No. 574.
Mr. Lowell
to Mr. Evarts.
Legation of
the United States,
Madrid, November 11, 1879.
(Received December 1.)
No. 216.]
Sir: The preoccupation of all minds and the topic
of all public and private discussion for the last few weeks have been the
reforms of the island of Cuba Both the opposition and the immediate
followers and dependents of the minister most important and influential as
apolitical manager of those who went out of office in March (Señor Romero
Robledo) are hoping to gain something by the embarrassments of the
government.
[Page 890]
The Martinez Campos
cabinet submitted their plan of emancipation and reforms to the Córtes on
the 5th, and I inclose copy and translation of it. This will without doubt
be accepted, receiving, as it will, the support of Señor Cánovas del
Castillo, of the bulk of the liberal conservatives, and of the
constitutionalists, who, though they might prefer another plan, are
committed in favor of abolition. The scheme of the government is a kind of
compromise, as you will see, between gradualism and immediatism, between
compensation and no compensation to the inasters, but will serve its purpose
of complete emancipation without directly recommending it; for I believe
nobody expects that the system of guardianship will work, or that slaves can
be kept by emancipation, the attempt to cross slavery with freedom being in
its very nature futile. The proposed law was no doubt framed to satisfy the
scruples of those who are willing to vote for immediate abolition, provided
they can be made to seem to be voting for something else.
It is understood that the convention of Zanjon committed General Martinez
Campos to very prompt and comprehensive measures not only in respect of
slavery, but of commercial, financial, and tributary reforms likewise, and
the pledges of the general are certainly binding on the government that
accepted and approved them.
The real pinch of the Cuban question is not slavery, but commercial reform.
It is here that the ministry will encounter the active and strenuous
opposition of the protectionists, who form a large and influential part of
their own supporters, and who have many specious pleas which appeal in turn
to provincial selfishness and peninsular pride. The cabinet have deferred as
long as they decently could the bringing of the Cuban question before the
Cortes, and now they have begun with that part of it about which all parties
are agreed that something decisive must be done and done soon. Of the more
difficult politico-economic topic they still hesitate to provoke a
discussion. In the mean time the deputies and senators from Cuba, though
generally belonging or professing to belong to the liberal-conservative
party, are said to have held a meeting in which they resolved to withdraw in
a body from the Chambers, should there be any further unreasonable delay on
the part of the government in making the nature, extent, and scope of such
commercial reforms as it is disposed to recommend.
It would be premature to indulge in any prognostication before the questions
are brought before the Cortes, and the debates begin.
* * * * * * *
The only firm conclusion I have been enabled to draw is that the gravity of
the Cuban question is hardly yet understood in Spain, that one of the very
few persons who seems to have some conception of it is General Martinez
Campos, and that everything will depend on the ability he may show of
impressing his opinions on others, either by force of argument or by
political pressure.
* * * * * * *
Predictions of his overthrow are more rife than ever, but that would leave
the situation unchanged, and the Cuban sphinx would confront his successor
with the old riddle. I do not see why Señor Cánovas del Castillo should be
readier for the part of Œdipus in December than in March.
* * * * * * *
Great opportunities imply corresponding risks, and in this instance the
Spanish statesman who is clear-sighted enough to see the one, and resolute
enough to incur the other, has not yet betrayed himself.
I have, &c.,
[Page 891]
[Appendix B to Mr. Lowell’s No.
216.—Translation.]
proposed law.
- Article I. From the day of the
publication of this law in the Havana Gazette the condition of
slavery shall cease in the island of Cuba.
- Art. II. All persons of both sexes,
without infraction of the law of July 4, 1870, and its provisions,
who shall be found in slavery at the date when this law is
published, shall remain under the guardianship of those who shall
have owned them, who shall pass from the relation of owner to that
of guardian. This guardianship shall last eight years, and shall be
transmissible so long as it may exist by all the means known to the
law, besides being capable of renunciation for just causes.
- Art. III. In virtue of the guardianship
to which the preceding article refers, the guardian shall preserve
the right of utilizing the labors of the manumitted persons who
remain under his charge, and shall have the attributes which may
belong to him as guardian in conformity with the law.
- Art. IV. The obligations of the guardian
in respect of those under his charge shall be:
- 1.
- To maintain them.
- 2.
- To clothe them.
- 3.
- To assist them in sickness.
- 4.
- To pay them monthly the wages prescribed by law.
- 5.
- To give them, if minors, primary instructions and the
education necessary to exercise a trade or calling.
- 6.
- To feed, clothe, and assist in sickness during their
infancy and childhood the children of those under
guardianship born before and after the guardianship, so long
as it may last, and to enjoy the service of the latter
without compensation.
- Art. V. The guardianship of those thus
protected shall not be transferred without transferring to the same
patron that of the children under twelve years of age, and that of
their fathers and mothers respectively. In no case shall those be
separated who constitute a family, whatever its origin.
- Art. VI. The monthly wages to which
Article IV refers shall be from one to two dollars for those wards
under eighteen years of age. These wages shall be paid to the
parents if known, and in default of them to the legal representative
established for the formation of a private fund of savings. For all
above that age, the wages shall be two dollars a month for the first
year, two and a half for the second, and three for the third and for
the remaining years of guardianship. The last wages that shall be
paid by the guardian to those employed in domestic service shall be
three dollars, though more may be paid by mutual agreement.
- Art. VII. The guardianship shall cease—
- 1st.
- By extinction by lot in such sort that it may end within
eight years after-publication of this law.
- 2d.
- By mutual agreement between guardian and ward, without
outside intervention, except that of the parents if known,
and in their default of the local magistrates in the case of
those under twenty years, this age being determined in the
manner set forth in Article XV.
- 3d.
- By the renunciation of the guardianship for just
cause.
- 4th.
- By all the causes for manumission established by the penal
code, and by any other proved abuses of the guardian, or if
the latter should fail in the duties imposed by Article
IV.
- All those who cease to be wards shall enjoy their civil rights
under the conditions and limitations defined by the common law, but
shall remain under the protection of the state during the term of
four years for the purposes set forth in Article IX.
- Art. VIII. The extinction of the
guardianship by lot referred to in the first paragraph of the
preceding article shall only extend to the wards included in Article
II of this law, and shall fake place by fourth parts, beginning at
the end of the fifth year of guardianship, continuing at the end of
the successive years, and concluding finally with that of the
eighth. In this lottery, which shall be general for all the island
on the 31st of December of the year in which it takes place, those
who hold the lowest numbers shall cease to be wards, remaining,
however, under protection of the state for the periods designated in
Articles VII, IX, and XII. The regulations shall fix the form,
method, and extent of the registers and lists which are to serve for
the drawings, the method of performing them, the previous and
concurrent conditions of publicity of the same, and the system of
substitution of those who having drawn lucky numbers are to have
their places filled either on account of death, or because they are
no longer wards on the day of the drawing.
- Art. IX. The guardianship established by
this law having ended by lot, by the renunciation of the guardians,
by their faults or by mutual agreement, the wards shall continue
subject to the laws and regulations which impose the necessity of
proving a contract for hire or a known trade or employment. Those
who are under twenty
[Page 892]
years
and have no parents, or parents still under guardianship, shall
remain under the immediate protection of the state.
- Art. X. The obligation to prove an
engagement to labor referred to in the preceding article, for those
who have ceased to be wards, shall last four years, and those who
fail in it in the judgment of the governmental authority,
concurrently with the local magistracy, shall be considered vagrants
with all its legal consequences and subject to service in the
regular army or to employment on the public works. At the end of the
four years to which this article applies those who shall have been
wards shall enjoy, within the limits of the common law, all their
civil and political rights.
- Art. XI. Those persons who may have
arranged terms of manumission with their masters at the time of the
publication of the present law, shall retain all their rights under
such contracts, and their relations with their guardians shall be
established by mutual accord, approved by the local or provincial
magistrates on the basis of the rights and obligations prescribed by
said law.
- Art. XII. All persons of both sexes who,
in virtue of the provisions of the law of 4th of July, 1870, may be
free, because born since the 17th of September, 1868, shall he
subject to the prescriptions of that law, except where those of the
present maybe more to their advantage. Other persons freed in virtue
of said law of 1870 shall remain under the immediate protection of
the state and be obliged to prove during the next four years the
contract for hire and other conditions of employment referred to in
Article IX. Those who infringe this precept shall be deemed vagrants
for all legal consequences in the sense defined by section XXV of
Article X of the penal code, and shall be subject to the provisions
of Article X.
- Art. XIII. In every province shall be
formed a commission, presided over by the governor, or, in his
default, by the president of the provincial board, composed of one
member of said board, one of the largest tax-payers, the judge of
the lower court, and the district attorney, precedence being
determined by date of commission where there is more than one court,
which commission shall see to the exact fulfillment of the present
law.
- In towns where it may be fitting in the judgment of the respective
governors, and with the approval of the governor-general, local
commissions under the presidency of the mayor shall be formed,
composed of the city attorney, one of the largest tax-payers, the
judge, and public prosecutor, if there be any, and where not, two
respectable householders who were not slaveholders when the present
law was promulgated, which commissions shall see to the observance
thereof, putting themselves in relation with the provincial
commissions in order to remedy abuses and infractions that may come
to their knowledge. A special regulation shall determine the
character and attributions of said commissions as well local as
provincial.
- The public prosecuting officers, in the exercise of the faculties
which have been or may be conferred on them by law, will also see to
the exact fulfillment of the present law, and, as the official
representatives of all those hereby put under guardianship, will
complain and give formal notice to the judicial authorities of
whatever abuses and irregularities may come to their knowledge by
their own observation, by that of their agents, or by the accusation
of others.
- Art. XIV. For the formation of the
savings funds to which Article VI refers, the guardians shall pay
every month the wages of minors who have lost their parents or whose
parents are on another estate, to the local commissions created by
the preceding article. These savings shall be centralized in the
provincial commissions and paid over to their owners when they have
attained their full civil rights. The regulations will determine in
what cases and under what conditions said savings are to be
deposited in the savings banks.
- Art. XV. Those shall be considered
minors under the provisions of this law who can be proved to be
under twenty years of age, and when this is not the case the age
shall be decided by the local commissions in view of the physical
condition of the minors after an examination by experts.
- Art. XVI. Guardians shall in no case
inflict corporal punishment on their wards, even on the pretext of
maintaining the order and discipline of labor on their estates. They
diminish the monthly wages in proportion to the faults of the ward,
but of the sums produced by this pecuniary punishment a fund shall
be formed by each guardian for the recompense and reward of the
other laborers under his wardship who may deserve it. The local and
provincial commissions will look with special vigilance to the exact
performance of this provision.
- Art. XVII. The wards referred to in
Article II of this law shall be subject to the ordinary courts and
tribunals for crimes and offenses of which they may be guilty, in
accordance with the penal code, being excepted from this rule the
crimes of rebellion, sedition, assaults, and public disorders,
which, during the continuance of the wardship, shall be tried by
courts-martial.
- Art. XVIII. The regulations mentioned in
this law are to be drawn up by the governor-general of the island of
Cuba within thirty days after its promulgation and remitted by the
first mail to the government, which will decide definitely and at
the same time upon all points after consultation with the council of
state in full meeting.
- Art. XIX. All laws, regulations, and
provisions conflicting with the present law are hereby repealed,
without prejudice to the rights already acquired by slaves and
freedmen in accordance with the law of July 4, 1870, in so far as
these are not expressly modified by the preceding articles.
Madrid, November 4,
1879.
