The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, MAY 13, 1898. THE FUTURE OF CUBA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVI, Issue 2, 13 May 1898, Page 17

The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, MAY 13, 1898. THE FUTURE OF CUBA.

Spain is making a determined and stubborn stand, and the struggle between the two countries is far from ended, there yet can be but little doubt in the minds of disinterested onlookers as to the ultimate issue of the contest. Making all due allowance for the inaccuracy, exaggeration, and general unreliability of

fLTHOUGH much of the war news that comes to us through such interested channels, it appears certain that so far America has

on the whole been decidedly victorious. In the battle of Manila she has dealt Spain a heavy blow, and although our cables of a few days ago spoke of a rumoured engagement in the Atlantic, Avhich had proved favourable to the Spaniards, no further message has come to hand to confirm the statement. When it is remembered further that the resources of America are practically limitless, while Spain on the other hand, is paralysed by riot and dissension at home and exhausted by a long and costly struggle with her two revolted colonies, it requires no gift of prophecy to see what the end will be. Unless France or Russia comes to the rescue, it is certain that the Spaniards, with all their splendid courage and tenacity, will be unable to retain their hold on the island. * * # In that case, what will become of Cuba ? When the Spaniards, fighting to the last, have been driven out of the island, what will America do with it ? We venture to think that President McKinley will find that a sufficiently perplexing problem. Two courses are possible, both of which, however, present serious difficulty. In the first place America may declare the island independent, and leave the Cubans to manage their own affairs. This is the avowed intention with which America entered on the war, and on the strength of which she has received such outside moral support as has been extended to her. The advantage of this course is that it would exonerate the American people from the charge of selfishness and would be calculated to create a favourable impression generally on the civilised world. Ifc would, moreover, be in full accord with the traditional policy of the Union as embodied in the Monroe doctrine. and as illustrated in the case of San Domingo, the proposed subjugation of which by General Geant was positively forbidden by the United States Senate. The only other alternative is to formally annex Cuba, and duly incorporate the island as part of the territory of the Great Republic. * * # Discussing the last alternative first, we would remark that this course is by no means so easy or so desirable, even from an American point of view, as might at first sight appear. In the first place it would look bad, and would give the impression that the war had been, from start to finish, nothing but a piece of bare-faced filibustering on the part of America. Such a course would, moreover, involve difficulties of a much more practical kind. The annexation of Cuba, which has an area equal to that of England, would add two new States to the Union, and this addition to the Senate would be regarded by American political parties with jealousy and suspicion, and by the Eastern States in particular with positive aversion. It would also add over a million to the black and half-caste citizens of the Union, who are generally regarded as being already too numerous. The acquirement of an island possession by America would, moreover, alter her whole relation to the maritime powers of the world, and in order to afford adequate protection to her new territory, she would have to establish a powerful fleet and incur the huge expense of perpetually maintaining it in a country which lias no extensive mercantile marine from which to feed the fleet with men. T f .* But if annexation is bad, independence would, in the case of Cuba, to all appearances be worse. In the first place, there would be that chronic difficulty — the question of finance. The Cubans would commence their career of independence under an overwhelming burden of debt, and in order to restore the national fortune most excessive and crushing taxation would have to be imposed. But this is the least of the difficulties of leaving Cuba to govern itself. Almost all writers who have any personal and practical knowledge of the state of feeling on the island agree that if Cuba is ever granted independence she will be "one of the most revolution-stricken of American republics. According to a writer in ClinmbmC Journal— whospoaks from personal knowledge of the facts— the real cause of the Cuban insurrection is that political ferment, which in the South American republics produces continual revolutions, and which arises from personal ambition and strife for power. "To the insurrectionists the party in power are always tyrants, while the latter consider their enemies as rebels ; it is only a question of intrigue and not of principle." In an independent Cuba this personal ambition and strife for

power would have free play, and ad the fueling between the two parties is intensely bitter one half of the population uould be perpetually flying ab the other half's throat, .there would be revolutions, blood-feuds, and quarrels without number, and under an independent m/i,ini> the last state of the island would be essentially worse than the first. * * # On the whole, therefore, we are inclined to think that, sooner or later, America will find it necessary, or at least will deem it adu'suble, to annex Cuba. We have no doubt that President MuKixi,ky i h perfectly sincere in his present intention to grant independence to the island, but it is at least equally certain that the carrying out of that intention will be followed by years of fierce revolution and wholesale shedding of blood. As we have shown, annexation is not without its difficulties and disadvantages, but of two evils it will probably prove to be the least. \Vnd when the war is all over and both sides have time to count the cost we should not wonder if thoughtful Americans begin to ask themselves whether after ail the game was worth the candle, seeing that the only tangible result lias been to saddle them with a country which, whatever they may do with it, is certain to involve them in serious difficulty and inconvenience.