THE 'UNITED STATES AND SPAIN., B EFORE the end of next
week the world will know more than it does now as to the probabilities of a war between the United States and Spain. 'The Report on the destruction of the Maine' and the Consular Reports will have been presented to Congress in a com- munication from the President which must contain some clear indication of the policy he is disposed to recommend. Mr. McKinley evidently feels most acutely the weight of empire, he quails a little under his immense responsibility —recollect an American Cabinet Minister is by the Con- stitution only the President's clerk—and he recognises that in spite of all the talk, or because of all the talk, the Union has been taken a little by surprise. Money will do much, but money, even in unlimited quantities, will not improvise artillery, skilled non-commissioned officers, or trustworthy battleships and cruisers possessed of the modern swiftness. There is a long range of coast to be protected studded with wealthy towns, as well as a great naval battle to be fought, and, splendidly energetic as American artificers are, they would have liked a little more time. Nevertheless, Mr. McKinley is an American, he is possessed of the idea that his Republic has "rights of wardship" throughout the two Americas, and he will, we may be sure, when driven to decide be both definite and firm. He must say something savage about the horrible facts as to the fate which Spanish tyranny has inflicted upon the great island—nearly half the population is dead—and if the Spaniards do not accept his declara- tions as deliberate insults they will be false to those "laws of the duel" which in grave emergencies usually guide their action. For ourselves, we believe that war, possibly after some further negotiation, but possibly also before it, for every hour strengthens the armaments of Washington, is practically inevitable unless the sale of Cuba can be effected, and believe also that the proposal of a sale upon any terms likely to be offered will be rejected as certain to be fatal to the dynasty of Madrid. The Spanish people will not get the money, and will suffer the loss of honour, and they will turn savagely upon the Court as the cause of all their misfortunes. It will be easier for the dynasty to fight it out, and lose Cuba sword in hand.
Intermediately there is a point in connection with the war which has been little noticed, and which it is worth while to discuss, for it must add greatly to Mr. McKinley's embarrassments. The American idea at this moment, espe- cially among that large and upright section of the people which honestly thinks it a duty for the leading Power in America to release the Cubans from a cruel destiny, is to declare the island independent, and then, having com- pelled the Spaniards to retire by force of arms, to leave the Cubans to manage their own affairs. By so doing they think the people of the Union will avoid any imputation of selfishness, and at the same time avoid adding another large number of foreigners and coloured men to their own electoral lists. Cuba, which is nearly as large as England, would add two States to the Union, and the effect of any addition to the Senate is watched with extreme jealousy, and regarded in the Eastern States in particular with a deeply rooted aversion. The policy of the Republicans, and the sentiment of their leaders, will therefore incline them towards the plan of declaring Cuba independent, which will also greatly improve the impression they will make upon the civilised world. It will, however, be a very difficult plan to carry out. In the first place, there is finance. The Cubans are overloaded with debt, so overloaded that the ruined island cannot meet it, and public aid can hardly be given by the United States to an independent community. The new Republican Government of Cuba must, there- fore, begin with a great act of repudiation, which will destroy its credit and compel it to rely for the restoration of the national fortune in roads, bridges, forests, and buildings upon excessive and searching taxation. Its population has decreased nearly one half, and will not exceed a million at the outside ; its profitable agriculture is half ruined; and although with a great influx of capital much might be rapidly repaired, American capital does not flow easily into Spanish- American States. It is supposed that Cuba would attract it, but Venezuela, which is just as full of potentialities of production, does not. For remember— and this is the greatest obstacle of all to independence —there is little probability that Cuba, unless it fell under an. able Dictator, as Mexico has fallen and Uruguay is now falling, would be an orderly State. The difference between " Radicals " and "Clericals)' in every Spanish-American State is a difference which runs deeper than that between Reactionaries and Liberals in any Continental country ; it extends even to plutocratic Chili, as witness the Balmacedist revolt ; and it will in Cuba for years to come be one of terrible rancour. Half the oppressions committed in Cuba have been committed by resident Volunteers, and the blood-feuds are so numerous, so dreadful, and in Spanish ideas so justifi- able, that if the population are left to themselves one half of them will be at the other half's throat. They will need a strong, overmastering hand, supported by adequate force ; and though they may find one, the chance is much greater that the island for years to come will resemble the worst of Spanish-American States, full of revolutions, bloodsheddings, and quarrels with the remainder of the world. There is a colour question, too, which has not been settled, and which American immigrants certainly will not settle; and this colour question is not one between Indians and Spaniards, which admits, as experi- ence proves, of a modus vivendi, but between persons of negro blood, and white men who regard that blood with a distaste which, un-Christian as it is, seems to be in- curable. No doubt after a period of years the difficulties will be surmounted, probably, as in Argentina, by an immense immigration of Italians ; but at first they will be so nearly insuperable that the prayer for American intervention, and perhaps the necessity for it, will speedily become urgent. A body of American filibusters would speedily give victory to the side it declared for, and, once landed, American intervention follows as a matter of course.
These considerations will not, of course, avail to prevent war, for an independent Cuba, even if all goes wrong, cannot suffer as a Spanish Cuba has suffered ; but they add greatly to Mr. McKinley's embarrassments in writing Messages and despatches. Every argu- ment, from convenience binds him to promise that the island shall be left to govern itself, and yet that promise may be—as we anticipate, will be—the one which it is impossible to fulfil. It is a painful situation for an upright man to be compelled to advise a course which at heart he fears to be impracticable, and we can witness the President's delays and expressions of anxiety without accusing him of any vacillation. In the end, however, he will, we feel convinced, fall back upon the profound American conviction that everything will always go right if there is only "liberty," will demand that Spain with- draw her hand from Cuba, and will leave the fate of the island to be settled after the war. After all, Mexico and Chili are fairly governed, life in the Brazils is endurable, though most Cuban conditions exist there, and if the worst comes to the worst, the States will not be ruined because Cuba has to be administered for a quarter of a century as three or four "Territories" of the Great Republic. The thing urgent is a limited though im- portant one,—that Spain should depart, she having for- feited her rights by allowing oppression as bad as anarchy ; and that, and nothing less, is what the American President will demand. He may couch his proposal in any one of many forms—the latest suggested being the right of his. nation to "relieve the distressed" as a nation, and by authoritative interference—but that is what he will mean, and the Spaniards will perceive that as clearly as the rest of the world. What they will do we can- not say, because we do not know how far the French financiers, who are horribly frightened, may be able to control Madrid ; but for ourselves we expect one of those explosions of feeling in Spain to which any Government must submit. Bulldogs do not think themselves cruel, and telling them not to bite because the man who chastises them is wiser and stronger than they, is usually quite unprofitable work.
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