The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-11-18

formal admission into the Mugwump order.
No Compromise Possible Between
Spain and Cuba.
We have already directed attention to
the remarkable review of the Cuban ques.
tion contributed to the North american
Rerie,o by the Hon. HANNIs TAYLOR, lately
Minister Plenipotentiary of the United
States at Madrid. II we refer to 1t again,
it Is because public opinion in this country
ought to recognize the impossibility OF
effecting any compromise between Spain
and the Cuban revolutionists. Any attempt
of our State Department to persuade the
Cubans to accept at the hands of Spain
anything short Of absolute political indie
pendence Is foredoomed to miscarry, for
even stronger reasons than those which
rendered futile a similar effort on the part
of the Cleveland Administration. The
Cubans are determined to perish or to be
free, and all that they ask of us as friends
of liberty is that we shall recognize them as
belligerents, thereby assuring to them the
power of increasing their financial re.
sources, and of placing a fleet upon the
ocean. After nearly three years of warfare,
they have a moral right to ask of us what
we granted to Chilli and Venezuela long
before we acknowledged the independence
of those countries. The Cubans are fully
alive to the fact that Chill had no chance
of defending herself against the Spaniards,
much less of liberating Peru, until she
gained an opportunity of creating n navy.
That opportunity came to Chilli under the
law Of nations when the United States and
England recognized her as a belligerent.
1t is for just this privilege hat the Cuban
revolutionists now plead nothing less,
and for the moment nothing more.
Before proceeding to show that Spain can
never conciliate Cuba, Mr.. HANNIs TAY-
o demonstrates hat she is powerless to
conquer it. He quotes with approval GER
tain words in MI. CLEvELAND's message to
the second session of the Fifty.fourth Con-
gress, words to this effect, that SPANS SOW
ereignty over Cuba is now extinct "for all
purposes of It's rightful existence" and the
"hopeless struggle for its establishment
has degenerated into q strife which means
nothing more than the useless sacrifice of
human life and the utter destruction of
the very subject matter Of the conflict
ITSELF" Although the actual state Of
things in Cuba is not only shocking
to humanity, but also q grievous bur-
den to the people of the United States,
by reason of their intimate commercial
relations with an island SO near our coast,
we have hitherto put up with it with a
patience almost unexampled. The evils
inseparable from the existence of revolu-
tion in Cuba have been borne by us during
the period of the great war that began In
8 9 and ended ten years later, during the
continuance Of the subsequent little war,
and, finally, during the second great war
that has now been in progress for nearly
three years. We have thus been called
upon to witness nearly fifteen years of
war in Cuba out of the last twenty.nine.
TIL result of the latest contest Is that our
with the island, which, under
normal conditions, amounts to nearly one
hundred million dollars, has been almost
wiped out. In view of these facts, it is
impossible for any clear.headed man to be-
lieve in the ability of Spain to s~ubjugate
Cuba permanently, and it is equally impos
sible for him to dispute our deep interest
in the matter. 1t IL folly, as Mr.. TAYLOR
says, to suppose that the Cuban question is
something hat we can set aside If We
choose, and go about our business.
But why cannot Spain conciliate Cuba
Why cannot 1t do for the island what Eng
land did for Canada when, in the middle
OF this century, 1t conceded to Canadians
the right of self-government2 To men ia
miliar with history, the question answer!
itself. In spite of the terrible lesson In
flicted upon England through the loss o
her thirteen American colonies she did no
= concede to Canadians the rights for which
Americans had commended until more thai
half a century after the peace of 1888
She did not do it until after the frs
: Reform act had made the British Hous
t Of Commons itself truly Representative
Of the British people. Now Spain
: as Mr.. HANNIs TAYLOR says, canno
r give political liberty to Cuba, becaus
she does not enjoy 1t herself. The SC
t called system of representative govern
ment by which absolute monarchy is poi
s ularly supposed to have been superseded Il
Spain is nothing but an illusion; Spai
has, at this hour, no National Assembl
n which can be accepted as a free an
e genuine organ of the national will. TIL
5 men who compose the two Chambers of tn
g Cortes are not the free choice of the peopl
a themselves. What purport to be nationa
c elections are always controlled by the poll
ical party holding at the time the executiy
power, which 80 manipulatcs the electors
machinery, by the use of fraud and undu
influence, as to predetermine the result.
o Is patent that a National Assembly, thu
d elected, can possess no genuine politics
authority; 1t is a dead body into which Il
living spirit of popular approval never e.
II tiers, Ind as such, of course, it cam,
10 confer upon Ministries any solid rigl
o to rule. What are the consequences of sue
a state OF things2 One consequence is thu
z Ministries in Spain continually resig
TT Notwithstanding their possession of a larl
h majority in the popular branch of Parli
ss ment, Even at this day In Spain the 8