kind are laid upon them for the expressed purpose of advancing interests which are in every sense opposed to their own.  Thus, Spain imposes taxes to support a large army and navy, the principal object of which is to prevent any expression of the public will on the part of the people of Cuba.  Another class of impositions have for their object the diversion of the trade of Cuba to channels which shall increase the profits of the agriculturists and mariners of Spain without regard to the interests of the people of the island.”

[Illustration:  A PLANTER’S HOME Havana Province]

Yet in spite of these severe restrictions and heavy burdens, Cuba shows a considerable progress during the first half of the century.  It is far from easy to reach fair conclusions from contemporaneous writings.  Naturally, Spanish officials and Spanish writers strove to make the best possible case for Spain, its policies and its conduct.  The press of the island was either under official control or stood in fear of official reprisals.  The Cuban side, naturally partisan, appears to have been presented chiefly by fugitive pamphlets, more or less surreptitiously printed and distributed, usually the product of political extremists.  Among these was a man of marked ability and of rare skill in the use of language.  He was Don Antonio Saco, known in Cuba as the “Immortal Saco.”  In a letter written to a friend, in 1846, he says, “The tyranny of our mother-country, today most acute, will have this result—­that within a period of time not very remote the Cubans will be compelled to take up arms to banish her.”  That British observers and most American observers should take the side of the Cubans is altogether natural.  Writing in 1854, Mr. M.M.  Ballou, in his History of Cuba, says:  “The Cubans owe all the blessings they enjoy to Providence alone (so to speak), while the evils which they suffer are directly referable to the oppression of the home government.  Nothing short of a military despotism could maintain the connection of such an island with a mother-country more than three thousand miles distant; and accordingly we find the captain-general of Cuba invested with unlimited power.  He is, in fact, a viceroy appointed by the crown of Spain, and accountable only to the reigning sovereign for his administration of the colony.  His rule is absolute; he has the power of life and death and liberty in his hands.  He can, by his arbitrary will, send into exile any person whatever, be his name or rank what it may, whose residence in the island he considers prejudicial to the royal interest, even if he has committed no overt act.  He can suspend the operation of the laws and ordinances, if he sees fit to do so; can destroy or confiscate property; and, in short, the island may be said to be perpetually in a state of siege.”