United States
Legation in Spain,
Madrid, December 15, 1872.
(Received Jan. 6, 1873.)
No. 506.]
It is gratifying to see the minister recognizing the necessity of a redress
of grievances in Cuba as being quite as essential as force in effecting the
pacification of the island. You will also observe the significant doubt
expressed in relation to the real parties sustaining the war in Cuba, and
their motive.
The flagrant misconduct of the Spanish officials in the island is
unhesitatingly confessed.
[Appendix B.—Translation.]
Extract from the reply of the colonial secretary to
Mr. Martinez Villergas. Chamber of Deputies,
December 12, 1872.
[From La Gaceta de
Madrid, December 13, 1872.]
The Minister of the Colonies, (Mr.
Gasset y Artime): * *
There is at the bottom of Mr. Villergas’s
proposition (and in this I find an additional reason to deplore its
inopportuneness) some trace of a spirit in opposition to the views I
believed were held by him as a republican, in common with all
republicans, concerning the colonial question. Is it possible, Mr.
Villergas, for the transmarine provinces to
remain in the same situation as before the revolution of September? Is
Mr. Villergas a partisan of the statu quo? Is he a defender of certain interests? Does he
imagine that the best way to defend them is to sustain the statu quo at all hazards? As Mr.
Villergas has skimmed over these points with
great prudence, it is but fair for me to show the same prudence, and not
go beyond him on this ground.
Mr. Villergas has said that measures to
re-establish, restore, and give honest government to Cuba never come. It
is an arduous, a difficult enterprise; but I demand of Mr.
Villergas’s sense of justice, of his upright
spirit, of his sincerity, as revealed in his words to-day, that he tell
me what any government here has done what has been done to this end by
the government of which I am a member? I beg that Mr.
Villergas, who has a thorough knowledge of
events in Cuba, will tell me when he has ever seen greater energy shown
by its authorities, or greater decision on the part of the government in
helping them on their road. When has he seen eighteen officials brought
to trial in a single month, or when has he seen the customs revenues of
Havana increased by two millions in October and five and a half in
November? Is this nothing to Mr. Villergas? Does
Mr. Villergas know what takes place in the island
of Cuba? Does he not know what the government is accomplishing, in spite
of the difficulties it meets,” in the way of restoring honesty in that
corrupt administration! Ah! if I was in Mr.
Villergas’s place, if I were not bound to
silence by the position I occupy, how much I could say on this
point!
Mr. Villergas has gone some distance in a path where
I cannot follow him, for although the colonial minister is a sort of
universal minister, I have the good fortune not to be the minister of
war; but as the colonial minister I have my opinion, and that is, that
the war in Cuba is to be combated, rather than with soldiers, or at the
same time as with soldiers, by political means, for in the present state
of affairs measures of policy will be more efficacious toward success
than soldiers. It is, gentlemen, very problematical by whom, and why,
the war in Cuba is kept up as it is; and I, who have studied the matter
a little, as in duty bound, have not yet been able to solve this
problem.
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