Although assured that this measure was contemplated, I did not allow myself
to anticipate its appearance so soon, nor in a shape so well corresponding
to the declared wishes of the colonial minister. Indeed, the more I see of
Mr. Suñer y Capdevila the more I am persuaded of his
sincerity, energy, and diligence. Day before yesterday he presented to the
Cortes a proposition extending to Porto Rico unconditionally, and to Cuba
with a temporary qualification, the ample bill of rights embodied in the
first chapter of the Spanish constitution. I have reason to believe that not
many days will pass before he brings forward a radical measure of
emancipation in Cuba.
[Inclosure A.—Translation.]
Decree of July 12, 1873, revoking embargoes in Cuba.
preamble.
Animated by the principles of strict legality, which form the
unchangeable foundation of democratic teachings, and desirous of
realizing, in all that pertains to his department, the amplest
attainable right, the undersigned minister has endeavored, with zealous
care since he entered upon his duties, to give paramount attention to
the numerous and important questions which, in their relations to the
state of insurrection that exists in a portion of the territory of Cuba,
may lead to excesses of authority, arbitrary acts more or less grave, or
the employment of force against the personality of the inhabitants, all
of which are unfortunately too frequent in the history of all
internecine struggles.
Upon undertaking to study these questions, in the fulfillment of one of
the first duties of his office, the minister of the colonies found, and
could do no less than seek to reform, a state of things, in his
judgment, completely anomalous, namely, the existence of a great
accumulation of property, wrested from the hands of the legitimate
owners with no other formality than a simple executive order, and turned
over to an administrative control exercised with great irregularity in
the name of the government, to the notable depreciation of the products
of those estates, to the injury of the families dependent thereon for
support, and to the detriment of the public wealth, whose diminution is
the inevitable result of a want of regularity and order, and the absence
or withdrawal of individual interests in the control and management of
property.
Such a condition of things, besides being utterly at variance with a
political system whose fundamental basis must ever be justice, stern,
yet considerate, removed from the rancor of party spirit, and foreign to
all motives of passion, could lead to no other result than to embitter
mutual resentments more and more by the sad spectacle of misery, the
more keenly felt as it has been the more suddenly and unexpectedly
brought about, and must, moreover, tend to render profitless a great
part of the rich soil of the island, and to introduce disturbance and
disorder into the system of production, thus interfering with its due
development.
The Cuban insurgents, those in correspondence and relations with them,
and those who, more or less openly, lend them protection and aid, thus
contributing to prolong a cruel, bloody, and destructive war, doubtless
merit energetic suppression and exemplary punishment, and the more so
to-day when the government of the republic pledges to all citizens of
Spain, on either side of the seas, assured and efficacious guarantees of
respect for the rights of all, and offers the means of maintaining their
opinions
[Page 1009]
and propagating
them and causing their ideas to triumph in the only manner in which
ideas can triumph in a social structure, raised upon the solid
foundations of reason, truth, and right.
But even the need of such punishment can confer upon no government the
power to deprive those of its citizens who stray from the right path, of
their individual means of support, and to enforce upon their families
the hitter necessity of begging to-day the bread that abounded but
yesterday on their tables as the fruit of their labor or their
economy.
Apart from the foregoing considerations, there cannot be found in
international law (derecho de gentes) any precept
or principle authorizing this class of seizures which bear upon their
face the stamp of confiscation; neither under any sound judicial theory
is it admissible to proceed in such a manner; nor yet can the
exceptional state of war authorize, under any pretext, the adoption of
preventive measures of such transcendent importance, and whose results,
on the other hand, will inevitably be diametrically opposed to the
purpose that inspired them.
In consideration, therefore, of the facts thus set forth, the undersigned
minister presents for the approval of the council the following draft of
a decree.
Madrid, July 12,
1873.
The Minister of the
Colonies,
FRANCISCO SUÑER y
CAPDEVILA.
decree.
In consideration of the representations set forth by the minister of the
colonies, the government of the republic decrees the following:
- Article I. All embargoes put upon
the property of insurgents and disloyal persons (infidentis) in Cuba, by executive order
in consequence of the decree of April 20, 1869, are declared
removed from the date when this present decree, published in the
Madrid Gazette, shall reach the capital of the island of
Cuba.
- Article II. All property
disembargoed, by virtue of the provisions of the preceding
article, shall be forthwith delivered up to its owners or legal
representatives, without requiring from them any other
justification or formality than such as may be necessary to show
the right under which they claim its restoration, or for their
personal identification.
- Article III. In order that questions
growing out of the preceding provisions may be decided with
greater accuracy and dispatch, the captain-general, superior
civil governor of the island of Cuba, shall forthwith proceed to
organize, under his own chairmanship, a board composed of the
president of the audiencia as vice-chairman, the intendente of
Cuba, the civil governor of Havana, the attorney-general
(fiscal) of the audiencia, and the secretary of the superior
civil government, who shall act as secretary of the board,
having voice and vote therein; and this board shall summarily,
and in the shortest possible time, decide upon such applications
as may be made by the interested parties, without any other
appeal than may be taken to the government of the republic
through the colonial ministry.
- Article IV. The board of authorities
charged, under the foregoing article, with the disembargo and
restoration of property of insurgents and disloyal persons, may,
whenever it shall appear needful to the more thorough decision
of these questions, consult the board of the public debt, (junta de la denda del tesoro,) heretofore
charged with the administration of property embargoed by
executive order, and may ask and obtain from the tribunals of
every jurisdiction, and from all other dependencies of the
State, the data and antecedents which may be deemed needful to
such decision.
- Article V. The minister of the
colonies shall issue the necessary instructions for the
execution of the present decree, or shall definitively approve
those which may be prepared to the same end by the board of
disembargoes.
Madrid, July 12,
1873.
- The President of the Government of the
Republic,
FRANCISCO PI y MARGALL. - The Minister of the
colonies,
Francisco Suñer y Capdevila.
