ministration knew it had no grounds of
seizure which court would sustain, and that
for this reason alone it did not venture upon
judicial proceeding. This is not only true
in fact, but it was virtually confessed by the
administration in the transparent subterfuge
to which it had recourse when it seized the
vessels under the pretense that they were to
be used in prosecuting hostilities against
Peru. There is not an intelligent man in the
United States who did not regard this pre-
tense as subterfuge, or who did not believe
that the reason for its adoption was the con-
scious want of lawful authority to seize the
vessels if they were to be employed on the
coast of Cuba The humping up of this false
fox /, eI,, ,1-o &c
ingenuity which carried on it's face a clear
confession of the right of Spain to procure
vessels to be built in our harbors to aid in
subduing a revolt of her own subjects,
whose belligerent status our Government had
not acknowledged. The right of Spain to
build the boats is clear and unquestionable
until our Government shall recognize the in
surgents; and it is an advantage to our ship
builders that this employment is given to
them, instead of to their English rivals. AS
vessels can be constructed in Great Britain at
smaller cost than in this country, it is pro-
bable that Spain preferred to build them here
because they are not fitted for long ocean
voyage, and could be more safely taken to
Cuba by running near our coast. This alone
would suffice to show Gf anybody had any
doubt on that point) that they were never in
tended to double the "Cape of Storms" and
be used against Peru. But it is idle to ex-
pose pretext by which nobody was ever
deceived All the world knows that General
Grant caused the Spanish gunboats to be
seized, last summer, in the interest of the
Cuban insurgents; and that the. pretense of
hostility to Peru was a cloak to cover an
Illegal proceeding, and virtual confession of
its illegality.
If we are to have war with Spain in behalf
of the Cuban insurgents, let us not degrade
ourselves by sneaking into it under transpa-
rent subterfuges. If our Government has de-
termined that Cuba shall be independent, OF
that it shall be annexed to this country let il
make manful avowal of its purposes and
proceed boldly to their execution. 1t does not
comport with the dignity Of great nation to
descend to tricks and chicanery, or to act
upon motives which it dares not avow. II
Spain has legal right to take these gunboats
TO Cuba the administration should oppose no
obstacle to their departure. If we are willing
to risk war with Spain in behalf of the in
surgents, these boats will be but as dust in
The balance. They cannot obstruct our con
quest of the island, if our Government decides
that it shall be wrested from Spain Bu
until the administration knows its own minC
on the subject, it had better pay decent re
spect to our own laws, and make no further
attempts to annul or circumvent them by
giving aid to the Cuban insurgents on self
exposed false pretenses.
We suppose no lawyer has any doubt that
under the law as it stands, these vessels will
be released as soon as the question is brough
before court; but the fact that the hearin,
is set down for the 18th of December, weel
after the meeting of Congress- may indicate
an intention to take the sense Of that body
and perhaps procure change in the lay