LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE CUBAN DIFFICULT Y.—A SUGGESTION.
[TO THR EDITOR OF TEl "SPECTATOR."]
Szn,—Among the proposed solutions of the Cuban difficulty I have not noticed one which appears to me at least to deserve consideration,—that of the annexation of Cuba to Mexico. I believe Spain, by her treatment of Cuba, to have absolutely forfeited all moral claim to its retention. On the other hand, the annexation of Cuba to the United States is not desirable in the interest of the latter. That of scantily peopled and unwarlike Florida or Texas affords no precedent. The British and Spanish races do not amalgamate well, and the fierce men who have been carry- ing on for years a life-and-death struggle against the Mother-country are little likely to relish being swallowed up into a vast alien population. Independence under United States protection would be even more galling, as it would mean dependence, yet without some protection it would be only a name. The two little Republics that divide St. Domingo between them only subsist by virtue of the indifference of the rest of the world. Cuba, much larger, and to whose fate that of Puerto Rico is necessarily bound, would be a far more tempting prize to outside covetousness.
But in the same quarter of the world, bordering on the same sea, there is a vast Republic peopled_by men of Spanish blood, which has won its independence fighting against a great European Power, and which, thanks to the rule of two Presidents of genius and patriotism, Juarez and Porfirio Diaz, enjoys at present a prosperity unexampled in its annals. An American friend who spent some months there the year before last wrote to me that life and property were safer in Mexico than in the United States. I have had exactly the same account from an English resident of eight years' experience. If President Diaz were willing to undertake the burthen, I feel convinced that he would introduce as good order in Cuba as he has done in Mexico, whilst the entering of the Island State into the Mexican Confederation should vastly benefit the trade of the latter. The Cabana are, I should think, far more likely to accept union with a Republic peopled by men of their own race than with one of aliens, and the United States would be released alike from the responsi- bility of a troublesome amalgamation or of a troublesome protectorate. To Spaniards themselves it ought to be less galling to hand over Cuba to their kinsmen over the seas than to the Americans, just as, conversely, it would be less galling to England to hand over, say, Jamaica to the United States than to Spain.—I am, Sir, &o., J. M. LUDLOW.
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