an international court, before which all nations shall arbitrate their disputes, and the horrors and tragedy of war shall become an impossibility. Teaching a strict adherence to the instincts of justice, righteousness, and mercy, they will so broaden the scope of international law and obligations, that barbarities such as have stained and blackened the closing years of the nineteenth century will never again be permitted to occur.

SAGAS

APPENDIX.

AGASTA'S decree of autonomy was published in the official Gazette of Madrid, November 25, 1897. An English translation is given in the supplement of No. 3, of Cuba, a newspaper published in the interests of the Cuban autonomists and the Spanish government, the office of publication being, before the declaration of war, in New York City. The decree has its meritorious points, but, by Article 15 of Title V., the Governor-General shall, in the King's name, convene, suspend, and adjourn the sessions of either or both houses of the Cuban parliament, though he must call them together

again, or renew them, within three months. By article 27 of the same title, a member of the parliament is subject to arrest and punishment if he admits that "he is the author of any article, book, pamphlet or printed matter wherein military sedition is incited or invoked, or the GovernorGeneral is insulted and maligned, or national sovereignty is assailed." If there were such a constitutional restriction upon freedom of speech in our country, Senator Wellington, of Maryland, who recently severely arraigned the United States government for forcing war upon Spain, would be very hardly dealt with.

Article 30 gives to the CaptainGeneral authority to refer to the home government of Spain any bill or measure "whenever said bill may affect national interests." If such bill originate in the insular parliament, "the Government of the is land shall ask for a postponement of

the debate until the home government shall have given its opinion." By article 35, the Cuban congress must vote that part of the budget necessary "to defray the expenses of sovereignty," and no local appropriations can be considered before the part for the maintenance of Spanish sovereignty has been voted. In this matter of her quota of the national expenses, Cuba has no voice, for, by article 36, "the Cortes of the Kingdom shall determine what expenditures are to be considered by reason of their nature as obligatory expenses inherent to sovereignty, and shall fix the amount every three years and the revenue needed to defray the same, the Cortes reserving the right to alter this rule."

Considering how illiberal Spanish legislation relating to commerce has often been, Sagasta gives the Cuban government and parliament much latitude to enact commercial laws