The painful lesson of the Ten Years’ War was entirely lost on Spain.  Instead of inaugurating a redeeming policy that would heal the recent wounds, allay public anxiety, and quench the thirst for justice felt by the people, who were desirous to enjoy their natural rights, the Peninsula, while lavish in promises of reform, persisted in carrying on, unchanged, its old and crafty system, namely:  to exclude every native Cuban from every office that could give him any effective influence and intervention in public affairs; the ungovernable exploitation of the colonists’ labor for the benefit of Spanish commerce and Spanish bureaucracy, both civil and military.  To carry out the latter purpose it was necessary to maintain the former at any cost.

Mr. Clarence King, a recognized authority on political subjects connected with Cuban affairs, says: 

“The main concession for which the insurgents accepted peace was the promise of constitutional reform.  As a matter of fact, there promptly followed four royal edicts as follows:  June 9, entitling Cuba to elect deputies to the Cortes, one for each 40,000 people; June 9, dividing the island into the present six provinces; June 21, instituting a system of provincial and municipal government, followed on August 16 by the necessary electoral regulations.  But the system was immediately seen to be the shadow without the substance of self-government.  The Provincial Assembly could nominate only three candidates for presiding officer.  It was the inevitable governor-general who had the power to appoint, not necessarily one of the three nominees, but any member of the Assembly he chose.  But all this provincial machinery is in reality an empty form, since expressly by law the governor-general was given the power to prorogue the assemblies at will.  The deputies have never been able to accomplish anything in the Cortes.  Moreover the crux of the whole financial oppression—­tariff, taxes, and absolute control and expenditure of the revenue—­ remained with Spain.”

The loyal Spaniard insists that every agreement entered into by his government was faithfully carried out; that the Cubans were given from time to time even greater liberties than the treaty promised them; and that in several matters of importance, immunities have been granted them that the people of the mother country did not share.

The Assistant Colonial Secretary of Spain concludes a voluminous defense of the policy of his government in Cuba as follows: 

There is thus no reason in Cuba to complain of the illiberality of the laws.  If there has been any shortcoming in respect to morals, the nation is not to blame; none but the colonial provinces are to blame for this; if we proposed to seek comfort in comparisons, it would not be necessary to look for them in South America, in the countries that have emancipated themselves from the Spanish mother-country, because examples (some of them very recent) of acts of violence, anarchy and scandalous outbreaks could be found in the States of the Union itself.