possession of the
island a few years longer, through our liberality,--a treaty by which
she would gain some thirty millions of dollars annually, and we should
be just so much the poorer.

As regards the final destiny of Cuba, that question will be settled by
certain economic laws which are as sure in their operation as are
those of gravitation. No matter what our wishes may be in the matter,
such individual desires are as nothing when arraigned against natural
laws. The commerce of the island is a stronger factor in the problem
than mere politics; it is the active agent of civilization all over
the world. It is not cannon, but ships; not gunpowder, but peaceful
freights, which settle the great questions of mercantile communities.
Krupp's hundred-ton guns will not control the fate of Cuba, but sugar
will. We have only to ask ourselves, Whither does the great commercial
interest of the island point? It is in the direction in which the
largest portion of her products find their market. If this were
England, towards that land her industry and her people would look
hopefully, but as it is the United States who take over ninety per
cent. of her entire exports, towards the country of the Stars and
Stripes she stretches out her hands, and asks for favorable treaties.

At the present moment she has reached a crisis, where her condition is
absolutely desperate. The hour is big with fate to the people of Cuba.
As long as European soil will produce beets, the product of the cane
will find no market on that side of the Atlantic. Cuba must in the
future depend as much upon the United States as does Vermont,
Mississippi, New York, Ohio, or any other State. The effort to bring
about a reciprocal treaty of commerce with us is but the expression of
a natural tendency to closer bonds with this country. Thus it will be
seen that as regards her commercial existence, Cuba is already within
the economic orbit of our Union, though she seems to be so far away
politically. The world's centre of commercial gravity is changing very
fast by reason of the great and rapid development of the United
States, and all lands surrounding the union must conform to the
prevailing lines of motion.

It is with infinite reluctance that the temporary sojourner in Cuba
leaves her delicious shores. A brief residence in the island passes
like a midsummer night's dream, while the memories one brings away
seem almost like delusive spots of the imagination. Smiling