Page:Messages of the President of the United States on the Relations of the United States to Spain (1898).djvu/49

Mr. Lee to Mr. Day.

[Confidential.]

No. 749.]

United States Consulate-General,
Havana, January 18, 1898. (Received January 22.)

Sir: The recent disorders in this city are to be primarily attributed to a group of Spanish officers who were incensed at articles appearing in three of the newspapers of Havana, El Reconcentrado, La Discusion, and El Diario de la Marina. The first was very pronounced against General Weyler and his methods, the Discusion had been suppressed by Weyler, but its publication was permitted to be resumed by Blanco, and the last had been an ultra Spanish organ, but had been converted by the present authorities to autonomy.

It is probable that the Spanish officers were first provoked by the denunciations of Weyler in the columns of one of these papers and determined to stop it, and afterwards, being supported by the mob, turned the demonstration into an antiautonomistic affair.

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I send to-day an analysis of the autonomistic plan. The intense opposition to it on the part of the Spaniards arises from the fact that the the first appointment of officers to put into form its provisions were made generally outside of their party in order to show the Cubans in arms that autonomy was instituted for their benefit and protection.

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The intelligent Spaniards * * * see no prosperity in the future, but rather other wars and more confusion in the same old attempts to make the waters of commerce flow in unnatural channels. The lower Spanish classes have nothing in mind when autonomy is mentioned except Cuban local rule; hence their opposition.

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I am, etc.,

Fitzhugh Lee,
Consul-General.

P. S.—The paper referred to will go by the next steamer.

 

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Mr. Lee to Mr. Day.

No. 754.]

United States Consulate-General,
Havana, January 21, 1898. (Received January 25.)

Sir:

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I have the honor to transmit herewith a document containing "Observations regarding the decree which established on the Island of Cuba the autonomic régime," and two copies of the Havana Gazette containing the decree referred to.

I am, etc.,

Fitzhugh Lee,
Consul-General.

 

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[Inclosure No. 1, with dispatch No. 754. Translation.]

OBSERVATIONS REGARDING THE DECREE WHICH ESTABLISHES ON THE ISLAND OF
CUBA THE AUTONOMIC RÉGIME.

1. Article 3 grants to the insular chambers, together with the Governor-General, the power to legislate regarding colonial affairs "in the form and terms designated