The annual revenue raised in the island of Cuba had reached nearly $26,000,000 by the time of the outbreak of the Ten Years’ war, and preparations were in progress for largely increasing the exactions.  The large revenue raised was expended in ways to irritate the Cubans or any one else who had to help pay it.  The annual salary of the captain general was $50,000, when the president of the United States was getting only $25,000 a year.  Each provincial governor in Cuba got a salary of $12,000, while the prime minister of Spain received only half that.

The bishop of Havana and the archbishop of Santiago de Cuba each received a salary of $18,000.  All offices, civil, military and ecclesiastical, were productive of rich perquisites, except in those cases where stealing was simpler.  Wholesale corruption in the custom houses was generally known and admitted by all.  The thefts in the custom houses in Havana was estimated at forty per cent, and in Santiago at seventy per cent of the entire revenue.  All offices except the very lowest, in church and state alike, were filled by men sent from Spain, with the frank understanding that as soon as he could, each new appointee could garner a fortune by fair means and foul combined, he should retire and let another be sent over to have a turn at the plunder.  The result of this was that strangers were always in authority, men with no sympathy for local need, and no local reputation to sustain.  It is perfectly obvious what sort of a public service such conditions would create.

As might have been expected, the result was the growth of two parties, one the native-born Cubans, and called the insulares, the other of those from Spain, and their adherents, known as the peninsulares.  The line between them has been sharply drawn for many years, and they are on opposite sides of everything.  It is from the ranks of the continentals that the volunteer corps of Cuba has been drawn, one of the most aggravating and threatening of all influences against peace in Cuba.

Spain imposed differential duties in such a way as to virtually monopolize the trade of the island.  At the same time the prices of all imports to Cuba were forced, to an unnatural figure, to the great distress of the people.  Petty oppression in postage and in baptismal fees multiplied, so that instead of petty it became great.  The increase in taxation of Cuba for use in Spain in two years prior to the outbreak of the Ten Years’ war was more than $14,000,000, and the next year it was proposed to increase it still more.  The cities were hopelessly in debt and unable to make the most ordinary and most necessary public improvements.  What few schools there had been were nearly all closed.  Lacking insane asylums, the unfortunate of that class were kept in the jails.  The people saw a country separated from them but by a narrow stretch of water, where freedom reigned.  They saw that they were being heavily oppressed with taxation for the benefit of