Arizona republican., 1898-03-29
IF WE FIGHT WITH SPAIN.
The Patriots in East Cuba Will In.
 wade the West.

New York, March 26.-The Suns correspondent in Cuba writes as fol- lows: The Suns correspondent has just returned from a tour among the insurgent forces in Santiago de Cuba and Puerto Principe provinces. While in the western part of the island it is dangerous and almost impossible to pass from the Spanish to the Cuban lines, it is perfectly easy to do so here in the east. A letter for President Maso from the city reaches him in less than two days. Communications are constantly maintained with the camps of Gems. Garcia and Rabi and with the Cuban government. In a word, the control by the insurgents of these two provinces is so absolute that in the two months from January il to yester day the correspondent did not see any Spanish soldiers in the country. The only Spanish soldiers he saw were those in the garrison of Santiago de Cuba.
 Large Spanish columns containing sometimes 6,000 men often start from this city to Bayamo. Jiguani and Hol guin. Others leave Manzanillo for the same destinations. They go to provision the Spanish garrisons of those towns and then they return. On their march they are generally at tackled by the Cubans, and in most cases lose their conveys. This is the only kind of warfare in which the Spaniards engage in this part of the island under Gen. Pando, now Spanish a1, f1f 1,, oil 1o fnr tor from the Jucaro-Moron trocha to the they did nothing more under the gen. erals who led their columns in the days of General Weyler.
 Since his utter failure at the Cauto river, Pando has done nothing. He keeps up the old system of marching with a large column from one place to another, murdering non-combat- ants, destroying the country, but fighting very little Under such cir cumstances the Cubans have every op- portunity to avoid battle when they are not certain to win, and to offer battle when the chances are in their favor The Spanish commander, who knows this and fears the we'll known military ability of such trained war
  cepts battle He invariably retires to his strongholds whenever he meets the Cubans, and contents himself with falsely reporting that he has gained some substantial advantage. He does not even defend his conveys very res olutely.
 It is the same story in Puerto Prin- cipe under Gen. Jimenez Castellanos. The correspondent has tried to obtain from Spanish military men an expla- nation of this incredible persistence of the Spanish in a system of warfare that yields them nothing. Instead of marching in compact bodies of sev- eral thousand. why do they not divide their troops into bands of 100 men, each capable of reaching the top of the mountains and of searching the last corner in the forests, as the Cubans do? Being more numerous and better armed, they would then have a better chance to win. Now their columns are decimated during their marches by the persistent fire Of the Cubans on all sides, while they answer only by stopping to turn their artillery against scattered enemy. They leave behind them scores of their dead, while they seldom wound Cuban.
 An answer to this question is never given by the Spaniards. They always say that the Cubans are treacherous and towards because they do not op- pose with one of their detachments of 2,000 or 5000 men columns contain ing 6O00 and sometimes 10000 Span ish soldiers. Even when the Cubans offer them battle they refuse the chal- lenge, suspecting some disagreeable surprise. Such war programme as this is the real exclamation of the re markable fact that with 100000 sol diers and all resources at her disposal Spain has been unable to conquer the revolution. If the Spanish soldier is brave and disciplined, the Spanish general is not fighter. Of necessity he has to take personal command of his troops, but he feels safer in the middle of a column of 6C00 men than with small escort Of 100 soldiers If his soldiers suffer more his personal