Year: 1872

The Release Of DIR. Houard by the


Spanish Government-spain's Cuban


Policy.


1t is officially announced from Washington
to-day that the Spanish government has ex-
tended full pardon to DR.. Houard, with whose
case our readers are familiar, ordering his re-
lease from imprisonment and the restoration
of his property. On Sunday last our special
cable despatch from Madrid brought the intel
ligence that the American Minister at the
Spanish Court had refused to request this act
of clemency at the hands of Spain, and
had persisted in demanding the uncon-
ditional release of DIR. Houard as an Ameri-
can citizen illegally deprived Of his liberty in
consequence of which, it was said, the liberia
ton of the prisoner was likely to be delayed
We condemned the position taken by the
American Minister as unbecoming great and
ment of Secretary Fish himself that we had no
right to demand DR.. Houard's release, but
could only ask his liberation by the Spanish
government as an act Of favor and courtesy
to the United States. From the promptness ss
with which the fact of his pardon
has been now made public, simultaneously
at the national capital and at Long Branch,
we presume that General Grant lost no time in
forwarding instructions to our Minister at
Madrid to recede from his untenable and
unfortunate position, and that this more graft
flying termination of the case is the result Of
such instructions. 1t is fortunate that the dis
agreeable affair has ended in this manner, and
that we have escaped the awkward dilemma in
which we should have found ourselves if we
had persisted in demanding what the Spanish
government could not have granted, and what
we had ourselves shown we had no right to
ask. Better that We should back down from
an unjust ultimatum than that we should incur
the suspicion of attempting to browbeat and
hector nation weaker than our own for
political effect. =


The Spanish government has shown no
more than becoming courtesy in conceding to
us the pardon of DR.. Houard. The admins
tration at Washington has treated Spain with
peculiar favor. Its policy has added ten years
to the Spaniards' lease Of power In Cuba. The
Spanish representative In America could ask
nothing Of our government that would
not be cheerfully conceded, and his
diligence and loyalty to his y King
have prompted him not to be backward
in urging upon our authorities the most ex-
treme enforcement of the laws against the
Cuban sympathizers in the United States.
nI.- n TT 4 4
been as ungracious as impolitic. But the
clemency exercised by Spain in this instance
is no atonement for the brutalities her authori-
ties in Cuba have enacted towards the suffering
and courageous islanders and towards oil who
are suspected Of aiding them or sympathizing
with those who have been unfortu-
nate enough to fall into Spanish hands.
The pardon may crafty the admins
traton at Washington 1t will not
satisfy the American people A change is
about to take place in the administration of
Cuban affairs, and no better opportunity could
offer for discontinuance of the savage
barbarities practised upon the struggling
patriots and for an entire reform in the Cuban
policy Of the Spanish government. The
party for the present moment dominant
in Madrid cannot afford to outrage
liberal sentiment and to violate liberal
principles by continuance of the oppression
and tyranny that have marked the rule of Spain
in this colony; and it would be fitting for
Ruiz Zorrilla to mark his term Of power by an
act of clemency toward the Cubans that would
make his name popular all over the United
States and, indeed, oil over the world. Now
that this diplomatic interlude Of the Houard