Page:Messages of the President of the United States on the Relations of the United States to Spain (1898).djvu/99

 70 ing boards (ballot boards) at general elections, shall present their respective credentials within two months, reckoning from the day of the meeting of the Cortes. For those proclaimed elected at partial elections the time shall be reckoned from the day of their proclamation by the examining board (ballot board). It shall be understood that he who does not present his credentials within the period fixed by this article resigns his office, and, consequently, a vacancy in the district or college concerned shall be declared after Congress shall have decided concerning the legality of the election.

If the same individual shall be found to have been elected by two or more districts at the same time, he shall make choice before Congress of one of them within eight days after the last of his certificates of election shall have been approved, if he shall then have been admitted as a deputy, or within thirty days if otherwise.

In default of a choice within either term, the district that belongs to him shall be decided by lot in Congress, and a vacancy shall be declared with respect to the others.

The electors and the candidates who have taken part or been concerned in an election may have recourse to Congress at any time before the approval of the respective certificates of election with such complaints as they may desire to present with regard to the validity or result of such election, or with regard to the legal qualifications of the deputy elect previous to his having been admitted.

When, in order to be able to appreciate and judge of the legality of an election concerning which complaint is made before Congress, it shall be thought, necessary to make some negotiations in the locality where such election was held, the president of the chamber shall give and directly communicate orders to the judicial magistrate of the territory whom he may think proper to commission for the purpose, and the commissioned magistrate shall consult with the said President in the performance of his duty without any necessity for the intervention of the Government.

After an election has been approved by Congress and the deputy elected by it has been admitted, no complaint shall be received, nor shall any subsequent discussion be permitted respecting the validity of the said election, or regarding the legal fitness of the deputy, unless on account of incapacity that has occurred since his admission.

Approved by Her Majesty.

2em

November 25, 1897.

In endeavoring to solve the problem of introducing colonial autonomy into the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico, which task, together with that of the pacification of the territory of Cuba, constitutes the engagements which the Government has contracted with the nation, the ministers think that detailed explanations and comments on the complex matters embraced in the plan should give way to a temperate but full statement of its fundamental character, or of the spheres of action to which it extends and of the consequences which, in their opinion, must be the result of the régime which they propose to Your Majesty for the government of the Spanish Antilles.

Criticism and analysis will speedily elucidate all that relates to the details; the essential ideas and the inspiration of the decree have their appropriate place here and at this time only.

This is the more necessary since the first and most essential condition of success in reforms of this kind is absolute sincerity of purpose. With this sincerity the Government has examined the best form of an autonomic constitution for the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico, and it hopes clearly to demonstrate, in these observations, that the intention and the results have gone hand in hand.

It was proposed, in the first place, clearly to establish the principle, to develop it in its entirety, and to surround it with every guaranty of success, because, when it is sought to intrust the direction of affairs to peoples that have reached the age of virility, either no mention of autonomy should be made to them or it should be given to them complete, with the conviction that they are started on the right road with the restrictions or shackles which are born of distrust and suspicion. Either the defense of nationality is confided to repression and force or it is turned over to a reconciliation of affection and tradition with interest, and this reconciliation is