Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/494

102 of mountains varying more or less in height (the highest portion being at the eastern end of the island) which constitutes a backbone, as it were, and to which upon each of its long sides the remainder of the island seems to be securely anchored. In these mountains are found many minerals, and upon their sides grow in profusion the most valuable hard woods, the railroads using in some instances mahogany for cross-ties.

The history of the Spanish people, so far as it refers to their colonial possessions, has never kept step to the music of the march of progress or ever shown any development of interior natural resources. Here, on this favored spot where Spanish feet were planted over four centuries ago, there are no public roads or highways or even country roads; no canals; no telegraphs, except along the line of some of the railroads; and the few railroads on the island were built by English enterprise and capital, and not by Spanish. It has ever been the policy of the Spaniards to occupy the edges of a country and remain in and closely around the cities and towns which constitute the seaports.

Less than a half century ago the Cubans (or Insular Spaniards, as they were called) owned most of the property and wealth of the island; but it has been gradually passing away from them until to-day the Peninsular Spaniards (or the Spaniards born in Spain) have succeeded in securing possession of the commercial business, stores, and commission houses of the cities, so that they are now the wealthy class of Cuba. A very high tariff on all goods, except those coming from Spain, has driven the inhabitants of the island to trade with Spain to a great extent, and the Spanish merchants at Barcelona and other points, preferring to have commercial relations with the Spaniards rather than the Cubans, have done much to bring about this financial change in these two classes.

This change, combined with economic questions, has been greatly widening the dividing line between the Cubans and Spaniards until it has resulted in the present existing chasm. Enmity, therefore, exists between Spaniards and Cubans, though the latter are descendants of Spaniards themselves. It is a remarkable fact that nearly every person born on the island seems to be at once instilled with a dislike for the Spaniards and their methods, and I know of no instance where children born in Cuba of Spanish parents have not participated in this feeling. This being true, has made it easier for the Spaniards to deprive the Cubans of all "Home Rule," or participation in the government and its perquisites, until the last feather was added to the great pile which had been accumulating for a long number of years, and has driven the Cubans to attempt once more to throw off the Spanish yoke and seize and hold the reins of their own government.

Spain, losing her power by gradual process, has seen for many years that Cuban independence is only a question of time, though the political demands on the party