TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THEIMMEDIATE FUTURE OF THE WAR. THIS will be an original war. It is to be fought under conditions of time, of space, and of impelling force for which we can remember no precedent. Neither Power, to begin with, is anything like ready. The Americans, who propose to descend on Cuba, have any number of willing men at their command, but to send twenty thousand drilled soldiers to fight one hundred thousand drilled men on their own soil would be rather rash, and except those twenty thousand the American masses of volunteers are neither drilled, nor organised, nor fully supplied with non-commissioned officers, artillery, munitions, or food. Time must be granted to collect the things wanting ; and energetic as they are, and lavishly as they will spend money, that time can hardly be less than months. You cannot lick an improvised army into shape in three days, even if every soldier is an intelligent Yankee. A minute force may, it is true, be landed in Cuba ; may act as spear-head to the insurgents ; and may drive the Spanish regulars, who hitherto have shown little strength, within Havana itself; but that achievement will hardly alter the conditions. An army and a fleet acting together will be required to take Havana ; and even if we set aside all that talk about yellow fever, which is circulated, we fancy, to reconcile Americans to the delay, the combined operation can hardly be attempted before the end of June. Even the fleet can hardly be said to be ready, for although a squadron is blockading Havana and capturing merchant vessels, the American Admiralty is so conscious of weakness that if the Atlantic ports were threatened the blockade might be hastily raised, and the whole fleet employed in destroying the Spanish cruisers before they could do mischief. On the other hand, the Spaniards are no more ready than their neighbours. They are in obvious difficulties about coal, they have not got their torpedo-boats across the Atlantic, and it is very doubtful whether they have a squadron within striking distance which could either engage the blockading squadron or menace any of the Atlantic ports. Even if such an adventure is within the Spanish plan of operations, which we doubt, because the Spanish chiefs will be most anxious to " save" a fleet which they cannot replace, the ships are not on the spot, and it is at least uncertain whether they can get there. The two com- batants are, in fact, so far as authentic intelligence enables observers to perceive, some thousands of miles from each other, the notion of their approximation being, in truth, only a result of the fact that, owing to electricity, they are in practically instantaneous communication. Men hear in Madrid or New York in ten minutes what is doing in Havana or at Cape de Verde, and can hardly believe that the rapidity of intelligence in no way increases either the rapidity of fleets or the facilities for collecting indispensable army stores. It is very exas- perating to daily newspapers everywhere, but though Spain and the United States are at war they are not at blows, in the Atlantic at all events, and cannot be for some time.
They would not be for months yet, but for a most untoward circumstance highly characteristic of this end of the century. Every day that passes confirms us in the opinions that the Spaniards who recommend a slow war, or rather a waiting game, are the wisest men in Madrid. Nothing is gained by shelling Atlantic ports, except the certainty that Americans will fight with four- fold energy, and in their vengeance will ruin Spain utterly if they can. Cuba can defend itself when attacked, or Spanish troops are of little value ; or if it cannot, its occupation will not mean a total defeat for Spain. Madrid can still go on fighting even when Cuba is gone, and if she does, she compels the ruling men of Washing- ton, who have no coaling stations in Europe, to carry on war three thousand miles from their base, against a country which has only three great assailable ports, and which cannot be invaded without an effort that even America will find it desperately difficult to make. Such a. war, moreover, would be waged in sight of Europe, which, outside England, does not love America ; and in the sea where any disturbance excites most jealousies, most aspirations, and most fears. Madrid, so fighting, might save her Fleet, might escape financial ruin, and might even wear out a people which, with all its energy, is essentially commercial and industrial, which feels suspense acutely, and which has for its first traditional law of policy abstinence from European complications. Delay, again, would benefit America, because it would enable her to make her descent on Cuba an irresistible one, because it would give her time for the fortification of her sea-board cities, and because it would allow her to bring her Army and Fleet up to the strength, which her external policy now requires. Unfor- tunately, nations in our day are impatient. Com- munication is so quick that they fret under the smallest delay in action, and when they fret their Executive chiefs grow restless and unhappy. In the United States, as in Spain, the people are clamouring for " energy," and it is by no means certain that either Power will be per- mitted to play the waiting game. Senor Sagasta may be ordered to relieve Havana or threaten New York under penalty of a military rebellion, and Mr. McKinley may be "directed" to land a great army in Cuba under penalty of seeing the Republican party crushed to powder at the polls. Either in that case might yield,—the Presi- dent thinking that after all even a great loss of men would not matter to the Union, and the Premier be- lieving that a defeat at sea would bring peace somewhat nearer, and make his electors a little better aware of the sort of business that war is. It is, as we believe, only from this contingency—a supersession of the authorities by the populace—that this war can acquire any of the melodramatic character which ignorant observers expected it at once to assume. America is too big and unready to move quickly ; Spain is just too strong to be smashed by a blow.
There is an exception to this rule of delay. The Philippines cannot defend themselves, and therefore Spain must defend them. If she did not the natives, who are bitterly hostile to the local Government, seeing Manilla taken, would rise en masse, massacre the clergy who form the real Government, and extinguish the last vestiges of civilisation. A Spanish squadron, therefore, has orders to defend Manilla, and as an American, squadron has sailed from Hong-kong to attack it, we should in a day or two receive news of a considerable engagement at sea. If the Spaniards are defeated, Manilla, which is unprepared for an external enemy, must sur- render, and Spain will have lost the Philippines for ever. What the Americans will do with the colony remains to be seen. They cannot govern the innumerable isles, or even the chief islands, from a flagship, and they cannot permanently garrison them from the Pacific States. Apparently they hope to create a provisional native Government, and with that view have carried with them the most trusted of the insurgent leaders ; but it is very doubtful if the islands contain any materials from which to form a local Administration. At the same time, they must be governed, for the Philippines given over to anarchy would be a frightfully dangerous derelict. All Europe might be at war for their possession, with Japan chiming in. The Americans will be almost compelled to exchange the islands for something of value to them, and whether the exchange is made with Great Britain, or France, or Russia, the jealousies or fears excited will be of the most acute character, more especially as the Japanese greatly desire the islands, for which they would readily give up all claims upon Corea. They are settled there in thousands, they are accustomed to the climate, and the islands would exactly double the area of their kingdom. The war, in fact, may deeply affect the tranquillity of the Far East. It is, of course, possible that the Spanish squadron may defeat the American, in which case the insurgents will go to bed again for another few years ; but without pretending to the knowledge of experts, we look upon it as a law that when Anglo-Saxons open fire upon the water their flag will be found flying after the engage- ment. We see great difficulties before the Americans, but they will not come from the Spanish battleships.
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