CITBA AND THE UNITED STATES.
THE President's Message to Congress is, as we anticipated, cordial in its tone to Spain, and even seems in passages to assume that the difficulty is really at an end, and that all the legitimate demands of the United States will be conceded by the Spanish authorities in Cuba. Why then, we may ask, are the great naval preparations of the United States,—pre- parations which will certainly add a million or two to the expenditure of this year,—going on as actively as ever ? The answer does not in the least involve any suspicion of insin- cerity in President Grant's attitude towards Spain. In the first place, though the Cubans themselves have declared their willingness to give up the Virginius, with all the pri- soners not executed at Santiago, there is very considerable doubt as to the willingness of the Cuban authorities to comply with a much more important condition, namely, the punishment of the authorities who condemned Ame- rican subjects to death and executed them without a fair trial, and apparently without any evidence of any hostile act against the State. We say this is much the more important condition of the two, for it is not quite certain that the United States have not pressed their case too far in assuming that Spain had no legal right to search and seize the Virginius for carrying aid to the Cuban insurgents. It is quite true that the United States and Spain are at peace, that the Virginius had American papers in regular order, and that there was no blockade declared of the Cuban coast. But international lawyers always hold that when any province of a State is in rebellion, some of the rights of war accrue to the Government engaged in suppressing the rebellion, and, among these, the right to seize a ship containing contraband of war on its way to the rebels. It is true that when the Virginius was boarded by the Cuban steamer, there were no arms found on board of her, but there were, it is said, the empty cases, and the Spainards allege that the arms had been thrown into the sea during the chase. This is very possible, and if it were so, it is quite an open ques- tion whether the Spaniards, in seizing the vessel, did not proceed on the very same assumptions as the United States proceeded during the early part of the Civil war. It is therefore quite possible that, on the point of the seizure of the vessel, Spain is justified, and that the United States have acted with too high a hand. But on the demand for the punishment of the authorities who affected to try and shoot Ame- rican and British subjects by court-martial for the mere offence of forming part of the crew of the Virginius, there cannot be two opinions. There was no prinid facie case against these people at all. They were not taken in arms. They were, prima facie at least, simply aiding a perfectly lawful, though hazardous commercial enterprise, of which the penalty in case of failure, was simply a great pecuniary loss. The Virginius at the very least was only doing just what our blockade-runners did during the Civil war, the difference being thus far in their favour, that no blockade of Cuba had been proclaimed. Unless it was possible to connect the captain and crew with the rebellious purposes of General Ryan and of Cespedes,—and of this there has been not a jot of evidence given,—these American and British subjects had a
full right to be set at once at liberty ; and if it were possible so to connect them, then that was a case for a regular civil trial, with every facility afforded to them and to the Ameri-
can and British Consuls to aid in their defence. We hold, therefore, that by far the most important of the
American demands on Spain is the demand for the punish- ment of those cruel and desperate men who condemned a number of British and American sailors, stokers, and artisans to a violent death, for no proved crime at all. And yet this is the very thing which the Cuban authorities will find it most difficult to yield. It is perfectly clear that the bloody pro- ceedings at Santiago were exceedingly popular with the people of Santiago and the Havannah, and that nothing but fear has extorted from them the surrender of the Virginius.
Unless much the more important part of the penalty is to be remitted, the judges who condemned these prior fellows to so violent a death must be punished. And we may be sure they will not be punished without a great display of force on the side of the nations aggrieved. This, no doubt, is the great reason why the United States press on their naval preparations so rapidly, in spite of the mild tone of President Grant's Message.
But there is evidently another reason, and it, too, is a good one. President Grant more than once asserts that slavery is the foes et origo mall in Cuba, and that it must be put a stop to one way or another. He is not going to press this on Spain as one of his conditions, for Spain is heavily burdened enough with his conditions as it is, and he is evidently quite frank in his expressions of good-will to the Spanish Republic. But it is more than possible that even through what he has already declared his intention to enforce, the Spanish Government of Senor Castelar may be overthrown. If it were, and an Alfonsist or other govern- ment, with which the American people would feel no par- ticular sympathy, were to succeed it, there could be no better opportunity for enforcing the natural complement of his present demands, the policy of emancipation. As the Message points out, American citizens can expect no quiet and peace in Cuba till this great source of civil strife, and hatred, and partisanship, is removed. Further opportunities probably by the dozen will arise for pressing the emancipation policy for Cuba on Spain, and the United States would assuredly not be sorry to press it very vigorously on any Government which had availed itself of Castelar's concessions to overthrow his Ministry. This card, then, the President keeps in reserve till his other conditions have been complied with, and he sees how matters go both in Cuba and in Spain. But that he will press this policy vigorously on Spain, and with that sort of pressure with which the Exe- cutive of a great and thoroughly armed nation that has a great cause warmly at heart can press, we have very little doubt ; nor that he will be supported by Congress in this kind of pressure. It is true, we believe, as we have held from the first, that the United States do not wish to go to war, that they hate the very thought of annexation, and hate it more in relation to a West Indian island and a negro population than in relation to any other kind of territorial extension. They probably think that the possession of a great West Indian island would put them at a disadvantage with us, if ever our little disputes again become serious ; and they know very well that they do not want a larger Negro population than they have already got. But annexation is one thing, and Cuban emancipation another. We are quite sure that Congress will be anxious to end
the rebellion in Cuba as soon as it can. It is always causing quarrels between Spaniards and citizens of the United States, and there is but one way of ending it. We believe, therefore, that President Grant is acting wisely in so preparing the Navy that diplomatic pressure will come with a certain momentum which it would not other- wise have. And we think he acts wisely also in not making emancipation an article in his immediate ultimatum. Redress for wrongs is all that he has any right to press as a condition of continued peace. But emancipation is the only real and permanent cure for the mischiefs which have caused all this danger, and there will be no lack of opportunity, especially if the Spanish Government falls before the injured pride of Spain, for future representations of a kind, and made after a manner, that it will be next to impossible for either Spain or Cuba to resist. On the whole, President Grant's Message, slovenly as it appears to be in form, takes the right tone on this Cuban quarrel, and hits a fair mean between the unworthy use of the strength of the Union towards a weak State, and the failure to use her strength for any beneficent purpose at all.
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