The American President is engaged in a severe struggle with
a section of his own party. There is great distress in Cuba owing to the ruin of the sugar cultivation, and the President insists that as the Union controls the Treaty- making power of the Cuban Government, it is bound to give the Cubans preferential terms. He has sent a Message to Congress strongly advocating this view, and it is accepted by the Press, and probably a majority of the people. The party managers and many of the Senators, however, dislike Mr. Roosevelt as much too independent, and with the beet- growers, who are strongly organised, they think they can inflict on him a humiliation which will impair his influence. He is a dangerous man to treat in that way, more especially cc a question in regard to which the humane sentiment of the Amdrican people, and the growing dislike of the great commercial "rings," are both upon his side. Americans like Protection, but, as has recently been seen in the case of the Beef Trust, they object even for the sake of Pro- tection to starve anybody, and it is coming in parts of Cuba to actual hunger.
