When it has finally passed the Cortes, it must be sent to the Queen, who will look it over at her leisure, and sign it if she thinks fit.
Even after her signature is affixed the Cortes has the power to lay the measure aside and prevent its ever becoming a law.
It is therefore hinted in Cuba that the offers of reform may after all mean nothing but an endeavor to gain time, and prevent the United States from going to the assistance of Cuba.
The reforms offered are not at all acceptable to Cubans, because they find that they will be expected to pay the whole of the debt caused by the war, which now amounts to nearly six hundred million dollars. Furthermore, the captain-general who will rule over the island as governor will have the right to veto every act of the legislature. The Cubans therefore feel that the Home Rule offered is not a genuine reform which will bring them relief from the abuses from which they rebelled against Spain, but a sort of game, invented to keep them good tempered, which is as unlike real Home Rule as playing with a doll is unlike nursing a real baby.
It is stated that the Cuban people in the field and in the cities do not believe in the offered Home Rule, and are determined not to accept it.
A proclamation to that effect has come from Cuba. It is signed by Calixto Garcia, Maximo Gomez, and Domingo Mendez Capote,—which, by the way, looks as if the report was true that Garcia had been elected commander-in-chief of the army, Gomez, minister of war, and Capote, president of Cuba; else why should they sign the proclamation, which is an official document?
General Gomez has also issued another statement in which he says that the change in the Spanish Government will not affect the Cuban plans in the least. The Cubans, he says, are fighting for liberty, and liberty they will have. They scornfully refuse the Spanish offers of Home Rule, believing them to be insincere and misleading.
Gomez further declares that the army has been making great preparations for the coming winter campaign, and expects to show the mother-country, by force of arms, that Cuba will have nothing from her but freedom.
General Weyler has left Cuba, and General Ramon Blanco has taken command in his place.