on, has relatively outstripped its
declining mother.

"There remains the moral of the story.

"If we are not mistaken as to the fundamental causes of Spain's colonial
weakness, other colonial powers must take warning also, and the United
States in particular, if it yields to the temptations, or, as many say,
assumes the divinely-ordered responsibilities, of the situation. For its
protective system is a derivative of the mercantile system, as the
colonial system was. If it becomes a colonial power, but attempts by
heavy duties to limit the foreign trade of its colonies, if it
administers those colonies through officials of the spoils type, if it
fails to enlarge the local liberties and privileges of its dependencies
up to the limit of their receptive powers--if, in short, it holds
colonies for its own aggrandizement, instead of their well-being--it
will be but repeating the blunders of Spain, and the end will be
disaster."

Colonel Hill has declared that the heavy burdens under which the
business world of Porto Rico has been staggering in the past have been
almost inconceivable. Something of this has already been said, but it
may be well to give Colonel Hill's views, as he is certainly a most
competent judge. The colonel says that in the first place there has been
a tax on every ship that comes in and goes out. There has been a heavy
tax on all articles of impost and a special tax on all articles not
enumerated in the tariff. In addition to that, an additional tax of ten
per cent. on the bill was added. Each hackman who plied between the port
and the town of Ponce had to pay a tax of eight dollars a month. No
person could write a letter to an official without first going to the
collector and purchasing a certain kind of official paper, for which he
must pay fifty cents to one dollar a sheet. The price was regulated by
the rank of the official who had to be written to.

The effect of all this was rather to increase the number of complaints
from citizens than to increase the revenues of the island.

To General Ernst, who was the officer in command of the territory of
Coamo, a large number of protests were made. In especial, a delegation
of twelve to fifteen citizens called upon the general to request the
removal of the alcalde, on the ground that he had been an officer in the
Spanish volunteer army, and was unsatisfactory because of his former
connections. The gentleman, however, had gracefully accepted the new
condi