The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-04-08
SPAIN AND THE cANAR1Es.
od England Mediate an Attack
During the Recent warf

| tFrom the Chicago Chroniele)
| We are gradually getting light on the
unavowed. now even the denied. alliance
I between the Mckinley Administration and
/ England The Minister CT Spain has made
siSnincant statement concerning a report
/ mat this Government contemplated selling
I the canary Islands to Great Britain. Pre-
/ mier SiiVeia admits that Spain feared an
! attack on the Islands by England during
/ the Spanish-American war. Spain has
/ proof IL is alleged. that England intended
to take advantage OK her embarrassment
and seize the islands That this purpose
was in harmony with the apparent but
sratuitous attitude OF friendly neutrality
on the part of England TO the United States
is transparent. England never is friendly
except for q selfish object. She confident
ly expected the Government OF the United
States to acquiesee in her design Of despoiI-
ing Spain. That the issue was not brought
to test is due only 10 the fortunes OF war
and The dread the Mckinley Administration
would naturally have felt over the fury
that would have burst in the country in
our association with the outrage.
Spain interest in the Canaries is more
sentimental than sordid They constitute
one of the monuments of doubt in the mist
that separates ancient from modern his
tory. They emphasize the constantly
| growing query. Did not the aneients know
iuoit VI iue geography OF the WOrtu IMAM
the surviving records prove2'' II is agreed
at least that the Canaries were the loca-
ton Of the tabled gardens of the Hesper-
J ides. No Greek myth is more intricately
/ interviewer with the mythologies OF other
| races. The Hesperides were wonderful
maids who guarded the golden apples
Earth gave Hera at her marriage 10 Zeus.
| Their home was in the west on ocean bor-
| ders at horizon point where the SIN sets.
The golden apple tree was watched by
dragons, whom Hercules slew in his elev-
| enth labor in order to bring the golden
fruit to Athene. A new reading of the
legend discloses the probability that the
wealth of new world and the perils at
tendant upon its delivery to mankind were
not alien to the imagination OF antiquity.
Its thread runs through many literatures:
few of the greatest of poets OF any age
escape its pleasing snare.
In Loves Labor Lost" Shakespeare
puts into the mouth of Biron:
For valor is not Love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperiysf
In Paradise Lost Milton alludes to the
principal peak Teneriffe. Tassa alludes to
the islands in Jerusalem Delivered They
form the theme OF one of Horace's most
admired odes, written after the battle OF
Pharsalia and the ruin of the republic He
bids the Romans forsake the Etruscal
shores and dare the boundless main:
Visions of glory rush upon my eyes,
Prophetic voices rise
see. see before us distant glow,
TGrO' the thin dawn mists of the west
Rich sunlit plains and hilltOps gen.med with snow
The island OF the blest
Long the Canaries remained far mid the
western waves a secret sanctuary I'M
known or forgotten. In the fourteenth CEN
fury they appear upon the Medici map
preserved in Florence. After contentious
between Portugal and Spain over their pro-
pretary they passed to SPAIN and they are
of special interest III American history be-
cause it was there Columbus fingered to
make repairs upon the caravels. and thence
he sailed September s, 1892, the sailors on
the verge of mutiny. FASTENED by the ter
rors of an eruption of Teneriffe.
For centuries the Canaries have been
deemed for administration part Of Spain.
To freebooting, maritime country like
England they would be valuable to de-
gree unattained by the Spaniards. Who
the original race on the islands were is
lost to history. For centuries intermar-
rage and choice have made their people
Spanish. Their only language is Spanish
Their institutions and traditions are Span
ish. Spain could doubtless sell them for
good sum. but no sum would heal
the national wound of their loss, and the
country is fortunately able now to refrain
from compulsory submission to the gov
eminent that is by turns the pawnbroker
and the highwayman. of nations.
The Canaries rise into Importance now as
witnesses to an unquestionable expectation
by England that in return for pretended
friendship We neither needed nor asked
during the Spanish war we would at least
tacitly concur in her seizure of them. We
would not have concurred.