The New York herald., 1879-10-08
Cuban Affairs.

at Havana ''to put down the insurrection:
1t is a very tiresome business, this of the
perpetual Cuban insurrection. Is there no
Spanish statesman able enough to deal with
Cuba in such manner as to make her native
people contented? Is it indispensable that
we shall have this continuous clatter at our
doors? The plan of holding Cuba down by
force of arms certainly does not pay. we
all understand that the island is precious
to Spain, because by dint oihard squeezing
by heavy taxation levied i'll the most cum
brous ways, it is made to yield large
revenue to the Spanish Treasury. But we
doubt whether Spain has not spent more on
troops and arms during the last dozen
wears in Cuba than her share OF the Cuban
plumber came to.
Why not try different way for while
Why not allow the Cubans fair and equal
representation in the Spanish Cortes,
proper share of the responsible and honor
able offices at home, and the privilege OF an
unobstructed commerce with their most
| important customer, the United States
This country takes far the greater part OF
the Cuban sugar and tobacco crops, and it
is in this country that the Cubans can most
advantageously buy what they need to i'm
port. Yet, under the absurd and antiquated
Spanish customs regulations, our commerce
with China is freer than that with an island
which lies at our doors and the Cubans
have reason to wish themselves Chinese
subjects rather than Spanish.
A. ,,%c
to annex Cuba ; that was dream of the
shareholders before the war. But the
Spanish government ought to have some
pity on our nerves. 1t ought to gov
ern Cuba wisely and with liberal policy
not only because that would enable the
island to yield, without suffering much
larger revenue to the Grown, but also be-
cause it ought to know that this perpetual
hullaballoo at our doors is tiresome to us.
Who knows? Some day it may spoil our
temper, and then nobody can tell what
might happen. Spain has tried now for
many years in Cuba political sys-
tenn, combined in tolerably equal parts
of main strength and stupidness.
We recommend Secretary Evarts to sug-
gest to the Spanish government in the
most respectful manner possible that this
plan will not work and that it is time to
| try another. He might point out to the
| Spanish Minister incidentally that we tried
this same system on our Southern States for
some years after the war, and, with much
greater resources than Spain can command,
were at last obliged to give it up.
1t makes no difference that the Cuban in
surgents gain little headway. The man
across the way may not kill his wife; but
if he is always quarrelling with her, beat
ing her, causing her to disturb us with her
outcries, he is none the less an unbearable
nuisance; and when we complain and
ask him to be quiet it is nonsense for
him to reply that his wife is a
little woman who can never succeed in
fiogging him. What we want, and have O
right to have. is peace, quiet, the ability to
90 out on the street without the chance ot
being hit by some spent missile from one OF
the other of the chronic belligerents. A
government may, of course, do what it
pleases with its own, but only on the gen.
oral understanding that it shall not make
/ itself chronic nuisance to its neighbors.
Spain rules or attempts to rule Cuba on
the plan on which colonies were ruled a
century ago. She forgets that this plan has
been given up by all civilized nations; that
the wisest Englishmen even believe that
| colonies are in any case more hindrance
than help to the home governments.
and that no European statesman, except
the Spanish, nowadays fails to see that the
greatest liberty granted to d colony brings
the greatest advantage to the mother coun-
! try The old colonial policy regarded q
colony as q sort of outlying farm, from
which the utmost crops should be got,
without any return of fertilizers. A colo
mist was being SO inferior to the native Of
the mother country that he was entirely
precluded from making public career at
home, and was not even allowed to take
any prominent or important share in the
government Of the colony. Whatever the
colonist ate or wore or in any way used
must be taxed for the benefit of the home
government; he must trade only with or
through the home ports. and ii he
grumbled he was traitor.
But this describes exactly the condition
of the native Cuban and his relations
toward his tepmother-Spain. 1t is a
wrong, an absurd and an impossible rela-
tion in this century 1t is not even profit
able to the mother country; it hindcrs the
peaceful development of the colony it
foments constant, never ceasing discomfort !;
IL causes deem resentn ant where there
should be confidence and affection, and it
makes colony like Cuba q nuisance to us
who have the misfortune not only to live
within hailing distance of it, but to be it's
largest customers.
1t will not do for Spain TO go on saying