Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/707

1896-7] The Cuban insurrection. 675 situation had changed in the United States as well as in Cuba. American interests in the island had also increased, in planting, in mining, and in other enterprises; even in the past five years the volume of trade had almost doubled. The second insurrection was, besides, more active than the first, and spread itself over a wider area. At the end of two years it seemed, by reason of the failure of Spain's extraordinary efforts to suppress it, to admit of indefinite prolongation. If the conflict were left to take its course, the ruin of the island was apparently assured. The United States tendered its good offices ; but the offer was not productive of any tangible result. In his annual message of December 7, 1896, President Cleveland declared that it could not be reasonably assumed that the United States, though anxious to accord all due respect to the sovereignty of Spain, would indefinitely maintain an expectant attitude ; and he added that when Spain's inability to suppress the insurrection had become manifest, and the struggle had degenerated into a hopeless strife involving useless sacrifice of life and the destruction of the very subject-matter of the conflict, a situation would be presented in which the obligation to recognise the sovereignty of Spain would be superseded by higher obligations. Conditions in the island continued to grow worse. General Martinez Campos, as Captain-general during the earlier stages of the conflict, declared it to be his policy to encourage and protect productive industry. His successor, General Weyler, while requiring the owners of plantations to maintain forces for self-defence, prohibited production. His policy was embodied in his measures of "concentration," the object of which was to reduce the island to a condition in which the insurgents must either surrender or starve. The distress produced by these measures excited strong feeling in the United States, and led President McKinley to request Spain to put an end to existing conditions and restore order. When this request was presented, Sefior Canovas had fallen by the hand of an assassin, and had been succeeded as head of the Spanish Admini- stration by Senor Sagasta. The reply of the Sagasta government was of a friendly character. It announced that an autonomous regime would be instituted, and that the mode of conducting hostilities would be modified. President McKinley therefore, in his annual message of De- cember 6, 1897, expressed the opinion that the time had not come for the recognition either of belligerency or of independence, or for intervention. Steps were taken, however, to ameliorate the condition of the recon- centrados ; and a Central Cuban Relief Committee was appointed, with headquarters at New York. In Cuba General Weyler was succeeded by General Blanco, who represented the new Spanish policy. But neither the offer of autonomy, nor the actual institution of an autonomous government, produced peace. The insurgents, embittered by three years' conflict, in which the rights of war were denied them, rejected the pro- gramme of autonomy with substantial unanimity, while the distinctively ce. xxi. 43 _ 2