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The Crisis in Cuba: Public

Cuba pays $2,192,795 in pensions to those on the retired list and to superannuated officials not in service. Most of the money is exported. Also with this often repeated and undisputed disposition of Cuba revenue: Interest on part of Spanish national debt $10,500,000 Spanish army and navy 6,900,000 Government of the Island 4,036,000 Pensions, Monts-de-Piete, etc 2,000,000 Justice 995,000 Public treasury 708,000 Public works 588,000 Public instruction (superior) 182,200 Common schools! 0 $25,909,200 Of this, it is the Cuban claim, sixty-six per cent. of the taxes in the Island goes to the peninsula, as plainly as if sent off in treasure ships in the old style.

When it is considered that the Spanish "reforms," that were withheld, as we are often told, because the insurrection broke forth, were unreal--did not change the fact that the only actual authority was adjusted to remain in Spain--no true home rule even attempted, and the policy of massacre is carried out while business men confer--the impossibility of advancing peace measures is demonstrated, and the horrors of the situation appear the more vividly. The dreadful narratives thrust upon our attention emphasize the deadly nature of the Cuban crisis. There is a culmination of horrors. The wretched fugitives from the bloody fields and country houses in ashes are hastening wildly to Havana and other cities and the towns, fleeing from murder and famine, to sleep and wander in the unclean streets, to meet the pestilence. How the carnival of blood, the massacres that are called combats, and the exterminating assassinations are to be prevented, in any way moderated, or even their increase checked, is a question as difficult as the situation is deplorable. The president is called upon to take action. It is not his duty to declare war, with Congress in session, but he must have enough evidence before him to authorize the most serious representations by our consul-general to the captain-general of Cuba, and by the minister to Spain to the government of that country; and it will not be sufficient for the Spanish general in command to discredit all the news of an unofficial character that comes from Cuba, or for the Spanish government to refuse to listen to offers of good offices from the United States, and to go on speaking of their inflexible pride and indomitable purpose.

We know enough about that. We know well that more than forty years ago Spain was hard-pressed in the course of the Ostend conference policy, and that it did become her dignity then to decline to accept our suggestions. We are aware that it was the right of Spain to refuse to sell her last great American possession, and she could do that again without justly incurring our ill will. We are aware of the false representations that were made of the Lopez and the Virginius affairs by the filibusters were countenanced in this country--but that was chiefly on account of the inhumanity, the savagry of the shooting of prisoners by scores--but we remember General Prim, when ruler of Spain, treated representations from our government that his country might advantageously give up Cuba, with calm consideration, no display whatever of indignation. We know how frantic the Spaniards grow at the thought that we want Cuba, and with what insanity they assert that she is their own affair, and they will never tolerate any interference.

We beg pardon, but maybe they will! It is possible that they must. Cuba is an American island--the American island--and we, the United States are the great American power, and have some rights that are imperial, and we can assert them in a spirit of justice, and a potentiality that there is no power on the earth that can hinder. We know it is the most familiar thing outside our country in the history of this hemisphere--Spain has parted with her enormous American colonies, from Chili to California, and we speak within bounds in saying, because she was incapable of fair play to colonists. She would rule them as she has ruled Cuba, and has therefore lost the position in the world that her American possessions would have given her, through her implacable injustice, her irrational and unappeasable greed. We know, too, that Spain gave up the Floridas to us, and that she once was the proprietor of all the ample shores of the gulf of Mexico, and they are all gone from her but Cuba, standing a sorrowful, reproachful, solitary sentinel, the sombre, needless guardian of the gate of the lost empire. Now, shall she cling with defiant desperation forever to this final fragment of what was the Spanish world, and is now a mournful monument of misgovernment and misfortune, and assert the right to murder a people who refuse to be the servants of her servants, and jeer at us that we have no right of humanity to protest--we the nearest neighbor and predominant power--no privilege of Christianity or chivalry, to see that a race born on American soil shall not perish from the earth at the hands of carpet baggers from over the sea, who refuse all forms of self government, to those they have oppressed for generations? Cannot some Spanish statesman rise with the will and the force to save his own country from the ruin that is impending for Spain? Shall she commit suicide because Cuba is not to be hers again?

Spain is stumbling down a dark and bloody road to her doom, and she should find in herself the manliness and wisdom to preserve her from the inevitable consequences of a relentless resolution to avenge herself upon her children, because they resent her stupid and woeful tyranny, and resist, torch and knife in hand, the policy of massacre that threatens to be the most hideous chapter of human crime and misery. There is frivolous talk in Spain of war with the United States. We would not be boastful of ability to assert ourselves, because Spain is a weak power; but we may, in a war becoming barbarous, interpose with the preservation of our own equipoise, to command the peace; and we may close the crisis in peace, if we rise to the occasion, ready with the sword and the supreme moral force that has accepted the challenge of fate and the duty of destiny. Thus we shall impose no calamity on any one, but give relief to Spain, freedom to Cuba, and dignity and glory to ourselves. We are the true and competent America. We need shed no drop of blood--for the price of peace and honor, for us and for all in this crisis, is the courage that accepts the hazard of taking the fateful responsibility with absolute resolution.

THE CURRENCY CRISIS.

There is a currency crisis impending in Cuba. The money measure thus far has been the ounce of gold. The Spanish gold is not so fine as the American, and, therefore, United States gold there commands a premium over Spanish gold--hence the humor of buying a small article, paying in a half eagle, and getting a Spanish five dollar gold-piece and some silver change in return. Spanish gold is at a premium over silver, and there has been no paper money. The Spanish five dollar piece is the current measure. A bill in a shop or hotel is settled in Spanish gold, and if paid in American gold there is something coming on every dollar, and if the payment is in silver, a number of dollars, equal to the sum named in the bill does not go until the premium is added. The ounce of gold, 900 fine, may be styled the unit, and there are close calculations in paying bills. There has not been a scrap of paper money in circulation in Cuba, but there is to be an issue of notes, and the public are apprehensive, and not at all pleased with the probability, as they remember that the paper floated during the last war was not redeemed at par, and that its fluctuations in value were exceedingly annoying. In the United States, where a dollar is one hundred cents, and where paper, gold, silver, nickel and copper money are absolutely on a par, many people do not realize the discomfort of a fluctuating currency. The present condition of money there should particularly interest the free silver advocates of the United States. Nobody can tell now at what rate the paper money to be issued will pass, but it certainly will not be the same as either gold or silver. A Havana correspondent gives this interesting article: "The monetary unit here is the peso, which takes the form of a large silver piece, about the same size as an American dollar. It is divided into five pesetas, each presumably worth twenty centavos, or cents. The real--worth ten centavos--is the smallest silver piece in circulation, as the half reals have been withdrawn. The centavos are big, clumsy, copper coins, much larger than American cents. The smallest gold coin now issued by the Spanish mint is the centen--on which is stamped the announcement that it is worth twenty-five pesetas, five pesos. As gold is at a premium here and silver at a discount, the values do not agree. The centen is worth from $6 to $6.10 in silver, and as much as $6.43 in copper money, but no ordinary man would think of getting change in copper, as he would have to hire a pack mule to take it home, and then he would have to get rid of it in driblets, as cabmen object to taking twenty cents in copper, and small merchants do likewise, preferring silver and insisting upon getting it. "The gold centen has a premium of six percent., and the coin passes for $5.30 everywhere. Ten centens are always $53 for the purchase of articles in local business houses, though importing merchants pay for their goods abroad without getting a premium. All large bills are payable in gold, and the hotels and restaurants always specify that the prices given for food and drinks are in gold. The fact is that in paying for food and drinks in cash, silver is taken; if the bill is paid at the end of the week the guest loses money. For convenience, merchants count the value of the centen as $6 in silver; that is if you see an article in a shop window marked $2.50 gold, that means that you pay on the basis of $6 silver for the centen. "The small shops get very little gold. Their prices are for silver, but when they pay the wholesaler they must get gold. The result is exchange offices all over the city--dozens of them around the markets and main centers of trade. To these Cases de Cambio men go to have their centens turned into silver. The prices of the day are usually posted on the outside, and sometimes there is a difference of a cent or two between neighboring places. In the last month the price has ranged from $6.04 to $6.08, varying every day, according to the demand. Money brokers all announced that they will pay more for large quantities of centens. "Naturally, the chief sufferer is the laborer, who is paid in silver, and who loses all the way through the transaction. Prices of small things are extraordinarily high, even considering the small value of the money. For instance, Rocquefort cheese brings 80 centavos a pound, American soda crackers 45 centavos a pound box, American caramels, cheapest grade, one peso a pound; draught beer ten centavos a glass, American, German, or English beer or ale, 35 to 40 cents a bottle, and so on all the way through. Washing is a very expensive item in a hot climate, where constant changes of linen are necessary. The hotel laundries charge 25 centavos for shirts and nightshirts, ten cents for cuffs, and five for collars. "Money was never so scarce in Havana as it is to-day, and yet the capital suffers less in proportion than any other point on the Island. One effect of the war has been to concentrate the population almost entirely in the larger cities; whole hamlets have been deserted and laid in ruins by one side or the other for fear that the enemy would utilize the houses; rich men have become poor and homeless, workmen have been suddenly deprived of all means of earning a livelihood; the supply of provisions has been cut down everywhere, and prices of food have increased. A large proportion of the residences are offered to let, and handsome houses could be obtained now for a mere fraction of the money they formerly brought. Many large business houses have already closed their doors, and others have decreased their force of clerks, reduced the salaries of those retained, and even at the present basis find there is no profit, and contemplate giving up until times are better. Outgoing streamers continue crowded with passengers, while those that arrive are practically empty. Beggars spring up at every step in the streets, with tales of starvation and misery--one hears of nothing but poverty." The appearance of paper money will be regarded in Havana as another symptom that the decline of the old order has reached the falling state. The cause of the crisis in Cuba, deeper even than the antiquated economy that discriminates against natives in their own country, or the demonstrably unjust taxation--the corrupt intolerance by the foreign office-holding class, and all the list of vindictive discrimination by the peninsular powers against the producers of the Island, is displayed in a striking characterization of the contending races, by A. Gallenger, in his work, "The Pearl of the Antilles," published in London in 1873. Gallenger says:

The real bane of social life in Havana lies in the deep-seated and hardly smothered animosity of race, one and the same race, yet irreconcilably divided against itself. There is no hatred in the world to be compared to that of the Cuban for Spain, and everything Spanish. The creole conceives that he alone is entitled to breathe the balmy air of his tropical Island, and plainly intimates that he longs for the day in which he shall be rid of the Spanish, and of every other alien intruder coming her to suck the very life-blood from his veins. The peninsular or native Spaniard, who, in order to make things as he wishes, thinks that it is enough for him to declare that they are so, never mentions Cuba without calling it "this emphatically Spanish Island." He flatters himself that he has crushed the creole, and affects to ignore him. The worst is, that to a stranger's eye the split is nowhere apparent; the line of demarcation is not visibly drawn. The Guelph and Ghibelline go past with no outward distinction, showing no symptom of the enmity which may at every moment array them in hostile camps. There is no open insurrection within more than 100 miles of Havana; there has been no serious disturbance in the town since the bloody execution of March, 1871. But there is a vast amount of plot and intrigue fatal to all loyal, social, and even domestic, intercourse; a depth of simulation and dissimulation, of spoken and acted lies, not to be fathomed by a stranger on a mere superficial survey. The Peninsular is sure of the day; the Cuban is confident of the morrow. The Spaniard relies on brute strength; the Cuban puts his trust in superior intelligence. Between the insurgent bands in the fields, and their patriot associates in Havana, there is incessant, and by no means unenterprising, communication. The underground war is going on in every street, and almost in every house, in this city. The Spaniard fancies he can afford to treat the creole with ineffable disdain. He taunts him with cowardice and unthrift. He looks upon him as a degenerate being, incapable of overt action, of manly resolution, and, perhaps, he is safe enough in Havana itself. But the Cuban bides his time. He reckons on the chapter of accidents, on the chronic disorders of the mother-country, on the sympathies of the American Union, of Mexico, of the Central and South American republics, where the name of Spain is as heartily execrated as in the camp of Cespedes himself; and, above all things, on the deluge that must needs ensue upon any attempt at the solution of the fatal slavery question. The creole of the city is certainly a weakly, rickety, frivolous creature, distinguishable by his long, scraggy neck and thin, fluted legs, addicted to indolent habits and enervating pleasures, trained by long schooling to abject submission, destitute of all energy; but there is, as he knows, better stuff among his brethren of the rural population. The Cuban travels and learns, and throughout the Island education is more generally spread than among the ruling race, especially among the lower classes of prejudiced and bigoted peninsular immigrants. The Spanish settlers own very nearly the mass of the landed property, and of the movable wealth of the country; they have the lion's share of the trade of Havana in their hands, partly in consequence of their superior thrift and activity, but in a great measure owing to the privileges and monopolies awarded to them by a partial, grasping, and unscrupulous administration. The fortune accumulated by the peninsular father not infrequently goes to wreck and ruin in the hands of his improvident creole progeny. Still, the base of the peninsular prosperity, both agricultural and commercial, rests on slavery; and the creole thinks, not unreasonably, that with the abolition of slave--labor a new balance of fortune will have to be established, in which all the chances will be in his own favor. It is remarkable that at the time this was published (1873) slavery had already passed away, though the formal abolition of the institution had not been perfected. The Spanish influence exerted by Martinez Campos was for ending slavery, and, no doubt, the anticipation was that the free blacks would prefer the Spaniards to the creoles. One of Captain--General Weyler's moves, in the first days of his supreme authority, was to invite the friendliness of the black people. The black rebels are among the bravest of the fighters for freedom, and the disappointed and angry Spaniards speak of the "negro insurrection."