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Sovereigns may, through a feeling of natural pride, refuse to submit to the judgment of a third that which affects their honor or even their amour-propre. They may not wish to entrust to such a judgment the existence or even the integrity of their states. But it is inconceivable that in the face of the modern and Christian world they should prefer covering the earth with corpses and deluging it with human blood, to submitting to it their own opinion, in matters so exposed to the falli bility of the mind of men, such as cannot fail to be the proper sense to be given to an article of a convention, concluded upon matters which are alien and foreign to the above sacred subjects.

The United States are among the peoples of the civilized world those which, to their glory, have taken the initiative and have shown the most decided interest in resorting to this means so humane, so rational, and so Christian, rather than to the bloody one of war, to settle controversies between nations.

As far back as 1835 the Senate of Massachusetts approved a measure presented by the American Peace Association urging the creation of an international court to settle amicably and finally all difficulties between countries.

In 1851 the Committee on Foreign Relations of Washington (sic) unanimously declared that it was desirable for the United States to insert in its treaties a clause whereby differences which could not be settled diplomatically should be submitted before the outbreak of hostilities to the judgment of arbitrators.

In 1853 the Senate approved the report of the Committee on Foreign Relations. In 1873 the Senate again, and in 1874 the two Houses, reaffirmed this humanitarian aspiration. And, finally, in 1888, not satisfied with having marked out their own line of conduct in so laudable à direction, both Houses agreed by Joint Resolution to request the President to use his influence from time to time to bind all governments maintaining diplomatic relations with the United States to submit all questions that might arise between them in the future to the judgment of arbitrators.

The Spanish Commissioners hope that the case which presents itselt before the Paris Conference will not lead the United States to depart from such glorious precedents, and seek to settle the matter by the last means which although never lawful among rational and free beings is sadly inevitable, in preference to other means more humane, conducive to preserve unalterable peace among men.

True copy:

EMILIO DE OJEDA

PROTOCOL No. 15. Conference of November 21, 1898.

The session having been postponed, at the request of the American Commissioners, till Monday the 21st of November, on that day there were

Present: On the part of the United States: Messrs. Day, Davis,

PROTOCOLO No. 15.

Conferencia del 21 de Noviembre de 1898.

Habiéndose aplazado la sesión á petición de los Comisarios Americanos hasta el Lunes 21 del corriente á las 2 p. m. se hallaron en dichos día y hora.

Presentes Por parte de los Estados Unidos de América. los

Frye, Gray, Reid, Moore, Fergus

son.

On the part of Spain: Messrs. Montero Ríos, Abarzuza, Garnica, Villa-Urrutia, Cerero, Ojeda.

The protocol of the preceding session was read and approved.

The President of the American Commission presented a reply to the Memorandum presented by the Spanish Commissioners at the last session on the subject of the Philip pines. In so doing, he called attention to the concluding part of the reply, and suggested that it be read. But, before it was read, he stated that he desired to say that the American Commissioners had care. fully examined the very able argument of the Spanish Commissioners, but had felt obliged to adhere to their construction of the powers of the Joint Commission under the Protocol. The Joint Commission had been in session for several weeks, and it was the opinion of the American Commissioners that a conclusion should be reached. They had consulted their Govern ment and had decided to make concessions, which were embodied in the concluding part of their reply, which was intended to bring the discussion immediately to a close.

The concluding part of the reply of the American Commissioners was then read by their Interpreter to the Spanish Commissioners.

The President of the Spanish Commission, after the close of the reading, stated that if the memorandum of the American Commissioners contained nothing more than what had just been read, he could give an immediate answer; but, as it was necessary to translate and to become acquainted with the preceding part, some time would be needed in which to prepare a reply. He then proposed that the Commissioners meet on Wednesday the 23rd instant, unless something should arise to require a postponement.

Señores Day, Davis, Frye, Gray, Reid, Moore, Fergusson.

Por parte de España, los Señores Montero Ríos, Abarzuza, Garnica, Villa-Urrutia, Cerero Ojeda.

Fué leída y aprobada el acta de la sesión anterior.

El Presidente de la Comisión Americana presentó una contestación al Memoradum presentado por los Comisarios Españoles en la última sesión relativo á las Filipinas.

Al hacerlo así llamó la atención sobre la parte final de su contestación y manifestó su deseo de que se diera lectura de ella. Pero antes de que fuera leída, dijo que deseaba hacer constar que los Comisarios Americanos habían considerado atentamente los argumentos habilísimos de los Comisarios Españoles; pero que se veían obligados á adherirse á su interpretación de las facultades de la Comisión en pleno según los términos del protocolo. Dicha Comisión había prolongado sus labores durante varias semanas, y en vista de esto los Comisarios Americanos opinaban que debía llegarse á un resultado final. Habían consultado á su Gobierno y decidido hacer las concesiones que estaban consignadas al final de su contestación, y cuyo objeto era el de terminar dé una vez la discusión.

La última parte de dicha contestación fué vertida verbalmente al Castellano por el Intérprete de la Comisión Americana.

El Presidente de la Comisión Española manifiesta que si el Memorandum de los Comisarios Americanos no contuviese otra cosa que lo que acababa de leerse podría dar una contestación inmediata; pero que como había que traducir y enterarse de lo que precedía á su parte última, se necesitaría algún tiempo para dar una respuesta. Propuso en seguida que las Comisiones se reuniesen el Miércoles 23, á menos que surja algún incidente que exija un aplazamiento.

The American Commissioners concurring, it was agreed to adjourn the conference to the 23rd of November, without prejudice to the right of the Spanish Commissioners to ask for a postponement.

WILLIAM R. DAY
CUSHMAN K. DAVIS
WM P FRYE

GEO. GRAY

WHITELAW REID.

JOHN B. Moore.

Asienten los Comisarios Ameri-
canos y se acuerda que se levante
la sesión hasta el Miércoles 23 de
Noviembre á las 2 p. m, sin perju-
icio del derecho de aplazarla que
assiste á los Comisarios Españoles.
E. MONTERO Ríos
B. DE ABARZUZA
J. DE GARNICA

WR DE VILLA URRUTIA
RAFAEL CERERO

EMILIO DE OJEDA

ANNEX TO PROTOCOL No. 15.

REPLY OF THE AMERICAN COMMISSIONERS TO THE MEMORANDUM PRESENTED BY THE SPANISH COMMISSIONERS ON NOVEMBER 16,

1898.

The American Commissioners have examined the memoradum of the Spanish Commissioners with that deliberate care and attention which they have been accustomed to bestow upon all the representations which those Commissioners have been pleased to submit touching the questions before the conference.

They note, in the first place, that the Spanish Commissioners disclaim any intention by their paper of the 3rd of November to withdraw their previous acceptance of the American articles on the subject of Cuba, Porto Rico and the other Spanish islands in the West Indies, and the Island of Guam in the Ladrones.

This disclaimer, in spite of the form in which it is expressed, the American Commissioners would be content simply to accept without comment, were it not for the fact that it is accompanied with certain observations on the so-called Cuban debt that impose upon them the necessity of recurring to what they have previously said on that subject. In citing the Royal Decrees of 1886 and 1890, and the contents of the bonds issued thereunder, as something with which the American Commissioners were previously unacquainted, the Spanish Commissioners seem to have overlooked or forgotten the paper which the American Commissioners presented on the 14th of October. In that paper the American Commissioners expressly mentioned and described the financial measures of 1886 and 1890 and the stipulations of the bonds thereby authorized. But they did more than this. Being concerned with the substance rather than with the form of the matter, they reviewed with some minuteness the history of the debt and the circumstances of its creation. They showed that it was in reality contracted by the Spanish Government for national purposes; that its foundations were laid more than twenty years before the Royal Decree of 1886, and at a time when the revenues of the island were actually producing a surplus, in national enterprises in Mexico and San Domingo, foreign to the interests of Cuba; and that it was soon afterwards swollen to enormous dimensions as the result of the imposition upon Cuba, as a kind of penalty, of the national expenses incurred in the efforts to suppress by force of arms the ten years' war for the independence of the island. At this point

the American Commissioners in their paper of the 14th of October referred to the financial operation of 1886, but they properly referred to it in its true character of a national act for the consolidation or funding of debts previously incurred by the Spanish Government, and expressly quoted the national guaranty that appears on the face of the bonds. At the risk of a repetition which should be unnecessary, the American Commissioners will quote from their paper of the 14th of October the following paragraph:

"Subsequently the Spanish Government undertook to consolidate these debts [i. e., the debts incurred in Mexico, San Domingo, and the ten years' war] and to this end created in 1886 the so-called Billetes hipotecarios de la Isla de Cuba, to the amount of 620,000,000 pesetas, or $124,000,000. The Spanish Government undertook to pay these bonds and the interest thereon out of the revenues of Cuba, but the national character of the debt was shown by the fact that, upon the face of the bonds, "the Spanish Nation" (la Nación Española) guaranteed their payment. The annual charge for interest and sinking fund on account of this debt amounted to the sum of 39,191,000 pesetas, or $7,838,200, which was disbursed through a Spanish financial institution, called the Banco Hispano- Colonial, which is said to have collected daily from the custom house at Havana, through an agency there established, the sum of $33,339 ".

The American Commissioners then referred in the same paper to the authorization by the Spanish Government in 1890 of a new issue of bonds, apparently with a view to refund the prior debt as well as to cover any new debts contracted between 1886 and 1890, and stated that, after the renewal of the struggle for independence in February, 1895, this issue was diverted from its original purpose to that of raising funds for the suppression of the insurrection.

The American Commissioners are at a loss to perceive how, in reciting these transactions, in which past and not future obligations were dealt with, they could have been understood to intimate that Spain, through what is described in the Spanish memorandum as a "supernatural gift of divination," foresaw the insurrection of 1895 and the ultimate intervention of the United States. The American Commissioners will not indulge in the ready retort which this fanciful effort at sarcasm invites. Whether the consequences of imposing upon Cuba burdens not to be borne, were or were not foreseen by Spain, is a question upon which it would be idle now to speculate.

As to the special "Cuban War Emergency Loan," composed of "five per cent peseta bonds," which were referred to as part of what was considered in Spain as properly constituting the Cuban debt, the American Commissioners expressly declared that it did not appear that in these bonds the revenues of Cuba were mentioned.

The American Commissioners, in reviewing in their paper of the 14th of October the history of the so-called Cuban debt, necessarily invited the fullest examination of their statements. They have yet to learn that those statements contained any error.

They freely admit, however, that they had never seen it asserted, till they read the assertion in the Spanish memorandum, that the deficiencies in the Cuban appropriation bills or budgets which the debts are said to represent were "due to the great reductions of taxes made in Cuba by the mother country." If, as they are now assured, this is a fact "well known," they are compelled to admit that they were, and that they still remain, ignorant of it. Indeed, the American Commissioners were not aware that Cuban appropriation bills or budgets

existed prior to 1880, in May of which year the first measure of the kind was submitted to the Spanish Cortes. During the discussion of that budget, a distinguished Senator, not a Cuban, who had been Minister of State in the Spanish Cabinet, Señor Don Servando Ruiz Gomez, presented to the Senate an official statement of the Colonial Department, showing that the alleged debts of Cuba amounted to $126,834,419.25 in gold and $45,300,076 in paper, or, in round numbers, $140,000,000 in gold.

It is true that after 1880, and especially after 1886, deficiencies appeared in the budgets, but a correct conception of their cause may be derived from the budget of 1886-1887, when the prior debts were consolidated. The amount of the burdens imposed upon Cuba by that budget, eight years, as the Spanish memorandum observes, "after the reestablishment of peace," was $25,959,734.79, which was distributed as follows:

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Of the sum total of this burden, it is seen that the three items of General Obligations, War, and Navy, constitute nearly three-fourths. And what were the "General Obligations"? The principal itemnine-tenths of the whole-was that of $9,617,423.02, for interest, sinking fund, and incidental expenses, on the so-called Cuban debt. The rest went chiefly for pensions to Spanish officials.

The budget for 1896-1897 amounted to $28,583,132.23.

These figures, which speak for themselves, seem to render peculiarly infelicitous the novel suggestion that the deficiencies in the Cuban budgets have been due to the reduction of taxes.

As to that part of the Spanish memorandum in which the so-called Cuban bonds are treated as "mortgage bonds," and the rights of the holders as "mortgage rights," it is necessary to say only that the legal difference between the pledge of revenues yet to be derived from taxation and a mortgage of property cannot be confused by calling the two things by the same name. In this, as in another instance, the American Commissioners are able to refer to previous statements which, although the Spanish memorandum betrays no recollection of them, for obvious reasons remain unchallenged. The American Commissioners have shown, in their argument of the 27th of October, that the Spanish Government itself has not considered its pledge of the revenues of Cuba as in any proper legal sense a mortgage, but as a matter entirely within its control. In proof of this fact the American Commissioners quoted in that argument certain provisions of the decree of autonomy for Cuba and Porto Rico, signed by the Queen Regent of Spain on the 25th of November 1897, and countersigned by Señor Sagasta, as President of the Council of Ministers. By that decree it was declared that the manner of meeting the expenditures occasioned by the debt which burdened "the Cuban and Spanish treasury" should "form the subject of a law" wherein should be "determined the part payable by each of the treasuries, and the special means of paying the interest thereon, and of the amortization thereof, and, if necessary, of paying the principal:" that, when the "apportionment" should have

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