trade with the United States, coin and bullion included, appears as follows:

The duties imposed under the tariff of June, 1900, were the equivalent of twenty-one and a half per cent on an ad valorem basis. About the first of March, 1901, a commission was appointed for the purpose of drafting a more suitable tariff schedule, based upon the need of a revenue of some $15,000,000 a year from the customs service, and yet having due regard for the industrial and commercial welfare of the Island. The report of this board was presented in September, but it was not acted upon by the authorities. It was held that in view of the impending transfer of governmental control the matter should be left for determination by the Cuban government after its establishment.

Reference has already been made to the disastrous falling off in the amount of sugar produced in the Island during the war period. Coincident with this there was a marked reduction in the market price of that commodity. Manipulation of the European beet sugar output, under a system of tariffs and bounties, enabled an organization known as the "Kartel" to place its sugars in the world's markets at a figure which was below the actual cost of production. With that sugar Cuba was obliged to compete. Her market was the United States, and prices in that market were based on Hamburg quotations of European beet sugar. This, naturally, added to the general stringency of the conditions of the Island. The United States was not directly responsible for the misfortunes which fell upon the Cuban sugar

planter as a result of artificial trade conditions on the Continent of Europe. Yet responsibility did rest with the United States to establish, in its own interest as well as in that of Cuba, those favorable economic conditions which are so distinctly the basis of sound and healthy government. It was recognized by careful observers and students that Cuba's political difficulties would be most readily solved through the channels of industrial activity and prosperity. There was grave question whether they could be solved along any other lines. The attention of the government was frequently called to the fact. In a memorial addressed to President McKinley, in November, 1899, by representatives of the Planters and Farmers Association of Cuba (Circulo de Hacendados y Agricultores), there appears the following statement:

"If the sugar industry is rehabilitated in Cuba; if the work in tobacco plantations is revived; if the mining industry is again manned, then and at that time, but not before, the pacification of the Island, which, to the honor and glory of the United States, was the purpose of the Joint Resolution of Congress, approved by you on April 20, 1898, will be consummated.

"No student of history or close observer of contemporary events, can ignore for a moment that at the very bottom of the troubles between Cuba and Spain the violation by the latter of the economic laws, as eternal and sure in their action as the laws of nature, was always to be found as a factor of the greatest prominence."

Many presentations of a similar tenor were made during and prior to the first year of occupation. None of them would appear to have got beyond the point of "consideration." During the entire period of intervention there appears to have been an almost total disregard of the difficulty of establishing a successful and enduring government over a poverty-stricken people. A prosperous people will endure

without complaint a vast amount of governmental iniquity and oppression. A poor and hungry people will be discontented under a government which may be in all ways morally and mechanically perfect. The contemplation of an ideal administration is little satisfactory to a ragged citizen with an empty stomach. In ignoring this fundamental fact, the United States committed its most serious error in its experience in the Island of Cuba.

CHAPTER XIX

LAW AND JUSTICE

THAT the United States had the power to effect radical changes in the existing legal system of Cuba, is shown by the fact that such changes were made. The legal or moral right to interfere in any way with the established laws of a land which our Supreme Court declared to be "foreign territory," beyond the point of necessity for the immediate maintenance of law and order and the protection of life and property, has been called in question. Yet this right was assumed, and the assumption was endorsed by the administration at Washington.

The maladministration of the laws in force in the Island, under the Spanish régime, gave rise to a belief that the evil lay in the laws themselves. In an address before the Ohio Bar Association, on July 12, 1899, the Hon. William Wirt Howe made the following statement:

“The student of Spanish jurisprudence is impressed with the learning and the juristic ability which it displays. There is no trouble in this respect. It is a noble system. But the contrast between the splendid science of the system and the moral quality of its administration in the Spanish colonies, is something very pathetic."

The Spanish system of jurisprudence is, like all such systems, the result of development. Walton, in his Civil Law in Spain and Spanish America (page 22), summarizes the history of Spanish law under six headings:

The Primitive Period, Sixteenth Century B.C. to 414 A.D. The Visigoth Epoch, 414 to 687 A.D.

The Hispano-Gothic Period, 687-700 to 711 A.D.

The Saracenic Invasion, 711 to 1255 A.D.

The re-establishment of Roman Laws, 1255 to 1810.
The Modern Epoch, 1810 to 1900.

With the establishment of her vast colonial interests, during the early years of the sixteenth century, it became necessary for Spain to provide laws and legal processes for the new territory which had been acquired by conquest and by discovery.

In 1524, there was issued a royal decree of which the following was a part:

"Considering the great benefits and advantages which, by the grace of God, we have received, and every day do receive, from the increase and growth of the Kingdom and dominions of our Indies; and being well advised of the obligation and duty towards them which this imposes upon us, we are solicitous, on our part (with God's assistance), to devise suitable means by which such great kingdoms and dominions may be governed and ruled in a proper manner."

This appears as a sort of preamble to a decree establishing a body known as the Council of the Indies. Walton's Civil Law in Spain and Spanish America (page 520) says: “The Council of the Indies had supreme jurisdiction over all the colonies; all the laws and ordinances of viceroys and governors were subject to its approval; and it had power to frame laws." Until 1661, the laws of Cuba and the Spanish colonies in general were the laws of Spain supplemented by an assortment of decrees, ordinances, and regulations, issued by the Crown, by the Council, and by the Church. In that year these were compiled and published. A better digested edition was issued in 1681. This was known as