The record-union., 1897-01-16
May Lead to Serious International
Complications
Americans Own Large Property Inter-
Own Large Property Inter-
eSts in the Former Two Provinces,
and as the Government Did Not
Collect Taxes Owing to the Raids of
Insurgents, They Are Unable to
Present Their Tax Receipts, and
Will be Forced, Under the Edict, to
Abandon Their Farms.

Abandon Their Farms.
KEY WEST Fla), Jan. 15.-Advices
from Havana state that the effect of
Weyler's famous Bayate edict of the
1st instant is being felt with more in
tensity in the provinces of Havana and
Matanzas than in that of Pinar del Rio
Since those provinces being more thick
ly populated, and having more farms
and estates than the former, the whole
sale abandonment of the properties and
the concentration of the people in the
towns will not only augment the misery
already prevailing, but also present the
serious inconvenience of lodging Of
many people in towns already full to
overflowing.
Without discussing Weyler's inhuman
measures in thus depriving peaceful and
unoffending citizens of their rightful
means of existence, and huddling them
in already crowded spaces, exposed to
all the rigorS of hunger and disease,
simply for the sake of clearing the cOun-
try of so-called rebel sympathzers, a
legal point has. been sprung by the
Americans, who own large properties in
the provinces of Havana and Matanzas,
which viii surely lead to complications
and claims on the Spanish Government.
Weyler distinctly states in his decree
that those who wish to remain on their
properties must exhibit the last tax bill
paid. AS taxes are only levied on pro-
ductive industries, and these planters
have not been able to work on account of
the abnormal conditions in the pro-
vinces since GomeZ's invasion in 1895,
no taxes have been gathered since that
time, the Government tactitly admit
ting such unusual circumstances or
being powerlesS to collect them while
the rebels were in possession of the
country, ufu not press their collections,
consequently no taxes have been paid
in the country since the date mentioned.
Besides that, Weyler has unofficially
ordered that no sugar crop should be
made, and now he wants the sugar plan
ters to pay taxes on an industry which
they have not been able to p<oduce. The
result has been that the manager of the
sugar estate San Antonio, near Mad
ruga, Havana, owned by Antonio Terry,
an American citizen, residing in Paris.
presented himself to Consul Lee de-
manding protection, because the mill
tary commander of Madruga ordered
him to abandon the place, which is one
of the most valuable estates in the pro-
vince worth half a million dollars, be-
cause he did not present the required
tax bill. Consul Lee at once took the
case in hand, and simultaneously pre-
sented the case to the Captain General
and the State Department at Washing
ton. No replies have been received
either from Weyler or Secretary Olney.
To depict the situation in Pinar del
Rio nothing can be better said than to
translate the report of a trip made to the
city of that name by a correspondent OF
La Lucha":
''All the way traversed by the rail-
road from Artemisa to Consolation del
Suros. without exaggeration the most
chastised, has undoubtedly suffered
most from the rigors of war. The fields
wasted and abandoned; the bushes and
trees destroyed, and the yellow and de-
cayed leaves streWn by the wind as
tears drawn from mother earth, panied
and anguished at the folly of men; the
huts destroyed; the stone houses, in
ether 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 as a refuge for the lizards and
owls the canefelds dried up, and COW
cred with bushes, by the ravages of fire;
the townsville authorities of which are
making great efforts to remedy the ne
cessities of the residents-full of people
of poor families, who daily troop down
from the hills, attenuated by hunger and
emaciated by the fevers in such way
that they resemble skeletons risen out
of their tombs to appear before the maj
judgment. To the right and left of the
road, as much as the train winds It's
rapid march, the traveller observes with
painful anguish the desolation and ruin
within the inextinguishab poetry of
these exuberent fields, always green
with the eternal vardure of spring, as If
God with his eloquence would point us
that the only thing we men can do is to
destroy the beauties which surged from
his bounteous WILL
REFORMS FOR CUBA.
LONDON, Jan. 15.--The Madrid cor
respondent of the STANDARD" confirms
the statement that the Spanish Govern
ment has decided to Immediately effect
reforms in Cuba. 1t is added that the
Government is taking such a serious
step on the eve of Mr.. McKinley's ad-
vent into Office hoping to clearly indi-
cate that it acted spontaneously in going
even beyond the power voted by the
Cortes, which latter must grant a bill of
indemnity. The reforms show to what
extent the Government is prepared to go
in gradually preparing the colonies for
autonomy without yielding the rights
Of Spain and Parliament. 1t will also
be seen that Spain is disposed to make
sacrifices in connection with the Cuban
budget. The reforms will not be real
lied without seriously clashing with
Spain's material interests. Spaniards
look with impatience and anxiety to the
effect the reforms will have in America.
Hundreds Were Killed.
LONDON. Jan. 15.-Dispatches re-
ceiyed nj the Foreign Office fhiS morn