overnment of Spain. It is reasonably estimated that at least
from $30,000,000 to $50,000,000 of American capital are invested in
plantations and in railroad, mining, and other business enterprises
on the island. The volume of trade between the United States and Cuba,
which in 1889 amounted to about $64,000,000, rose in 1893 to about
$103,000,000, and in 1894, the year before the present insurrection
broke out, amounted to nearly $96,000,000. Besides this large pecuniary
stake in the fortunes of Cuba, the United States finds itself
inextricably involved in the present contest in other ways, both
vexatious and costly.

Many Cubans reside in this country, and indirectly promote the
insurrection through the press, by public meetings, by the purchase and
shipment of arms, by the raising of funds, and by other means which the
spirit of our institutions and the tenor of our laws do not permit to be
made the subject of criminal prosecutions. Some of them, though Cubans
at heart and in all their feelings and interests, have taken out papers
as naturalized citizens of the United States--a proceeding resorted
to with a view to possible protection by this Government, and not
unnaturally regarded with much indignation by the country of their
origin. The insurgents are undoubtedly encouraged and supported by the
widespread sympathy the people of this country always and instinctively
feel for every struggle for better and freer government, and which,
in the case of the more adventurous and restless elements of our
population, leads in only too many instances to active and personal
participation in the contest. The result is that this Government is
constantly called upon to protect American citizens, to claim damages
for injuries to persons and property, now estimated at many millions of
dollars, and to ask explanations and apologies for the acts of Spanish
officials whose zeal for the repression of rebellion sometimes blinds
them to the immunities belonging to the unoffending citizens of a
friendly power. It follows from the same causes that the United States
is compelled to actively police a long line of seacoast against unlawful
expeditions, the escape of which the utmost vigilance will not always
suffice to prevent.

These inevitable entanglements of the United States with the
rebellion in Cuba, the large American property interests affected,
and considerations of philanthropy and humanity in general have led
to a vehement demand