oil, it is obvious that there is hardly a limit
to the time during which hostilities of this sort may be prolonged.
Meanwhile, as in all cases of protracted civil strife, the passions of
the combatants grow more and more inflamed and excesses on both sides
become more frequent and more deplorable. They are also participated in
by bands of marauders, who, now in the name of one party and now in the
name of the other, as may best suit the occasion, harry the country at
will and plunder its wretched inhabitants for their own advantage. Such
a condition of things would inevitably entail immense destruction of
property, even if it were the policy of both parties to prevent it as
far as practicable; but while such seemed to be the original policy of
the Spanish Government, it has now apparently abandoned it and is acting
upon the same theory as the insurgents, namely, that the exigencies of
the contest require the wholesale annihilation of property that it may
not prove of use and advantage to the enemy.

It is to the same end that, in pursuance of general orders, Spanish
garrisons are now being withdrawn from plantations and the rural
population required to concentrate itself in the towns. The sure
result would seem to be that the industrial value of the island is
fast diminishing and that unless there is a speedy and radical change
in existing conditions it will soon disappear altogether. That value
consists very largely, of course, in its capacity to produce sugar--a
capacity already much reduced by the interruptions to tillage which
have taken place during the last two years. It is reliably asserted
that should these interruptions continue during the current year, and
practically extend, as is now threatened, to the entire sugar-producing
territory of the island, so much time and so much money will be required
to restore the land to its normal productiveness that it is extremely
doubtful if capital can be induced to even make the attempt.

The spectacle of the utter ruin of an adjoining country, by nature
one of the most fertile and charming on the globe, would engage the
serious attention of the Government and people of the United States in
any circumstances. In point of fact, they have a concern with it which
is by no means of a wholly sentimental or philanthropic character. It
lies so near to us as to be hardly separated from our territory. Our
actual pecuniary interest in it is second only to that of the people
and G