would speedily be able to compete on equal terms with the best shipbuilding plants of Europe. Iron and steel supplies are now much cheaper in the United States than anywhere else, and it is only the relatively small amount of shipbuilding that has been demanded by our Government that has made it more expensive to build a war vessel here than elsewhere.

America's

In a time of real emergency, however, Latent the resources of the United States would Power. prove themselves great enough to supply our own people and the whole world besides. The quickness and inventiveness of American mechanics, engineers, and manufacturers have no parallel in Europe. On a year's notice the United States might undertake to cope evenhanded with either the Dual or the Triple Alliance-although we have now only the nucleus of an army and the beginning of a navy, while the European powers have made war preparation their principal business for a whole generation. It is to be suspected that one reason why the American people have bought the newspapers so eagerly during the past weeks is to be found in the satisfaction they have taken in learning how a strictly peaceful nation like ours could if necessary reverse the process of beating swords into plowshares. It is true, for example, that we have built only a few torpedo-boats and only a few vessels of the type known as destroyers; but we have discovered that about a hundred very rich Americans had been amusing themselves within the past few years by building or buying splendid ocean-going, steel-built steam yachts of high speed and stanch qualities, capable of being quickly transformed into naval dispatch-boats or armored and fitted with torpedo-tubes. Probably not a single private Spanish citizen could turn over to his government such a vessel as the magnificent Goelet yacht, the Mayflower, which was secured by our Navy Department on March 16; not to mention scores of other private steam yachts of great size and strength that wealthy American citizens are ready to offer if needed.

THE REFITTED" MONITORS," FOR COAST DEFENSE.

War

It is the prevailing opinion nowadays, Nowadays a it is true, that nothing is to be relied Question of Machinery. upon in naval war but huge battleships, which take from two to three or four years to build. But if a great war were forced upon us suddenly, it is altogether probable that American ingenuity would devise something wholly new in the way of a marine engine of war, just as American ingenuity improvised the first modern ironclads. We have already in our navy a dynamite cruiser, the Vesuvius, which in actual warfare might prove more dangerous than a half dozen of the greatest battleships of the European navies. There has just been completed, moreover, and offered to our Government, a submarine boat, the Holland, which seems to be capable of moving rapidly for several miles so completely submerged as to offer no target for an enemy; and it may well be that the torpedoes discharged from an insignificant little vessel capable of swimming below the surface like a fish might prove as fatal to the battleships of an enemy as the alleged mine in the harbor of Havana was fatal to our battleship the Maine. Nowadays warfare is largely a matter of science and invention; and since a country where the arts of peace flourish and prosper is most favorable to the general advance of science and invention, we stumble upon the paradox that the successful pursuit

of peace is after all the best preparation for war. Another way to put it is to say that modern warfare has become a matter of machinery, and that the most highly developed mechanical and industrial nation will by virtue of such development be most formidable in war. This is a situation that the Spaniards in general are evidently quite unable to comprehend. Their ideas are altogether mediæval. They believe themselves to be a highly chivalrous and militant people, and that the people of the United States are really in great terror of Spanish prowess. They think that Spain could make as easy work of invading the United States as Japan made of invading China. Their point of view is altogether theatrical and unrelated to modern facts. country like ours, capable of supplying the whole world with electrical motors, mining machinery, locomotive engines, steel rails, and the structural material for modern steel bridges and skyscrapers," not to mention bicycles and sewing machines, is equally capable of building, arming, and operating an unlimited number of ships of every type, and of employing every conceivable mechanical device for purposes of national defense. In the long run, therefore, even if our preliminary preparations had been of the scantiest character, we should be able to give a good account of ourselves in warfare.

66

A

Ship Canals and Our

Future Navy.

The loss we might incur, however, at the outset for lack of preparation might be enormous; and on that account prudence calls for a reasonable condition of defense along the seaboard and for a navy of moderate size and high efficiency. The events of the past few weeks have plainly shown how extremely useful it would be to have a waterway under our own control across Nicaragua or some other isthmian point. The commercial uses of such a waterway would probably pay the interest on its cost; but even if they did not pay half of the interest, the canal would be a good investment on naval grounds. Our battleship the Oregon is now on her way from San Francisco to join the fleet at Key West; and her long passage around Cape Horn will have consumed about ten weeks. As our interests on the Pacific coast become more important, we shall have increasing need of war vessels at various points in the Pacific Ocean. With the Nicaragua Canal built, our ships could readily pass from one ocean to the other as circumstances require, and we should not need so large a navy by any means as we should otherwise have to maintain. The difference in the annual appropriation bill for naval construction and maintenance would more than pay, in the years to come, any possible deficit in the yearly operation of the Nicaragua Canal. The enormous growth of our merchant shipping on the great lakes, moreover, has naturally suggested the desirability, from the point of view of our naval auxiliary resources, of a ship canal from the lakes to the sea. With such a canal open, the great lakes in time of war would be the scene of such activity in the building and fitting out of warships as the world had never witnessed before. The national energy that was aroused by the great civil struggle of the early sixties gave us the transcontinental railroads. Is it too much to hope that the stimulus imparted to the nation by the possibility of a war with Spain may hasten the construction of the Nicaragua Canal, and may even set in motion the forces that will

give us a deep-water passage from the great lakes to the Atlantic? The combined commercial and naval advantages make a strong argument.

Keep the

Probably the report of the commission Real Issue on the Maine will have become public in Sight! news before this issue of the REVIEW is distributed to its readers. That being the case, any attempt at forecast would be hazardous. Nevertheless, certain factors in the situation are not likely to be affected to any extent by the nature of the commission's report. In any case, the American people will have now to decide, through their responsible representatives at Washington, whether or not they will interfere in Cuba. If the commission should make an inconclusive report, the general situation would remain what it was before. President Cleveland and President McKinley have in succession notified the United States, Spain, and the world that if after a reasonable time the Spaniards should fail to make good their nominal sovereignty and to give peace and a reasonably satisfactory government to the island, the United States would intervene, whether invited to do so or not. Even if, on the other hand, the Maine should be reported by our naval commission to have been blown up by a Spanish mine, the really essential question would seem to us not to be altered. Our Government would merely be able to say that the destruction of the Maine was a very aggravating proof of Spain's inability to maintain order, and therefore a clinching reason why this country ought to intervene and ought to consider that no further probation should be granted. Interference in the affairs of another country is not a holiday undertaking. It is neither safe nor pleasant. It is for the conscience and the firm will of the American people to say whether or not they will interfere in Cuba. Spain has forfeited all right of sovereignty in Cuba, a hundred thousand times. We have every pretext and every justification to interfere if we choose to do so. On the other hand, we have no reason for the slightest grudge against Spain, and no right to wish anything else for Spain except a happy and prosperous future on her own side of the ocean. She is unfit for colonial responsibility, and her further presence in Cuba is as objectionable as Turkey's presence in Crete.

What

Quite regardless of the responsibilities. the People for the Maine incident, it is apparently Demand. true that the great majority of the American people are hoping that President McKinley will promptly utilize the occasion to secure the complete pacification and independence of Cuba. There are a few people in the United States-we should not like to believe that more than one hundred could be found out of a population of seventy-five millions-who believe that the United States ought to join hands with Spain in forcing the Cuban insurgents to lay down their arms and to accept Spanish sovereignty as a permanent condition, under the promise of practical home rule. It needs no argument, of course, to convince the American people that such a proposal reaches the lowest depths of infamy. It is much worse than the proposition made by a few people in Europe last year that the victorious Turks should have the countenance and support of the great nations of Europe in making Greece a part of the Turkish empire. For the Turks had fairly conquered the Greeks; and if Europe had kept hands off, Greece would have been reduced very quickly to the position of an Ottoman province. But in Cuba it is otherwise. The insurgents, with no outside help, have held their own for more than three years, and Spain is unable to conquer them. The people of the United States do not intend to help Spain hold Cuba. On the contrary, they are now ready, in one way or in another, to help the Cubans drive Spain out of the western hemisphere. If the occasion goes past and we allow this Cuban struggle to run on indefinitely, the American people will have lost several degrees of self-respect and will certainly not have gained anything in the opinion of mankind

Not a

No

It is greatly to be hoped that the larger Question of issue may not be obscured by the Indemnity! smaller one. The martyred officers and men of the Maine are beyond human aid. Spanish apologies nor indemities can restore them. But the atrocities of Spanish misrule in Cuba are unabated, and hundreds of Cubans die of starvation every week. If we are to act in any manner against Spain or contrary to Spain's desires, our motive should be the relief of Cuba and not the settlement of the Maine incident. If indeed we should attach first importance to the question of the Maine, we should only have played directly into Spain's hands. For it became clearly evident in the middle of March that the Spaniards were hoping to gain time by diplomatic proceedings following the report of the United States naval board of inquiry. It was assumed, of course, that the board would report that the ship was blown up by a submarine mine; that the mine had been placed in the harbor under Weyler's direction; that the United States vessel had by Spanish orders been anchored in dangerous prox. imity to the mine; and finally that the explosion of the mine would seem to have been virtually impossible without malicious complicity or culpable negligence on the part of Spanish officials. Such a report, according to Spanish reasoning, would be followed by an immediate demand on the part of the United States Government for a large money indemnity. The Spaniards in turn would deny the allegations of the American naval board, placing over against them the findings of the Spanish board. Whereupon Spain would propose to the United States something in the nature of a joint inquiry into the facts, probably with the assistance of an international commission of experts, and with the idea of an arbitration on the question of damages if the international commission should find that Spain was culpably negligent. Under no circumstances, of course, could it be proved that the explosion was an official act. on the part of Spain; and, if we mistake not, it might be extremely hard even to prove negligence.

The United States took its own chances when it sent the Maine to Havana. The principal reason for the naval inquiry is one that chiefly concerns ourselves. It was obviously necessary that Captain Sigsbee and our naval administration, including of course the constructors of the Maine, should have the benefit of a naval inquiry in order, if possible, to be officially cleared of all vague charges of carelessness and inefficiency.

SENATOR REDFIELD PROCTOR. OF VERMONT.

withdraw, in a complete sense, from the western hemisphere. And this demand, obviously, involves nothing that either party could possibly submit to international arbitration. The loss of the Maine is merely an incident in a much larger affair. We shall make a pitiable mistake if we do not drive straight at the essential issue; and if we are ever to face that issue we must meet it without undue delay. Spain is now bending all her diplomatic energies toward the making of complications that will keep the United States from forcible intervention until after the rainy season has set in. The real facts concerning Cuba were stated in the United States Senate on March 17 by Senator Proctor, of Vermont, who was Secretary of War in President Harrison's administration, and who had just returned from a semi-official visit to Cuba, where he had diligently and competently investigated every phase of the situation. General Proctor is an American public man of the very first rank, whose sagacity is of as high an order as his character. He confirms all that this magazine has from time to time published about the nature and extent of the starvation of the reconcentrados. He denounces Spanish misrule in Cuba as worse

than any other misrule he had ever known about. He finds the Cubans themselves far better fitted for the carrying on of an independent republic than most Americans have supposed-and, in any case, vastly better fitted to administer Cuba than are the Spaniards who have been sent from across the ocean to rule the island. Whether the first steps should be the acknowledgment of Cuban belligerency or the recognition of the independence of the Cuban republic, followed up at once by intervention on the ground of humanity, and the shipment of vast supplies of food and clothing for the suffering peasantry-all these are questions that the authorities at Washington are competent to decide. But it is certainly permissible for the public opinion of the country to express itself plainly on the one general point that the time has now come when Cuba must be emancipated.

even thousands, of millions of dollars to the Spanish treasury, for which they have had no return except oppression. Two years ago, or even one year ago, it would have been advantageous all around, perhaps, if the Cubans could have bought their independence at a large money price. But under all the later circumstances, it would be less reasonable that independent Cuba should assume a large part of the Spanish debt than that the United States Government should have assumed the debt of the Confederacy. When France assisted the United States to gain their independence, it was no part of the French proposal that our young republic should take over a share of the public debt of great Britain. All European investments in Spanish securities for several decades past have been purely speculative investments, because they have all been made with the full knowledge that Cuban rebellions were liable to break out at any time. Cuba has been reduced by Spanish atrocity from a land of plenty to a howling wilderness; and the restoration of the island will fully tax all the resources of the Cuban people. It is too much to ask that they should pay one penny of principal or interest on the sums squandered by Spain in butchering Cubans and ravaging the island. The American press and the American public should now speak out boldly on these matters. There has been a great and a commendable desire throughout the country not to embarrass the administration, and accordingly many men have hesitated to exhibit the full strength of their opinion. But the time has come when it will help rather than hinder the administration to know the extent of that moral conviction and sentiment of the people of the United States that is ready to sustain it in the execution of its serious duty.

by Joint

Will Hawaii The Cuban question had naturally overbe Annexed shadowed everything else at WashingResolution? ton. But interest in the subject of Hawaiian annexation was revived by a change of tactics accomplished on March 16. The friends of the treaty had reluctantly come to the conclusion that the necessary two-thirds majority could not be secured in the Senate, and decided, therefore, to try a plan of annexing Hawaii in the manner that was employed for the annexation of Texas. Accordingly a joint resolution was introduced in the Senate by Senator Davis, of Minnesota, in pursuance of the method which had for some time been urged by Senator Morgan, of Alabama. If the resolution should pass both houses by a simple majority of those present and voting, President McKinley would of course sign it at once, and annexation would have become an accomplished fact. The process is not a novel one.