"This enormous debt, contracted and saddled upon the country without its knowledge; this heavy load that grinds it and does not permit its people to capitalize their income, to foster its improvements, or even to entertain its industries, constitutes one of the most iniquitous forms of spoliation the island has to bear. In it are included a debt of Spain to the United States; the expenses incurred by Spain when she occupied San Domingo; those for the invasion of Mexico in alliance with France and England; the expenditures for her hostilities against Peru; the money advanced to the Spanish treasury during its recent Carlist wars; and all

that Spain has spent to uphold its domination in Cuba and to cover the lavish expenditures of its administration since 1868. Not a cent of this enormous sum has been spent in Cuba to advance the work of improvement and civilization. It has not contributed to build a single kilometre of highway or of railroad, nor to erect a single lighthouse, or deepen a single port; it has not built one asylum or opened one public school. Such a heavy burden has been left to the future generations, without a single compensation or benefit.

"But the naked figures of the Cuban budgets and of the Cuban debt tell very little in regard to their true importance and signification as

machines to squeeze out the substance of a people's labor. It is necessary to examine closer the details of these accounts and expenditures.

"Those of Cuba, according to the last budgets or appropriations,

amount to $26,411,314, distributed as follows:

There are in Cuba 1,631,687 inhabitants, according to the last census, that of 1887. That is to say, that this budget burdens them in the proportion of $16.18 for each inhabitant. The Spaniards in Spain. pay only 42.06 pesetas per head.

"The cause of the ruin of Cuba, despite her sugar output of one million tons and her vast tobacco fields, can be easily explained. Cuba does not capitalize, and it does not capitalize because the fiscal régime imposed upon the country does not permit it. The money derived from its large exportations does not return either in the form of importations of goods or of cash. It remains abroad to pay the interest of its huge debt, to cover the incessant remittances of funds by the Spaniards who hasten to send their earnings out of the country, to pay from our treasury the pensioners who live in Spain, and to meet the drafts forwarded by every mail from Cuba by the Spaniards as a tribute to their political patrons in the Metropolis, and to help their families.

"Cuba pays $2,192,795 in pensions to those on the retired list and to superannuated officials not in service. Most of this money is exported. The first chapters of the Cuban budget imply the exportation of over $10,600,000. Cuba pays a subsidy of $471,836.68 to the Transatlantic Company. It would be impossible to calculate the amount of money taken out of Cuba by private individuals; but this constant. exportation of capital signifies that nobody is contented in Cuba and that everybody mistrusts its future. The consequence is that, notwithstanding the apparently favorable commercial balance, exchange is constantly and to a high degree against Cuba.

"On the other hand, if Cuba labors and strives to be on the same plane as its most progressive competitors, this is the work of her own people, who do not mind any sacrifices; but the government cares little

or nothing about securing to the country such means of furthering its development as are consigned in the budget under the head of 'Fomento.'

"And now, during the present war, Spain finds that, although the appropriations consigned in our budgets since 1878 amount to nearly $500,000,000, not a single military road has been built, no fortifications, no hospitals, and there is no material of war. The State has not provided even for its own defence. In view of this fact, nobody will be surprised to hear that a country 670 kilometres long, with an area of 118,833 square kilometres, has only 2461⁄2 lineal kilometres of high roads, and

these almost exclusively in the province of Havana. In that of Santiago de Cuba there are 9 kilometres; in Puerte Principe and Las Villas not a single one. Cuba has 3506 kilometres of sea shore and fiftyfour ports; only fifteen of these are open to commerce. In the labyrinth of keys, sand-banks and breakers adjacent to our coasts there are only nineteen lighthouses of all classes. Many of our ports, some of the best among them, are filling up. The coasting steamers can hardly pass the bars at the entrance of the ports of Nuevitas, Gibara, Baracoa and Santiago de Cuba. Private parties have sometimes been willing to remedy

these evils; but then the central administration has interfered, and after years of red tape, things have remained worse than before. In the course of twenty-eight years only 139 kilometres of high-roads have been built, and practically no internal improvements have been made."

According to the Spanish rule of the island, the natives and rightful owners of the land have no voice in their government, the product of their labor is confiscated without any return whatsoever, and the people

have lived, during all these years, in the agony of despair and under the iron heel of a merciless oppression. Not only in vindication of an eternal principle, but for the continuance of existence, these people appeal to

As Americans who prize our blood-bought freedom, and who desire to offer not only a heart of sympathy, but a hand to aid those who are fighting a similar battle, we have taken our stand for Cuba Libre. What is meant by this, expressed by this term, has been pointed

out.