The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-11-17
Inpossibility OF Effecting Refo ms
In Cuba.
BLANCO'S SUICIDAL POLICY
CANNOT CRUSH REBELLION AND
PROTECT PLANTERS.
Such a Course Is In the Interest of
the Insurrectionists At Least
$4,000 Men Required For the
Plantations-More Than Half the
Rural Population Gone.

New York, Nov 16.-A cable to the
World from Havana says:
General Blaneo has entered upon an
almost hopeless task. The present Gu
ban situation is such that it seems i'm
possible to effect the reforms and do
what the greatest army in the his
tory of the colonial wars has failed to
accomplish.
SPANS present policy is announced
to be one of combined Cancellation and
force. 1t appears to be, as some Span
ish journals have called it,
"a SUICIDAL Policy"
The peculiar and. not generally IN
derstood conditions of the Cuban strug-
gle now make any conciIiatory move
a direct play into the hands Of the in
surgents. This is particularly true of
the proclamation of Nov TO- which
commands civil and military authori
ties to aid in protecting the sugar
properties in grinding cane. To ade-
quatey protect the sugar estates likely
to operate General Blanco will have
to practically close the operations
against the insurgents. He has not
enough men to Go both things. Most
of the plantations Were worked last
year for short periods. All paid their
own guards and most of them paid the
Cubans as well. These planters who
did not pay tribute were forced to
double or treble their guards.
SUGAR PLANTATIONS.
Only about 20 per cent of the sugar
plantations of Cuba that operated fwo
years ago have machinery modern
enough or cane in good enough Oo4lol-
ticn TO warrant grinding at the pres
ent price of sugar. General Blanco
will have to furnish, estimated moder-
ately, at least $4,000 men, or 275 guards
to each of A plantations.
These soldiers must come from forces
now operating against the insurgents.
1t is not likely that General Blanco has
forgotten the lesson of the invasion and
will take the regular troops from guard
duty in the towns to allow volunteer
garrisons opportunity Of surrendering
to the enemy. The large number of
Cubans forced by hunger into volun-
teer uniforms makes such surrender
ing more probable now than before.
MURDERED BY WEYLER.
More than half of the rural popula-
tion has disappeared, having been muir
dered by Weyler and his supporters.
The same men are much more directly
accountable for the inhuInan manner in
have been underfed and uncared for.
AS nearly as can be conservatively
computed from official figures little
more than half are left alive, and what
of the 100000 peasant lads Spain sent to
Cuba? The figures are: Died in hos
pitfalls. $4,000; killed and died on the
field, 1900: sent back to Spain as lin
utile,' $4,000; now in hospitals, $4,000;
total, 81 Goo OF this enormous num-
&c he hi 11ot
$4,000 men met death or, disability from
Cuban bullets, even during the real
fighting of the invasion and the six
months thereafter.
BLANCO'S DIFFICULTIES.
General Maceo estimated that more
than 1000 Spanish soldiers had fallen
in battle. That was in August, 1896.
Since then very little fighting has been
done. If General Blanco follows up his
proclamation and guards sugar making
this year he will not have more than
q 1000 men available for service against
the insurgents. Of the 80 900 troops at
his command, % 600 are guarding towns.
About the same number are looking af-
ter railroads and the trochas These
cannot very well be drawn upon, for
the we'll organized rebels of eastern
Cuba can swooD down in a second in
vasion and the railroads will again be
| torn up
DISEASE AND DEATH.
The best informed Cubans admit that
disease and starvation have reduced the
rebel army of able bodied men from
100000 to 10000. The real figure prob
ably is nearer 10000. Still there are
more than General Blanco will have to
send against them and they are vastly
better armed and have so times more
experience than when they baffled the
successive efforts of Weyler to crush
thin, with twice that number of men
taking the province after another. 1t
is not likely that, with the odds in their
favor they will continue to run away.
Insdrgent bands may combine and the
experiment of weakening his force to
aid his conciliatory movements may be
disastrous to General Blancos an
nounced policy of combined sauvity and
sternness. But even if the insurgents
should continue their tactics of run
ming away, Spains chances of raising
the yellow and red over Cuba will grow
less with each soldier taken from her
q CT be1- eyeroV