Cuba in War Time | Page 5

burn the cane. When an insurgent column
finds a field planted with potatoes, it takes as much of the crop as it can
carry away and chops up the remainder with machetes, to prevent it
from falling into the hands of the Spaniards. If the Spaniards pass first,
they act in exactly the same way.
Cane is not completely destroyed if it is burned, for if it is at once cut
down just above the roots, it will grow again. When peace is declared it
will not be the soil that will be found wanting, nor the sun. It will be the
lack of money and the loss of credit that will keep the sugar planters
from sowing and grinding. And the loss of machinery in the centrals,
which is worth in single instances hundreds of thousands of dollars, and
in the aggregate many millions, cannot be replaced by men, who, even

when their machinery was intact, were on the brink of ruin.
Unless the United States government interferes on account of some one
of its citizens in Cuba, and war is declared with Spain, there is no
saying how long the present revolution may continue. For the
Spaniards themselves are acting in a way which makes many people
suspect that they are not making an effort to bring it to an end. The
sincerity of the Spaniards in Spain is beyond question; the personal
sacrifices they made in taking up the loans issued by the government
are proof of their loyalty. But the Spaniards in Cuba are acting for their
own interests. Many of the planters in order to save their fields and
centrals from destruction, are unquestionably aiding the insurgents in
secret, and though they shout "Viva España" in the cities, they pay out
cartridges and money at the back door of their plantations.
[Illustration: A Spanish Officer]
It was because Weyler suspected that they were playing this double
game that he issued secret orders that there should be no more grinding.
For he knew that the same men who bribed him to allow them to grind
would also pay blackmail to the insurgents for a like permission. He
did not dare openly to forbid the grinding, but he instructed his officers
in the field to visit those places where grinding was in progress and to
stop it by some indirect means, such as by declaring that the laborers
employed were suspects, or by seizing all the draught oxen ostensibly
for the use of his army, or by insisting that the men employed must
show a fresh permit to work every day, which could only be issued to
them by some commandante stationed not less than ten miles distant
from the plantation on which they were employed.
And the Spanish officers, as well as the planters--the very men to
whom Spain looks to end the rebellion--are chief among those who are
keeping it alive. The reasons for their doing so are obvious; they
receive double pay while they are on foreign service, whether they are
fighting or not, promotion comes twice as quickly as in time of peace,
and orders and crosses are distributed by the gross. They are also able
to make small fortunes out of forced loans from planters and suspects,
and they undoubtedly hold back for themselves a great part of the pay

of the men. A certain class of Spanish officer has a strange sense of
honor. He does not consider that robbing his government by falsifying
his accounts, or by making incorrect returns of his expenses, is disloyal
or unpatriotic. He holds such an act as lightly as many people do
smuggling cigars through their own custom house, or robbing a
corporation of a railroad fare. He might be perfectly willing to die for
his country, but should he be permitted to live he will not hesitate to
rob her.
A lieutenant, for instance, will take twenty men out for their daily walk
through the surrounding country and after burning a few huts and
butchering a pacifico or two, will come back in time for dinner and
charge his captain for rations for fifty men and for three thousand
cartridges "expended in service." The captain vises his report, and the
two share the profits. Or they turn the money over to the colonel, who
recommends them for red enamelled crosses for "bravery on the field."
The only store in Matanzas that was doing a brisk trade when I was
there was a jewelry shop, where they had sold more diamonds and
watches to the Spanish officers since the revolution broke out than they
had ever been able to dispose of before to all the rich men in the city.
The legitimate pay of the highest ranking officer is barely enough to
buy red wine for