h as to
make it a fair precedent for Cuba. In the other colonies the debts were
largely due to their own people. To a considerable extent they had been
incurred for the prosecution of improvements of a pacific character,
generally for the public good and often at the public desire. Another
part had been spent in the legitimate work of preserving public order
and extending the advantages of government over wild regions and native
tribes.[3] The rich, compact, populous island of Cuba had called for no
such loans up to the time when Spain had already lost all of her
American colonies on the continent, and had consequently no other
dependency on which to fasten her exacting governor-generals and hosts
of other official leeches. There was no Cuban debt. Any honest
administration had ample revenues for all legitimate expenses, and a
surplus; and this surplus seems not to have been used for the benefit
of the island, but sent home. Between 1856 and 1861 over $20,000,000 of
Cuban surplus were thus remitted to Madrid. Next began a plan for using
Cuban credit as a means of raising money to re-conquer the lost
dominions; and so "Cuban bonds" (with the guaranty of the Spanish
nation) were issued, first for the effort to regain Santo Domingo, and
then for the expedition to Mexico. By 1864 $3,000,000 had been so
issued; by 1868 $18,000,000--not at the request or with the consent of
the Cubans, and not for their benefit. Then commenced the Cuban
insurrection; and from that time on, all Spain could wring from Cuba or
borrow in European markets on the pledge of Cuban revenues and her own
guaranty went in the effort to subdue a colony in revolt against her
injustice and bad government. The lenders knew the facts and took the
risk. Two years after this first insurrection was temporarily put down,
these so-called Cuban debts had amounted to over $170,000,000. They
were subsequently consolidated into other and later issues; but
whatever change of form or date they underwent, they continued to
represent practically just three things: the effort to conquer Santo
Domingo, the expedition to Mexico, and the efforts to subdue Cuba. A
movement to refund at a lower rate of interest was begun in 1890, and
for this purpose an issue of $175,000,000 of Spanish bonds was
authorized, to be paid out of the revenues of Cuba, but with the
guaranty of the Spanish nation. Before many had been placed the
insurrection had again broken out. Thenceforward they wer