The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-10-23
Review Of the Situation by LIE Temps,
Which Says Neither Side Desires
Renewal of HostiIities.
MADRID CABINET In PERIL
MINISTERIAL CRISIS REGARDED BY
THE PRESS AS IMMINENT.
Long Conference Between the Queen
Regent and Gen. POlavieja, Former
Governor of the Philippines.

PARIS, Oct. 22.-The United States peace
commission held two sittings to-day to con-
slider the voluminous communication pre-
sented yesterday by the Spanish commits
sioners. This new proposition of the Span
iards looksSto a compromise between the
refusal Of the Americans to assume any of
the Cuban debt and the Spanish holding
that the United States should assume it
wholly. The terms of yesterdays proposal
are obviously unknown save to the commits
sioners. The American commissioners will
reply to the communication at Mondays
joint session, and an extended argument will
then follow and will carry the matter possi-
bly, over to another meeting.
LIE Temps this evening deals editorially
with the work of the Spanish and American
peace commissions, remarking at the outset
that little progress has thus far been made
IN the negotiations. Both sides, the paper
says have the best intentions. No Span
lard desires a renewal of hostilities, and no
American has the purpose to crush the van
quished adversary. lie Temps then cites the
methods CT written interchanges between
the commissions as a cause of the slow
progress, and says it is very evident that
such procedure has been adopted to retard
and complicate the progress of the negotia-
tions, such system of monologues instead
of dialogues requiring illimitable time, labor
and good hup'or 1t should be parentheti-
cally stated that, though contrary allega-
tions have been made the plan of written
Interchange had its birth in the Spanish
committee. the Americans having been moro
disposed to a free-hand discussion to the
end Of more speedily arriving at conclu-
sions.
On this point LIE Temps is clearly misin-
formed when it affirms that the Spaniards
would have been glad to simplify the pro-
cedure, and that Senior Abarzuza of the
Spanish commission, attempted a free dis
cussion instead of long writings, but was
not listened to. This last statement is also
transformation, as all utterances on both
sides are received with due attention.
LIE Temps, continuing, remarks that the
present cumbersome methods employed here
mark return of the interminable congress
of Munster, which, after eight years, pro-
duced the treaty of Westphalia, and LIE
Temps regards as very curious the fact that
the modern Republic of the United States
has assisted in that species of archaeological
resurrection.
The paper then recites lengthily the Span
ish contention regarding the Cuban debt iii
terms so exact as to indicate the Spaniards
as the source of information, thus: Spain
claims that there cannot be an interregnum
of sovereignty; that from the moment that
Spain abandons Cuba it passes ipso facto
and necessarily to the United States, and
that the United States cannot repudiate
either it's prerogative or it's obligation" LIE
Temps closes with a defense of the choice
of Paris as place of holding conferences.