The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1903-08-04
THE CUBAN REBELLION.

Trouble in Cuba was to have been
expected. Two distinct races and a
mongrel race occupy the soil and all
enjoy equal rights of suffrage. There
is the white element composed OF
lCastilians, Americans and Englishmen;
a negro element in an electoral major
ity over the whites and mixed class,
half Spaniard and half negro, which
combines all the vices and few of the
virtues of their ancestors and Is in
an electoral majority over all. The
whites own seven-eighths of the prop
erty, do all the business, run the plan
tations, build the railroad lines. carry
on the commerce and conduct the gov
eminent and they are not satisfied to
put their great concerns, even locally,
into the hands of the rabble to be mis-
managed and plundered. So they have
run things without giving the negroes
and half-whites much of a chance to
steal; and this has melted the blacks,
as a last resort to begin a revolu-
ton.
1t may regarded as certain that the
Cuban government will put the upris-
ing down as it has Gomez and the other
guerrilla leaders on its side, 1t controls
the arms and supplies of ammunition,
and has the means to equip fair-sized
army. And as a last resort it has the
right to call upon the United States for
help in keeping order. The insurgents,
on their side, cannot expect any help
from American filibusters who, backed
by public sentiment in the United
States and well paid for their work,
made 1t possible for the Cuban revo-
lutionists of 1896 to hold their ground
against Spain,
The Cuban trouble, however, like the
troubles in every Spanish-American re-
public save MeXico-which is a military
empire in disguise-shows the criminal
folly of entrusting the suffrage to peo-
pie who are not prepared to exercise
its privileges wisely. The art of self
government is not natural possession
of man. An individual needs disci-
pline and culture before ne can govern
himself and a race. before il Is fit for Sc
high duty, must have long expert
ence in civilization. The Latin Ameri-
cans. when they freed themselves from
Spain, made the mistake of adopting
an Anglo-Saxon charter of organic law
which was the development of a char
aCter anu experience winch the Anglo
Saxons had been forming and acquiring
for thousand years. 1t expressed the
natural beliefs and convictions of An
glo-Saxons, impelled rather than COM
PEELED their respect and fitted theil
state of life. An ideal government fol-
men of English speech and habit, bred
upon British laws and literature, 1t was
foreign to every instinct of the ignor-
ant and lawless and irresponsible half
breeds of Latin-America. These wers
people who, in the language of JOSEPH
Chamberlain, could only be kept in or.
der through benevolent despotism'
Mexico soon found this out and fol-
nearly a quarter of century on,
strong man has given her peace, ordel
and security: but the rest of I4atiI
America, shutting its eyes to the truth
has lapsed into barbarism. The onl,
thing that can save 1t is the hand O
empire. AS for Cuba she is under
quasi-protectorate which will safeguar,
her from the more serious consequence
OF her folly in granting liberal fran
chise. but until she attains to the rul
OF the qualified majority, which is tn
only true republicanism in any land O
mixed races, she will have no end O
aifiictions In her domestic politics.