The disqualifications of the Cubans to hold public office is purely a myth.  Such disqualifications is found on the text of no law or regulation, and in point of fact there is no such exclusion.  In order to verify this assertion it would be sufficient to examine the lists of Cuban officers, especially of those employed in the administration of justice and in all branches of instruction.  Even if it were desired to make a comparison of political offices, even of those connected with the functions which are discharged in the Peninsula, the proportion would still be shown in which Spaniards in Cuba aspire to both.  The fact is that a common fallacy is appealed to in the language habitually used by the enemies of Spain, who call persons “Peninsulars” who were not born in Cuba, but have resided there many years and have all their ties and interests there, and do not call those “Cubans” who were born there and have left the island in order to meet necessities connected, perhaps, with their occupation.  This was done in the Senate, when the advocates of the separation of Cuba only were called “Cubans,” while those only who refused allegiance to the Spanish mother-country were called patriots.

In conclusion, I will relate a fact which may appear to be a joke, but which, in a certain way, furnished proof of what I have just said.  When Rafael Gasset returned from Habana, he came and asked me for some data showing the proportion of Cubans holding office under our Government.  I asked him, as a preliminary question, for a definition of what we were to understand by “Cuban” and what by “Peninsular.”  He immediately admitted that the decision of the whole question was based upon that definition, and I called his attention to the fact that here, in the Ministry of the Colonies, at the present time, there are three high governmental functionaries.  One is a representative from Habana, being at the same time a professor in its University, and another, viz., your humble servant, is a Spaniard because he was born in Habana itself.  Is the other man a Peninsular, and am I not a Cuban?

Guillermo.  Assistant Colonial Secretary of Spain.

This is the argument from the Peninsular standpoint, and it is probably made in good faith.  But while the Spanish rule in Cuba may seem to be just and equitable in theory, it is oppressive and tyrannical in fact.  While the government may have partly carried out the letter of its promises, there has been no effort to fulfill the spirit of the compact in the slighest degree, and the violated pledges of the treaty of Zanjon only add new chapters to the long record of Spanish treachery and deceit.

CHAPTER XVI.

Preparations for another rebellion.

Spain’s Policy of Distrust—­The Cost of the Ten Years’ War—­Work of the Cuban Exiles—­Revolutionary Clubs in the Western Hemisphere—­An Expedition Checked—­Heroism of Cuban Women—­The Struggle Begun.