San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-10-27
CUBAN AUTONOMY.
As Proposed By SagaSta
At Madrid.
1T OFFERS A VERY LARGE
MEASURE OF INTERNAL SELF
GOVERNMENT
Gives Cuba Full Control Of All Her
Domestic Affairs And A Repre-
SentatiOn In The COrteS 1t
Will Not Be Accepted By
The ISurgentS,

New YORK, OCT. IA ulSpdlcH "
the Herald from Madrid says:
Senior Moret Prendergast, the new
colonial minister, has outlined for the
Herald his plan for Cuban reforms as
follows:
THE autonomy which the cabinet of
Senior Sagasta proposes to bestow up
on the islands of Cuba and Porto Ri
co, in fulfllment of the engagement
contracted in the manifesto of June "a,
is a special autonomy founded on the
aspirations adopted in the platform of
the Antillian autonomists, and not i'd
entical with the other colonial consti-
buttons. 1t is clear that in its princi-
pal the future constitutions of Cuba
and Porto Rico agree with those colon
ial constitutions that start from self
government as the capital idea-self-
legislation responsible to the govern
ment and the supremacy of the gov
ernor, who, either under the name of
that of viceroy, shall present the
mother country and who shall choose
the ministers who shall be the execu-
tive in that colony.
project of the Spanish government
contains the first partition of those
matters and concerns that belong to
the colonial parliament and to the inn
perial parliament-that is to the ma
tional cortes. The partition is founded
upon a careful discrimination between
what interests the islands themselves
in local sense and what is of nation
al Importance. The project in opera
ton interpret in the most generous
manner and phrase local interests
since it will not only grant to the
colonists complete control of all that
relates to education, charity, public
works, intersular navigation, agricul-
tural industry, mines, etc. but it al
so intrust to representatives Of the To-
cal self-government the right of draw
ing up their customs tariff without any
limitations beyond those already ar
ranged.
with the metropolis to cooperate
in their respective mercantile and
commercial interests the above func-
tions will be performed by an insuiar
chamber totally electoral in nature,
without restrictions as to subsequent
subdivision into two different cham
bers-that is, the house of representa-
tives and the senate.
Members of this parliament shall be
elected by the same suffrage system as
that which regulates the elections in
the peninsula. The same electoral
body shall elect deputies to the Span
ish eortes, who are to represent Cuba
in the Imperial parliament. Once this
assembly has been constituted the gov
ernOr general, as the representative of
the central power, shall choose the
ministers who are to be the executive
body responsible to the insular parlia-
ment, thus completing the organiza-
ton of the parliamentary government
and endOwing ii with that degree of
responsibility characteristic of every
colony administered on the principals
of self-government.
The ministers shall be responsible
to the colonial parliament, and every
enactment of the governor general, as
the representative of the executive
power in all that touches the local
government, shall be treated in the
council.
"Of these ministerial functions re-
served to the metropolis are: First,
those that innately concern interna-
tional relations; second, military and
naval matters; third, organization of
the la courts in conformity with their
laws regulating the offices of magis-
trate and fourth, those dispositions
that under the name of patronola es-
tablish regulations between the church
and state.
"At the same time the new constitu
ton shall grant to the Cuban people |
the use of and the protection offered |
by the civil and political rights sane |
toned by the Spanish constitution in |
such manner that they shall exist in |
all their integrity, in the colonies, while |
besides there shall be established, as
in the United States, necessary dispo- |
sitions to prevent the colonial parlia- |
ment from any attempt to lesson, clog
or delin1it the rights of citizenship J