THE UNITED STATES AND SPAIN.
OUR countrymen are wrong in thinking that war between Spain and America will not concern them, that, in fact, they can sit in their usual style looking on as at a most interesting play. It will concern them a good deal. Not to mention the immediate rise which will occur in the price of wheat, there will be, as we are the Sea Power, most dangerous and difficult questions to be faced, of neutrality, of search, of privateering, and of the supply by unlicensed speculators of the munitions of war. It is not quite unimportant to us that Spain should be solvent, for her insolvency will involve a " grand crash " in banking circles in Paris; while anarchy in Spain, which might be a result of submission to demands from Washington, would throw the whole European system into confusion, per- haps wake most dangerous ambitions both as to Spain and as to Morocco, which she still regards as her reversionary estate. We are not sure either that in the present position of Europe, which is avoiding war by the sort of strain with which a coalition avoids differences of opinion, the very fact of war existing may not have a highly disturbing effect, dividing as it will the sympathies of great popula- tions, and rousing the dynastic fears which wake whenever a Republic shows itself strong for actual conflict. With gunpowder barrels lying about shooting is not altogether a safe practice.
The chances of such a collision do, we fear, gravely con- cern us, and so far as we can perceive, the chances are not in favour of peace. The Americans, we take it, though not, perhaps, intent on war, are not indisposed to risk it. They are moved, to begin with, by the oppressions in Cuba, of which they see far more than we do, and which are now admitted to be very bad, the keynote of the Weyler policy being that the " pacificos "—that is, the population which declines to fight—must be ruined, lest the insurgents should utilise their resources. They have consequently been expelled from their estates and farms, and driven into the towns, where they have no means of subsistence. A policy like that would produce horrible scenes, even if the army were English or German or American, and Cuba is occupied by a Spanish army, which, from mismanagement, is compelled when outside Havana to maintain itself, feed itself, and pay itself as a guerilla army would. Then all the best information shows that the Western population of the Union, which has a traditional dislike of Spaniards, and confuses the pure Spaniards of Old Spain with the mixed Spaniards of New Spain, is in a restless mood, dissatisfied with its daily life, hungering for some excitement, and, from its social organisation, wholly devoid of any dread of war. And finally, even if we reject the statement of the Times' Madrid correspondent about the existence of a vast American syndicate which hopes to make of Cuba an enormously profitable estate, it can hardly be doubted that the great Protectionist interest beyond the Atlantic would approve rather than disapprove any occasion for heavy expenditure, such as would make a low Tariff once more unpopular, and indeed impossible. We find it difficult to believe, therefore, that the American Govern- ment—which, recollect, is a very haughty Government, and quite believes itself the strongest in the world—will recede in any way from its declarations, which are that Cuba must be pacified at once, and that if it is not pacified public feeling in America will compel intervention.
No one denies that General Woodford in his communica- tions with the Duke of Tetuan stated this as a fact, though he may have disclaimed any wish to use it as a menace. Yet of the pacification there is little prospect. The fighting section of the Cubans have rejected the autonomy offered them by the new Ministry, the Autonomistas give Spain no active help because uncertain what autonomy will mean, and real autonomy it is not in the power of SeiTor Sagasta to bestow. If Spain is not to be driven into bankruptcy, she must retain the power of taxing Cuba to relieve Spanish finance, and no honest plan of autonomy is consistent with that taxation. Nor—and this is the crux of the whole situation—do we feel sure that the Government of the Queen-Regent anxiously desires to avoid war. If the new Ministry is convinced that the Cubans will not yield, its best road out of an impossible situation might be war, for which, according to American accounts, it has just provided a pretext by threatening, if the filibusters are not stopped, to search all American ships on their way to Cuba. The Americans have fought over that claim before, and will, we may rest assured, fight again before it is allowed. Victory in war would of course end the Spanish difficulties, while defeat would allow the Government to give up Cuba without affronting the Spanish idea of honour, and so, as the Times' corre- spondent affirms, endangering the Monarchy itself. We believe his account of Spanish pride, strong as it is, is strictly within the truth, and he might have added that this pride is all the more irritable just now because of the prevailing discontent. There exists in Spain, as we- understand the situation, a definite sentiment of respect for the Queen-Regent, whose proud and independent character and devotion to her son's interests please the people ; and there also exists a perceptible wish that the coy King, the only child in history born with the crown on his head, should have a fair chance of showing whether he is competent to rule. But besides these feelings is a great body of dissatisfaction, rising in the Southern provinces to acute discontent. The towns are frightened by the expenditure, the country folk writhe under a tenure which leaves them always poor and overworked, and both are made savage by a, demand on their children equal, when the relative populations are remembered, to a demand on Great Britain for five hundred thousand lads in three years. If that demand saves Spain it will be forgiven, but if not, if almost every household in every village is to have a dead son or a sick son, and nothing to show for that misfortune, the hatred of Madrid may include the throne, and even, though the Carlists do not think so, kingship. in the abstract. Spain has never passed through the Revolution, and Spain humbled and despoiled by mis- government, or, if you will, by the misfortunes of its Government, may yet determine to pass through that fire. She has an idea, remember, which, though latent, is very strong, that in renouncing federalism she gave up her proper destiny.
We must add•—for it is essential to our argument, though we have pressed the point before—that our countrymen ex- aggerate the difference between the power of the Union and the power of Spain. Ultimately that difference is enormous, but it does not appear so to Spanish eyes. Spaniards think, erroneously, that by a system of privateering they could put an end to American trade, only a portion of which, as they forget, is carried on in American bottoms. They think that they could make the landing of an American army in Cuba an excessively risky and difficult operation. and they believe that if an army landed in the island their own great army there would be able to defeat it. The Spaniards, with more reason than Englishmen think, believe in their own soldiers, and attribute their failur,• in Cuba to any cause rather than military incompetenc.• or want of readiness for battle. In short, while they expect to be beaten in the long-run, and fully share the English opinion as to the resources of the great Republic, they do not expect to be defeated with ridiculous ease, or to be in any way dishonoured by the war, which, again, will furnish a full excuse both for more searching taxation and for compromises with the most pressing national creditors. We fear, therefore, that they mean to accept war, or possibly to provoke it ; and as the Americans are in much the same temper, we regard the war as something more than possible. It would almost certainly save the throne of Alphonso IL, who would be regarded in defeat as a victim of undeserved misfortune ; and to save that throne at any hazard is necessarily and justifiably the one preoccupation of the Queen-Regent, who has a great deal of that capacity for a kind of serene dominance which has for centuries kept the Hapsburgs at the top of their world.
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