a hopeful
change has supervened in the policy of Spain toward Cuba? A new
government has taken office in the mother country. It is pledged in
advance to the declaration that all the effort in the world can not
suffice to maintain peace in Cuba by the bayonet; that vague promises of
reform after subjugation afford no solution of the insular problem; that
with a substitution of commanders must come a change of the past system
of warfare for one in harmony with a new policy, which shall no longer
aim to drive the Cubans to the "horrible alternative of taking to the
thicket or succumbing in misery;" that reforms must be instituted in
accordance with the needs and circumstances of the time, and that these
reforms, while designed to give full autonomy to the colony and to
create a virtual entity and self-controlled administration, shall yet
conserve and affirm the sovereignty of Spain by a just distribution of
powers and burdens upon a basis of mutual interest untainted by methods
of selfish expediency.

The first acts of the new government lie in these honorable paths.
The policy of cruel rapine and extermination that so long shocked the
universal sentiment of humanity has been reversed. Under the new
military commander a broad clemency is proffered. Measures have already
been set on foot to relieve the horrors of starvation. The power of the
Spanish armies, it is asserted, is to be used not to spread ruin and
desolation, but to protect the resumption of peaceful agricultural
pursuits and productive industries. That past methods are futile to
force a peace by subjugation is freely admitted, and that ruin without
conciliation must inevitably fail to win for Spain the fidelity of a
contented dependency.

Decrees in application of the foreshadowed reforms have already been
promulgated. The full text of these decrees has not been received, but
as furnished in a telegraphic summary from our minister are: All civil
and electoral rights of peninsular Spaniards are, in virtue of existing
constitutional authority, forthwith extended to colonial Spaniards. A
scheme of autonomy has been proclaimed by decree, to become effective
upon ratification by the Cortes. It creates a Cuban parliament, which,
with the insular executive, can consider and vote upon all subjects
affecting local order and interests, possessing unlimited powers save as
to matters of state, war, and the navy, as to which the Governor-General
acts by his own authority