SPAIN NOT GUILTY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1174, 8 July 1911, Page 5

SPAIN NOT GUILTY.

. > SINKING OF THE MAINB. LIGHT ON INCIDENT THAT LED TO \ CUBAN WAR. A MYSTERY SOLVED. Bj Telccraph-l'rcss ABaociallon-OoDyrlchl Now York, July 6. General Bixby, Chief of tho United , States Ungineors' Corps, has personally : inspected tho battleship Maine, which ; was sunk in Havana Harbour early in 1898, and which tfas recently raised. Tho General announces that tho vessel's loss was duo to tho explosion of three magazines. It was impossible for tho disaster to have been duo to any external explosion, GROUNDLESS PRETEXT FOR WAR. THE CHAKGE AGAINST SPAIN. Tho United States Congress last year , passed si Bill appropriating .£IOO,OOO for tho purposes of raising tho battleship Maine on tho ground that it was a danger to navigation. Tho matter has boon agitated in America tor many years past, and as long ago as 1008 tho New York "Independent," in a leading article, wrote :— "Wo have 'remembered tho Maino' long enough; it is time to disremember it, if ; wo cannot raise and restore it. It has been too long a monaco and an insult. It has been all these ten years a danger to navigation and a bitter charge of bad faith against Spain. It has been mora than that, a proclamation of cowardice, that wo did not dare to test tho truth of tho chargo of bad faith that wo made against a country with which wo aro at pence. "When the Maine was blown up in Havana Harbour it was the general belief that some Spaniard miscreants, presum- , ably military men, had planted a mine under it and destroyed with it tho lives i of 254 men. 'Remember the Maino' was tho angry cryr and while it did not causo tho war with Spain—for that was inevitable—it did hasten it. Spain would not lmvo yielded, nor would we. Spain > had no fear of tho result of war, nor hud we. But tho blowing up of tho Maine unified our people and hastened tho result. Tho war followed quick, and quickly was the Spanish licet swept off tho seas, and tho United States made suio haste to divest Spain of all her colonics. ; It was a good thing for Spain; whetlie:: it was also a good thing for tho United States has been a question with many. It was certainly a good thine; for Cuba and Porl'o Rico and the Philippines. "The hulk of the Maine, remained in. ' the entrance of the harbour of Havana, visible to all. Congress appropriated 200,000 dollars to raise and remove it, but the money was not expended. Why not? "Wo fear tho reason was a lurking sus- .' picion that we were in error when wo ; charged her destruction on Spanish mal- , ic<>. Since then several vessels belonging t'o different navies have been blown up by spontaneous explosion of the. new . powder. After a while it decomposes, with heal, and explodes. Many believe, and some of our own officers, that tho destruction of tho Maine was an nccidcnl; for which no Spaniard was in the least to blame. It looks very much as if some j people were unwilling that' the truth should be Settled beyond doubt.- It seem- : ed as if some would prefer that the ac- ,' cusation should stand, and contiuuo to stand, whether justified or not." :