THE CUBAN WAR.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4125, 10 June 1874, Page 3

THE CUBAN WAR.

4J* [From the New Yorh Ifcrahl.'] Tlie scute of Cuba is growing daily more hopeless. Financial embarrassment is added to military failure, and every one sees that the grand crash is coining. From Havana wo have the news of financial failure and disturbance, and from the Central Department comes news of military disaster. So far from the insurrection losing strength the troops gathered to give the final, crushing blow, which has been impending for six years, but somehow never comes down, arc routed when ever they venture to leave their fortified strongholds. So unfavorable has been the tide of war lately that the Spaniards can no longer conceal their reverses from the outside world. The Cuban forces under General Gomez have operated in the neighborhood of Puerto Principe during several mouths, and every effort to disperse them has ended in defeat. So far as these repulses can be disguised they are ; hut the constant presence of a large Cuban force in the neighborhood of the headquarters of the Spanish army is the best answer to pretended victories that end with the hasty retreat of the victors to the nearest place of shelter. In spite of the recent reinforcement of the army by the enrolment of volunteers, tbo Spaniards are unable to disperse the patriot forces. General Arminau’s brigade lias been defeated at G-uasimoclara, not far from Puerto Principe, and obliged to abandon their dead and wounded to the enemy. There is nothing decisive in these endless battles, but they go to show that the Cubans are able to prolong the war indefinitely, and that after six years of wasting struggle they are more powerful in a military point of view than they were at the outbreak of the insurrection. The end of the struggle is no longer doubtful. It may drag on for years, exhausting the resources of both Spain and Cuba, but in the end the Spaniards will have to relax their grasp, as they have had to do with all their American possessions. General Concha, who made considerable reputation by the suppression of the Lopez rebellion, lias again assumed the reins of power in Cuba. He comes, as did his predecessors, to wipe out and wholly exterminate the insurrection, but we doubt very much that lie will succeed. The task before him now is much more difficult than his former experience would lead him to judge. The rebels have been hardened by well nigh six years’ constant fighting, and are not likely to dissolve before the paper manifestoes of even so terrible a person as General Concha. If the Madrid Government were wise they would send out agents to treat with the insurgents for the sale of the island while it has a saleable value. Unfortunately, the people at Madrid are not likely to ‘take this view, and wo shall see Concha fail as his predecessors have failed, until the moment arrives when Spain, thoroughly exhausted, finally lets go her hold of the Pearl of the Antilles, which she has spent so much blood and treasure to retain in her imperial crown.