This Cuban insurrection is getting worse and worse for Spain.
So far from subsiding, it is spreading into the central districts of the great island, which is only seven thousand square miles less than England, and it has evidently the sympathy, overt or secret, of the entire native-born popu- lation, white and black. The troops, though thirty thousand in number, are either unable or unwilling to deal with the guerillas; and it is seriously proposed to send forty thousand Spanish soldiers to Havannah, :ten thousand of whom are actually starting. The revenue of the island is insufficient to meet such expenses, and the Cortes have authorised the Government of Madrid to raise a loan of £24,000,000, which the Treasury is in no condition to provide for. A grant of genuine autonomy would end the rebellion at once ; but the Spanish blood is up, and any concession, before an unconditional submission has beeni extorted, might cost the dynasty its throne. With such a burden upon it, good finance in Spain is almost im- possible. Yet without good finance there will neither be good government nor permanent order.
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