recognized principles of international rights and duties to declare that in the absence of a recognized state of war it was no offense in the sailing vessels and steamers of the United States to carry arms and munitions of war for whomsoever it might concern.

This is in reference to the former rebellion, of which the present is a mere repetition, only it is with higher lights upon it and in more exaggerated form.

Mr. Fish continues:

The undersigned has uniformly said that no government can by the law of nations be held responsible for shipments of arms, munitions, or materials of war made by private individuals at their own risk and peril. If a state of war should exist, if Spain should be entitled to the rights of a belligerent, parties concerned in the shipment of arms and military supplies for her enemy would incur the risk of confiscation by her of their goods; but their act would involve no ground of reclamation against their government in behalf of Spain, and consequently no right to invoke the aid of that government in preventing the perpetration of the act. Such it is believed is the established law of nations, and such the received rule even when the shipment of arms and munitions is made from the territory of the country whose citizens may be the parties engaged in the introduction of these supplies for the use of one of the belligerents.

At another place he goes on to speak of the right of citizens of the United States, notwithstanding our very severe statutes upon that subject, to pass from these shores with any sort of war material, to land them on the Island of Cuba at any place that they can land, being responsible, if they are caught, only as smugglers, not responsible for treason, or rebellion, or insurrection because the arms may be used by men engaged in such conduct after they have been delivered in Cuba.

Here is a man engaged, according to our views of international law, as expressed, and specifically, under the terms of the treaty of 1795, in an enterprise that in itself is legally innocent, an enterprise for which the Government of Spain has no right to punish him except as it would punish a smuggler if he had been caught smuggling goods in there without paying the revenue. It has no such right, even under its own law-I speak of the law; I do not speak of the decrees of the Captain-General, for, Mr. President, as to us the decrees of the Captain. General are not laws when they contravene the treaty rights that are reserved to us under the treaty of 1795 and the subsequent modification of that agreement. This innocent young man approached the Island of Cuba without any arms, on this mission of peace really, this mission of public education, which to him was a resource of living. He was captured, tried in the manner I have stated here, and condemned. The supreme court at Madrid reversed the decision and remanded his case more than ten months ago, and there he lingers in jail, and no President and no person raises a hand for the purpose of extricating him. Now, whether there are seventy-four prisoners in Cuba or seventy-four thousand, or whether there is but one, in the person of Ona Melton, this Arkansas youth, the flag of the United States, if it refuses to shelter him, is a disgraced rag.

No credit is attached to anything that is said by an American newspaper correspondent. No, sir; we have that mean vice in this country that we believe no man with an American tongue in his head unless he can corroborate his statements by somebody else, and if he can get a man from Great Britain to do it, then it all goes down all right. Here is a gentleman, Mr. Akers, who is the correspondent of the London Times, and who has been a commissioner of that paper for several years, having visited various parts of the world. He came here on his way to Europe and informed the State Department of his mission to Cuba and what he was

going for. He was going to reside in Cuba and get information of the actual situation and communicate it to the London Times, and from time to time he did so. He gave impartial accounts, and some of them-most of them, indeed-were even more scathing in their criticism upon Spanish customs and usages and conduct in Cuba than those of the American correspondents who have been banished from the island on the pretense that they were making misrepresentations with regard to the situation in Cuba.

For the purpose of getting it before the Senate I desire to have the Secretary read a paper that was written by Mr. Akers to the editor of the New York World, and which appeared in that paper recently, some time during the last week. I desire to have the whole of it read, because it is a summary of the situation in Cuba. I trust at least that it will not fall upon dull ears when it reaches those gentlemen who have the habit of believing that everything British is right and that whatever a British man states must be the truth. The evidence, however, is of inherent force as to the rectitude of his statement. Will the Secretary please read as indicated? The Secretary read as follows:

To the Editor of the World:

The end of the dry season is now at hand, and Spain has accomplished little toward the pacification of Cuba.

Certain gains have most certainly fallen to the Spaniards, the death of Maceo in December and the capture of Ruis Rivera a few days ago being the most notable. But at what cost has the campaign been conducted!

The provinces of Pinar del Rio and Habana and large portions of Matanzas and Santa Clara are one staring mass of cinders.

Desolation and extermination meet the eye at every point; ruin in the present, famine, disease, and death in the future, are all that the Cubans can hopə for while Cuba remains under Spanish rule.

Under these circumstances I do not think that the death of this or that leader can bring victory any nearer to the Spanish arms. Where one such man as Ruis Rivera is lost to the insurgents a hundred spring up to take his place.

NO GREAT MILITARY GENIUS ESSENTIAL.

Moreover, it must not be forgotten that this guerrilla warfare needs not any great military genius to conduct it. It is, to a very great extent, "every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost." The only object in view is to keep the country in such a condition of unrest as to make imperative the presence of an enormous army of occupation. Small parties of 50 or 100 men scattered throughout the island can do this more effectively than a concentrated force of 20,000 or 30,000 men, upon which the Spanish commanderin-chief could at once mass greater numbers, equipped with superior armament.

General Weyler's policy of extermination and devastation is nothing short of the almost insane working of an ignorant and completely unbalanced mind. To kill peaceful people on the technicality that they have neglected to obey the order to leave their homes and take up their residence in some town where no means of subsistence exist is inexcusable.

To devastate the whole Island of Cuba on the plea that by so doing all supplies will be shut off from the rebels only demonstrates the dense ignorance under which the Spanish general is laboring.

REBELS CAN GET ENOUGH FOOD FOR TEN YEARS.

The rebels can get food enough to live on for another ten years if neces sary, while the cattle alone now roaming wild in the different districts will supply the insurgents with beef for a couple of years to come.

Hard living it may be, no doubt, but better subsist on the roots, the game, and the fish that are the natural products of the island than starve to death in crowded villages surrounded by Spanish soldiery. That, at least, is the idea dominating the bulk of the Cubans to-day, and Weyler's policy has helped that idea to take the practical form of joining the rebel ranks rather than obeying the order to come into the towns.

Of the Spaniards resident in Cuba there are few who approve of General Weyler's methods. Some doubtless do so because they fear with intense dread that the Cubans may win their independence, and when that time ar rives treat the Spanish element in the future as the Cubans have been treated in the past.

Of course, if Cuba gains her independence, the Spaniards must make their

choice of becoming Cuban citizens or retaining their Spanish nationality. If they elect the latter alternative, they naturally will lose all power to control public affairs.

CUBANS ALWAYS HUMANE.

Granted, however, that Cuban independence becomes un fait accompli, I do not believe, from my experience of the Cuban people, that any undue harshness would be shown toward the Spaniards. As a rule, wherever Spanish soldiers have been taken prisoners by the rebels they have been kindly treated, tended to if wounded, and often returned to the nearest Spanish military post without any condition being exacted.

The great majority of Spaniards with vested interests in the island condemn General Weyler and his practices in most unmeasured terms. Even the fear of being marked down as political suspects, with the prospect of transportation to an African penal settlement does not deter them from expressing openly their hatred of the régime now in vogue.

As for the foreigners resident in Cuba, they have but one feeling with regard to Weyler's methods of conducting the military operations. They consider Weyler and his actions as a reflex of the worst barbarities of the Middle Ages, far more brutal, indeed, than many of the most severe means employed by the Holy Inquisition to attain its ends.

And can they be blamed for passing such judgment on this fiend incarnate in human shape? Is there any precept advocated by God or man that justifies the wholesale slaughter of innocent men, women, and children on no other pretext than that they refuse to leave their homes and willingly submit to die slowly of starvation in such places as Weyler may order?

SLAUGHTER AND STARVATION.

The object of Weyler's present policy is to exterminate the Cuban people, a people composed of some 1,200,000 whites and 500,000 negroes or of mixed blood.

To kill every peaceful male inhabitant of the country is one of Weyler's methods; to drive the women and children into the towns to die of hunger is another.

General Weyler says that rations are issued to these poor wretches forced into garrison towns. I can only say that I have repeatedly asked about this reputed issue of rations from the poor people themselves, and the reply invariably is that there was some talk of this at first, but no such rations had ever been given. These people must beg for a little bread from day to day from neighbors better off than themselves, and when these sources are exhausted sit quietly down to watch their children and themselves waste slowly away, until a merciful death relieves them from their terrible sufferings. In these circumstances, is it wonderful that foreigners in Cuba have small sympathy for Spain in her struggle against her colonists?

SPAIN'S "HEROISM AND NOBLENESS UNMASKED.

A few pedantic individuals may talk of the heroic sacrifices and the noble efforts made by Spain to retain this last remnant of her once great colonial empire.

Is there anything heroic or noble in sending from Spain 200,000 raw and immature boys, not knowing the rudiments of a soldier's duty, to die of fever in some pestilential Cuban outpost?

Is there anything heroic or noble in shooting like dogs every prisoner of war taken in the field, or deporting thousands of men without show of trial to penal settlements because they are denounced as having sympathy with the rebellion?

Is there anything heroic or noble in reducing Cuba to ashes and plunging Spain into bankruptcy for no purpose whatever?

No. The truth is that the Spanish people are played upon by political cliques in Spain, and their quixotic feelings aroused for the single reason that certain politicians may benefit. It is time such criminal folly be ended, and nobody knows this better than the foreigner resident in Cuba.

DESPOTISM'S HEAVY HAND ON FOREIGNERS.

The cases are many in which the foreigner has fared as badly as the Cuban under this despotic and barbaric Government of Spain in Cuba.

There is the case of Ruis, done to death in the jail at Guanabacoa. Henry D'Abregeon, a well-known Canadian, foully murdered by Spanish soldiers while lying sick in bed in his house in Cartagena.

Dr. Delgado, who was shot and left for dead.

The ill-fated prisoners of the Competitor, now nearly eleven months in the dungeons of the Cabana.

Verily, there is small reason for any love to be lost between the foreign resident in Cuba and the Spanish authorities, who, indeed, have little other thought of the foreigner than that he is a creature to be robbed and imposed upon on every possible occasion.

For the moment, the Spanish policy professes more leniency to American citizens in particular and more clemency toward the rebels in general. I say "professes" advisedly, for there is small proof that such a policy is to be adopted as the outcome of mature deliberation and the decision that the measures in the past have been of too severe a nature.

THE TIGER'S CLAWS ARE DRAWN IN.

The real reason for any momentary change is the advent to power of the McKinley Administration. Just now Spain is as full of smirks and smiles, of courtesies and tricks, as a coquette of six seasons at least, or, better said, perhaps, the treacherous weather of an English springtime.

Spain made Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Olney dance to the tune she piped.

I have the authority of Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, the United States consul-general at Habana, for stating that.

Not in one single case since he assumed the duties of the Habana consulate have American prisoners been accorded the privileges they are entitled to under the Spanish-American treaty and protocols. General Lee states that his efforts to obtain the full treaty rights for Americans were invariably thwarted by instructions emanating from Mr. Olney in Washington.

The object of Spain in making concessions in connection with American citizens is simply for the purpose of feeling the pulse of the new Administration.

If the wiles of the Spanish minister are as successful in entrapping Mr. McKinley and Mr. Sherman as they were Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Olney, then good-bye to any hope for justice to American citizens or protection to American property in Cuba.

God grant that Spain's efforts to mislead the United States Government may this time prove a failure!

Take, for example, the one question of the right of the Cubans to buy war material in this country. War material is simply an article of merchandise, and why should it not be shipped to Cuba?

SPAIN'S THIMBLE-RIGGING DIPLOMACY.

When the subject crops up, Spain says that this constitutes a breach of the neutrality laws, and yet in the same breath she declares there is no war in Cuba. If, however, any case arise in which all constitutional guaranties and treaty rights are ignored, the Spanish authorities assert their right to such action because a state of war exists.

If this latter assertion be true, then Cuban prisoners are entitled to be treated according to the customary usages of modern warfare; if there is not any state of war, there can be no objection to war material as merchandise being exported from this country to Čuba, as it can be to any other quarter of the globe.

The paramount question for those with interests in Cuba is what chance there may be for a speedy termination of the existing condition of affairs and the restoration of a lasting peace, established on a sound and firm basis. This happy consummation can not be reached by the promulgation of any reforms Spain may see fit to grant to the Cuban people.

WEYLER KILLED HOPE FOR REFORMS.

The time is passed when a measure of reform could have satisfied the craving for liberty possessed by the Cubans. Weyler's brutal policy of the past fourteen months has effectually killed any hope in this direction.

General Weyler, apparently with the support of the Madrid Government, is evidently of opinion that the proper way to get rid of the trouble is to exterminate the Cubans.

With all due deference to the Spanish commander-in-chief, I do not believe such a plan is feasible, even if the United States would quietly continue, as hitherto, standing by and allowing the experiment to be tried.

The Cubans are to-day better armed and equipped and with greater num bers in their fighting ranks than at any time since the revolt began. They can continue a guerrilla warfare on the present lines for years, and there is every indication that they are prepared to do so.

Spain, on the other hand, to inaintain her present position, must send out reenforcements of at least 40,000 men during the current year to fill the gaps caused by sickness and the casualties of war. If the Spanish Government finds the resources of the mother country unequal to this further strain, then the alternative is to abandon the interior of the island and retain control only of the principal seaport towns and their immediate surroundings, and so nominally keep the Spanish flag flying over the Pearl of the Antilles. DON QUIXOTE IN THE SADDLE.

It is on the rock of finance that Spain must inevitably come to grief over this Cuban matter. Her resources are already from a common-sense view too heavily mortgaged to allow of any further continuance of this disastrous struggle. But Spain puts common sense on one side and acts as did the wonderful creation of Cervantes in days gone by.

The spirit of Don Quixote governs every feeling of the average Spanish individual when his patriotism is questioned just as much to-day as it did five centuries ago. The fact that Spain is bankrupt and Cuba ruined does not, therefore, mean that there is a prospect of an end of the strife in Cuba in the very near future.

MORE PAPER, HEAVIER TAXES, UNPAID TROOPS.

The cost of the war for at least another year will be met by unlimited issues of paper money, by additional taxation in Spain, by every device that financial ingenuity can concoct, and finally by not paying the troops at all, or, at best, giving them only a pittance of what is due to them.

In this way the struggle will be maintained for another year or eighteen months unless unforeseen causes precipitate a finish. In the end the people of Spain will awake to the fact that the condition of their country does not allow them to maintain huge armies at great distances from home.

That the intervention of the United States Government should take place to bring to a close the pitiable scenes now enacted in Cuba admits of no shadow of reasonable doubt.

The past policy of this country has been to cry, "Hands off!" to any European interference in Cuban matters. This policy was reiterated in the strongest terms in Mr. Cleveland's last message to Congress.

Does not the enunciation of such a policy entail certain responsibilities? For my own part, I think it does, and my feeling in this matter is shared not only by every thinking foreign resident in Cuba, but also by the majority of Spaniards who have a stake in the island.

CUBANS A QUIET, PEACE-LOVING PEOPLE.

There is an idea lurking in the minds of many Americans, and also in those of nearly all Europeans, that the Cubans are a turbulent, quarrelsome people and require harsh measures to keep them in subjection.

Let me dispel that mistake once for all. Tho Cubans are a quiet, peaceloving race, the white population well educated and intelligent, the colored people always bright and cheerful. Both whites and blacks are hard working and industrious, far more so, indeed, than any other race I have seen living under similar climatic conditions.

If I may be permitted to give one word of advice to the people of this great country, it is to leave Armenia and the Turks to be dealt with by the European powers, and attend to their own Armenia, that lies but a stone's throw from their own shores.

C. E. AKERS.

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The hour of 2 o'clock having arrived, the unfinished business will be taken up.

Mr. MORGAN. I desire just a moment to put some papers in the RECORD, which I will not ask to have read. Then I will very cheerfully yield, without a motion to go on with the resolution, to the Senator from Minnesota [Mr. NELSON], who, I understand, desires to address the Senate on the subject of the bankruptcy bill. Can I have that indulgence?

Mr. HOAR. After the unfinished business is laid before the Senate, let it be laid aside informally for the purpose suggested by the Senator from Alabama.

Mr. MORGAN. It will take me but a moment.

The VICE-PRESIDENT. If there be no objection, that will be the order.

Mr. MORGAN. I have brought sworn evidence forward today from the American side of this question. I have heretofore put in the records of the Senate a large number of contributions from American correspondents, whose statements agree with that of Mr. Akers, and are more in detail and more particular, giving certain prominent facts that he undertakes to explain.

I now present and ask to have printed in the RECORD, without reading, a translation from La Lucha, a Spanish newspaper published in Cuba, under date of the 18th of January, 1897, for the purpose of showing some military orders that have been issued in Cuba recently, and also for the purpose of showing the distinct recognition there of the existence of war whenever it suits the