“We have no such thing as ‘one man power’ in the United States, and cannot so far depart from our devotion to popular liberty as to tolerate it here. So I say, if the people of Cuba (I include in the word ‘people’ all classes and conditions) will await with patience and resolution the establishment of good government, honestly and impartially administered, a brilliant future is in store for them. If, on the contrary, bickerings among themselves, unreasonable complaints, and demands in disregard of the rights of persons and property should lead to bloodshed and breaches of the peace and the disturbance of public order and tranquillity, as they most surely will, the day of their deliverance will be indefinitely deferred.
“You ask me whether I think the people of the Island of Cuba capable of self-government. This is a very difficult question to answer. I may, however, say that I have no sympathy with the harsh and unjust judgments of those who condemn them without a hearing and settle in advance a problem which requires time for solution.
“Officially I have no opinion to express as to the status of such a commonwealth, for that is a question to be settled by the people themselves in their aggregate capacity, but personally I should like to see Cuba a State in the American Union, enjoying all the rights of local autonomy and self-government on terms of equality with the other commonwealths of the United States. She would then have liberty, regulated by a written constitution, where the military is subordinate to the civil power, and where each of the three great co-ordinate branches of the government, legislative, executive, and judicial, execute the will of the people.”
The above statement, which, with General Butler’s consent, is made part of this chapter, was prepared with great precision and care and only after long deliberation. Moreover, it was submitted to some of his colleagues, and the subject-matter fully discussed with the author, who is in full and hearty accord with the views expressed. Officially the author has no opinion to express as to the status of such a commonwealth, for the work committed to him was purely of an economic and fiscal and not of a political character. Personally, however, the author, with General Butler, looks forward to the day when Cuba will be a State of the Union, in the enjoyment of that full degree of liberty and self-government which is accorded the other commonwealths of the United States.
CHAPTER IV
THE ENGLISH IN JAMAICA
HAVING sought light and information in relation to the future political government of Cuba from both Cuban and Spanish sources, for the Marquis de Apezteguia is more Spanish than Cuban, it may be well to ascertain if any useful lesson may be found in British colonial administration. With this thought in view, the author, after completing the work in Cuba, made a brief visit to the island of Jamaica. Through the courtesy of the American Mail Steamship Company, the S.S. Admiral Sampson stopped at Santiago and thus enabled me to reach Port Antonio, Jamaica, in seven hours. At this point I met Captain L. D. Baker, the head of the vast American fruit interests of Jamaica, and with him visited Kingston and had an interview with the Governor-General of Jamaica, and with the heads of nearly all the Departments of Government. In this connection it affords me pleasure to mention the name of Dr. James Johnston, member of the Jamaica Council for St. Ann’s Parish and member of the Commission now revising the revenue law of Jamaica. Dr. Johnston was a fellow-passenger on the S.S. Sampson, on its return voyage to the United States, and furnished much valuable explanatory information in relation to the government of Jamaica, for which this opportunity is taken to express thanks.
The information thus obtained and the data gathered from the various blue books and the reports of the Royal Commission on the British West India Islands, all have a special bearing on the problem the United States is now confronting in Cuba, and hence on the political future of the Island. Better to appreciate the present aims of British administration in Jamaica, one should read the following extract from an article in the December number of Scribner’s Magazine, by the Right Honourable Joseph Chamberlain, British Colonial Secretary:
“In the first period of this eventful history the territories acquired by conquest or discovery were treated as possessions to be exploited entirely for the advantage of the occupying nation, and little or no thought was given to the rights or the interests either of the original inhabitants or of the colonists who had dispossessed them. This view of the relations between a state and its outlying territories continued more or less throughout the eighteenth century, although the War of Independence in America did much to modify and dispel it. The success of the Revolution not only destroyed the hope that colonies could be made tributary to the mother country, but led ultimately to the conclusion that, since they would never be a source of direct revenue, we should be better without colonies at all. Assuming that an entirely independent and separate existence was the ultimate destiny of all our possessions abroad, and believing that this consummation would relieve us of burdensome obligations, we readily conceded self-government to the colonies in the temperate zones, in the hopes that this would hasten the inevitable and desirable result. We found, not without surprise, that in spite of hints to this effect, our kinsfolk and fellow-subjects resented the idea of separation and, fortunately for us, preferred to remain, each ‘daughter in her mother’s house and mistress in her own.’ Influenced by the same idea, we elaborated constitutions by the score for every kind of tropical dependency, in the vain expectation that the native population would appreciate forms of government evolved in our own civilisation, and would learn quickly to be self-supporting and to develop for themselves the territories in which we began to think we had only a temporary interest. We were disappointed, and we have had to recognise the fact that, for an indefinite period of time, the ideas and standards of our political and social order cannot be intelligently accepted or applied by races which are centuries behind us in the process of national evolution. The experience of Hayti and Liberia under independent native government, of many of the South American republics, of Egypt and of India, and the stagnation of all tropical countries, in regard to matters dependent on local effort, make it evident that wherever the white man cannot be permanently or advantageously acclimatised and wherever, therefore, the great majority of the population must always be natives, the only security for good government and for the effective development of the resources of the country consists in providing this native population with white superintendence, and with rulers and administrators who will bring to their task the knowledge derived from the experience of a higher civilisation; and, constantly changing, will be always under the influence of the standards and ideals which they have been brought up to respect.
“This is the root idea of British administration in the tropics. At the same time we have abandoned forever any desire to secure tribute from these possessions, and we no longer seek any direct or exclusive advantage.
“We find our profit in the increased prosperity of the people for whose interests we have made ourselves responsible, and in the development of, and access to, markets which we open at the same time to the rest of the world. Our primary obligation is to maintain peace, and safety of life and property, and equal justice for all irrespective of race or class. Subject to these conditions, we interfere as little as possible with native religions, customs, or laws; and under this system we are successfully administering the affairs of hundreds of millions of people of almost every race under the sun, with trifling cost to the British taxpayer, and with the smallest army of white soldiers of any of the powers of Europe. In India, where three hundred millions of people acknowledge the Queen as Empress, the total white garrison is only seventy thousand men; in Egypt, with a population of nine millions, the normal white garrison is thirty-five hundred men; while in Ceylon, the Straits Settlements and protected States, the West Indies, and West Africa not a single white regiment is stationed for the maintenance of our rule, which is secured entirely by coloured soldiers and police under British officers. Our experience should at least go far to satisfy the objections of those Americans who anticipate that the occupation of tropical countries would involve the retention of vast numbers of American soldiers in an unhealthy climate, and would lay an intolerable burden on the American treasury.”