The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1897-01-16
WEYLER'S CRUEL
T.. DECREE IN FORCE
->
.
Valuable Properties in the
:. Provinces Must Be
Abandoned.
But at the Same Time the
: Owners Are Expected to
Pay Taxes.
An Augmentation of the Misery Caused
by Crowding the Cubans
Into Towns.

KEY WEST, FLA, Jan. 15.-Advices
-t-om Havana state that the effect of Wey-
.s-'s famous Bayate edict of the 1st inst. is
being felt with more intensity in the
provinces Of Havana and Matanzas than
in that of Pinar del Rio, since those
provinces, being more thickIy populated
and having more farms and estates than
the former, the wholesale abandonment Of
the properties and concentration OF the
people in the towns will not only augment
misery already prevailing, but also present
the serious inconvenience of lodging Sc
many people IN towns already full to
overhowing.
Without discussing Weyler's inhuman
measures in thus depriving peaceful and
unoffending citizens of their rightful
means of existence and haddliEg them IN
already crowded spaces, exposed TO all the
rigors of hunger and disease, simply for
the sake of clearing the country OF So
called rebel sympathizers legal point
has been sprung by the foreign property
owners, especially the Americans who
own large properties in the provinces OF
Havana and Matanzas which will surely
lead to complications and claims on the
Spanish Govern ment
Weyler distinctly states III the decree
that those who wish to remain on their
properties must exhibit the last tax bill
paid.
AS taxes are only levied on productive
industries, and these planters have not
been able TO work On account OF the alb
normal conditions in the provinces since
Gomez invasion in Dscem Der, 1895. no
Al. -. ~
The Government tacitly admitting such
unusual circumstances or being powerless
10 collect them while the rebels were in
possession Of the country, did not press
their collections, consequently no taxes
have been paid in the country since the
date mentioned.
Besid es that Weyler has unoficlaiiy
ordered that no sugar crop should be
made, and now he wants the sugar plant
ers 10 pay taxes on an industry which
they have not been able to produce.
One result IS that the manager Of the
sugar estate at San Antonio, near Mad
ruga, Havana, owned by Antonio Terry,
an American citizen residing in Paris,
presented himself 10 Consul Lee demand
ing protection because the military com.
mander Of Madruga ordered him to aban-
don the place, which is one of the most
valuable estates in the province, worth
half a million dollars, because he did not
present the required tax Dill. Consul Lee
at once took the case in hand, and stimuli
taneOusly presented the case to the Cap
tain-GeneraI and the State Department at
Washington. No replies has been received
either from Weyler or Secretary Olney.
10 depict he situation in Pinar del REQ
nothing can be better said than 20 trans
late the report Of a trip made TO the city
Of that name by correspondent OF La
Lucha:
AL the way traversed by the railroad
from Artemlsa to Conso' 'acion del Suris,
without exaggeration the most chastised,
has undoubtedly suffered most from the
rleors Of war. The fields wasted and
abandoned; the bushes and trees de-
stroyed and the yellow and decayed leaves
strewn by the wind as tears drawn from
the mother earth, panied and anguished
at the folly OF men; the huts destroy ed;
the stone houses, in other times happy
homes converted by the hands of rebels
and Spanish alike into heaps of ruins. the
black and fallen walls OF which, covered
with lichen, only serve a. refuge for the
lizards and owls; the canehelds, dried up
and covered with bushes by the ravages of
fire; the towns, the authorities OF which are
making great efforts to remedy the necessi-
ties OF the residents fuIl of people, OF poor
families who daily troop down from the
hills, attenuated by hunger and emaciated
oy the ievers in such a way that they re-
semble skeletons risen out of their tombs
to appear before the final judgment. To
the right and left of the road as fast as
the train winds its rapid march the trav-
eIer observes with painful anguish the
desolation and ruin within the inextin-
guishabIe poetry OF these exuberant fields,
always green with the eternal verdure OF
spring, as if God VITA his eloquence would
show US that the only thing we men can
do is to destroy the beauties which surged
from his bounteous will"