THE BEGINNING OF THE END IN CUBA.
UNLESS a good many suggestive signs have no meaning, the beginning of the end cannot be very far off in Cuba, and certainly it is fully time. The civil war has now raged fiercely and inextinguishably since the close of the year 1868, and on the one side, as on the other, has been marked by a savagery and relentlessness that have often roused the reproba- tion, but more usually escaped the notice of the civilised world. The same savage and relentless character continues to attach as of old to the combat, but the symptoms of ex- haustion are plainly beginning to exhibit themselves, and as generally, we might say universally, happens in colonial revolts against Spain, the tokens of decaying energy are most con- spicuous in the camp, not of the "rebels," but of the "loyalists." The war-cry of " Muera Esparta!" is prevailing over " Espan con honra!" and the fate which has already overtaken Spanish domination everywhere but in Porto Rico and the Philippines is preparing to assert itself in Cuba at last. So far, indeed, as the outward and superficial aspect of the struggle is concerned, it might be rash to hazard such a conclusion with too much assurance that the event would justify the prophecy. So far as mere externals go, there is still the same belt of coast territory in the undisputed pos- session of the Spanish power, there is the same region of mountain and wood in the scarcely disputed possession of the insurgents, and there is the fatal fringe of debatable land traversed at fitful intervals by the "Peninsular" columns, and defended with tenacity by the roving and agile bands of the island guerrillas. The gunboats still steam around the coasts or lie in wait in wooded creek or inlet to surprise the furtive landing of stores or reinforcements from the Cuban juntas at New York and New Orleans. Santiago and the Havana exhibit the same parade of "Volunteers of Cuba," Cubans only in name, and yet almost as terrible to Spanish Captains- General as to Cuban prisoners of war. But in a deeper and truer sense the scene has vastly changed, and the changes are significant.
It is some time since Cuba has been compelled to flood her markets with paper money. It is only lately, however, that even her loyal Volunteers have refused to have their pay reckoned in the depreciated bank-notes of the island. Since February and, thanks to the last Captain-General, Jovellar,
it has been decreed that the Volunteers, at any rate, are not to suffer by the depreciation ; but the exemption yielded to the armed truculence of the Volunteer soldiery hardly brings much consolation to all the other classes of the island. The want of men is, however, still more keenly felt than the want of money. Until the present year, reinforcements might always be expected from Spain, if not in quantities sufficient to facili- tate operations of any decisive description, yet to fill up at least the gaps in the ranks of the local garrison caused by the murderous inland warfare and the wasting inland climate. Driblets of two or three or four thousand men were continually landing at the Havana, and their appearance much contributed to keep alive the belief in the despatch, some day or another, of the great force which was to crush out the Cuban insurrection for ever, and to establish for ever the institution of slavery in the Queen of the Antilles. With Pavia's coup d'etat at Madrid—made by the sword and to be maintained by the •sword—and with Don Carlos's claims to the attentions of Marshal Serrano, Cuba has been unable to receive even her accustomed quota of Spanish soldiery. As a consequence, the work of making head against the insurgents, recruited as they are by Yankee filibusters, by runaway slaves, and by exasperated creoles, is becoming
daily more difficult. The " Peninsular " columns in the debatable land are becoming less and less able to cope with the widening incursions of the insur- gent guerrillas. The remaining plantations and properties of the Spanish settlers are being more and more exposed to revengeful devastation or systematic plunder, while, at the same time, the weakness of the Government increases the chances of the insurgents being able to gather head, and collect forces for expeditions of a magnitude which could not be attempted a year ago. The clearest proof of the exhaustion which has fallen upon the Government is afforded by the recent proclamation of the Captain-General, ordering, or rather recommending—the poor man has scant power to order—a grand levy in mass, a supreme effort., a colossal movement of the loyal inhabitants against the rebel enemy. Aware that the Volunteers would steadfastly refuse to quit the seaport cities where they stalk and command, the Captain-General appeals to the remaining population to submit themselves to a con- scription by lot for the purpose of filling the gaps in the army. A similar appeal, it is remembered, preceded the relinquish- ment by the Spaniards of their South-American possessions.
Still more symptomatic is another measure. Just as the American Secessionists, at the last extremity for want of white men to fill their armies, and afraid to place weapons in the hands of any considerable number of their slaves, hit upon the middle course of impressing negroes to act as "military labourers," to attend the march of the troops, and perform every service from which a white man could be spared, so the Spanish Government in Cuba, similarly pressed by sore extremity, has had recourse to a similar palliative. The Captain-General has ordered a conscription of slaves as " military labourers" under a promise of liberty, on terms of compensation to their masters at the conclu- sion of the war. As, however, the "military labourers" can obtain liberty much more easily by deserting at the first oppor- tunity, it is possible that the Captain-General, besides in- censing the more furious slaveholders against the introduction of a sort of "thin edge" of emancipation, will only effect the involuntary object of revealing to the Cubans his utter straits for fighting men. With a conscription of the colonial whites entreated as a matter of the last urgency, and a conscription of the slaves commanded, on a similar plea, it does not seem that Spanish authority in Cuba possesses many of the elements of endurance ; and if the energy of the insurrection only in- creases in anything like a proportion to the decadence of the Government, the independence of Cuba cannot be either very difficult to secure or very distant.
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