Great Britain did not wish to repeat with Canada the obstinacy that cost it the Independence of Estados Unidos. It immediately sent a High Commissioner to investigate on the ground the causes of the events. Such a delicate mission fell upon the eminent statesman Lord Durham. After a meticulous investigation, he informed the British Government that no such racial or religious conflict existed; that in Canada, Catholics and Protestants, French and English, had revolted against the government, and that the only ones who supported the government were a tiny minority that sought to dominate the entire country, using all official influence for its own benefit. Lord Durham made the declaration of the wise political apothegm that all irresponsible government is terrible. He recommended in his luminous report that a government exclusively responsible to said nation be immediately established in Canada; that all power of the British Parliament over Canadian affairs cease; that relations between Great Britain and Canada be regulated on the basis of treaties of equal to equal; and so that harmony might persist between the two nationalities, Canada would recognize the “personal” sovereignty of the King of England, whose representative, the Viceroy, would reign, and not govern, thus strictly following the principle of parliamentary government, that the Executive can only act through its ministers, who necessarily must be responsible to the parliament that retains all governmental powers. Canada obtained independence to harness the power of free contracting, that is, to make treaties freely with other powers. Canada immediately ended the monopoly that England exercised over its foreign commerce by virtue of restrictive laws. Canadian legislation on tariff matters soon put English merchandise at a disadvantage in the Canadian market. With the celebration of commercial treaties with other powers, Canada acts on the basis of mutual reciprocity, and therefore, currently, by virtue of treaties between the Canadian dominion and Estados Unidos, the products of the latter country compete advantageously in the Canadian market with similar English products, to the serious detriment of the British economy. The same situation has been created for Great Britain by recognizing governments with powers equal to the Canadian one in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the Irish Free State. The British economy worsens every day with the international competition of the dominions that once belonged to Great Britain and that today enjoy international status as sovereigns, on the basis of equality with the Mother Patria and that appear in all international centers such as the Liga de las Naciones enjoying their own sovereignty and linked to each other and to the Mother Patria, by the “personal” sovereignty of the King of England, a link that will exist as long as the British Sovereign and of the Dominions respects the created statute. Thus the British Empire is officially called the British Commonwealth of Nations that does not recognize the sovereignty of one over the other, and feels united only by the ties of the crown. Great Britain as a nation has lost all interference over those dominions, and in return, the English Crown has gained in prestige. The economic situation of Great Britain is currently so precarious, due, among other factors, to the commercial and industrial competition of the dominions, that the great contemporary thinkers of that country, among them the head of the Partido Conservador, Stanley Baldwin, and the great publicist Lord Beaverbrook, are committed to promoting a common tariff in all the nations of the Empire and free cabotage between them. But the dominions definitively oppose that plan because political autonomy has significance if it is accompanied by tariff autonomy, which carries with it the right to make commercial treaties with whoever is most interested. The fight for political autonomy has always been a fight for tariff autonomy and the right of free contracting with other nations. The tariff not only determines an easy and effective method to collect funds for the treasury, but also fixes the commerce and industry of the country, and the expansion they may have in the international market. In a word, tariff power regulates the most vital interests of nationality. This is said for those who speak of autonomy in good faith. Within the Constitution in force in Estados Unidos, that regime cannot be implemented in Puerto Rico. This is a problem of Constitutional Law that we will analyze in our next article. Those who speak of autonomy only for the purpose of disorienting the opinion of their country, so that the present state of affairs does not change, so that free cabotage between Estados Unidos and Puerto Rico persists and the continuation of the privileges enjoyed by the invading interests, have never thought about the meaning of the term autonomy. To distinguish those who use this term in good faith and those who use it in bad faith, the public opinion of the country demands that they say what they understand by autonomy. AUTONOMY IS NOT POSSIBLE WITHIN THE NORTHAMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL REGIME We have been asked if, by virtue of the Autonomic Constitution of Puerto Rico put into force by the crown of España, the country enjoyed the tariff Independence that Canada enjoys. We have established that the fight for autonomy has the purpose of acquiring customs independence as the regulatory power of collective economic life. In article 39 of said constitution, this power is expressly consigned. Here is the text: “It will also correspond to the Insular Parliament to form the duties that merchandise must pay, both upon its importation into the insular territory and upon its exportation from it.” Currently, Puerto Rico cannot do one thing or the other. Estados Unidos does not have the frankness of other imperial powers to declare its intention to monopolize the market of the nations subjected to its will by force. But it imposes its tariff, which is practically prohibitive for the entry of products from other foreign nations; it imposes free cabotage between these subjected nations and the empire that subjugates them; and it expressly prohibits the colonial governments that these nationalities must suffer from taxing imports or exports. Therein lies the key to the terrible exploitation suffered by Puerto Rico and Filipinas under the domination of Estados Unidos. As tariff independence carries with it the power to make international trade treaties, the same autonomic constitution specifies the procedures to be followed. But since this issue is so vital, the first trade treaty between Puerto Rico and España is emptied in the same constitution. Here are its terms: “Article 40: As a transition from the current regime to the one now established, and without prejudice to what the two governments may agree on in their day, the commercial relations between the peninsula and the Isla de Puerto Rico will be governed by the following provisions: 1a. No duty, whether or not of a fiscal nature, and whether established for importation or exportation, may be differential to the detriment of insular or peninsular production. 2a. A list of articles of direct national origin will be formed by the two governments, to which a differential duty will be assigned by common agreement on their similar articles of foreign origin. In another analogous list, formed by the same procedure, the products of direct insular origin that will receive privileged treatment upon their entry into the peninsula and the type of differential duties will be determined. This differential duty in no case will exceed thirty-five percent for both origins. If there is conformity between the two governments in the formation of both lists and in the fixing of the protective duties, the lists will be put into effect immediately. If there is discrepancy, the resolution of the litigious point will be submitted to a commission of Deputies of the Reino, formed in equal parts by Portorriqueños and Peninsulares. This commission will appoint its President: if no agreement is reached on his appointment, the oldest will preside. The President will have a casting vote. 3a. The valuation tables relating to the articles enumerated in the two lists mentioned in the previous number will be fixed by common agreement and will be reviewed contradictorily every two years. The modifications that in their view should be made in the tariff duties will be carried out immediately by the respective governments”. A group has emerged that is currently called autonomist. They want free cabotage to be maintained between Estados Unidos and Puerto Rico. We must tell them that there is no autonomy where the imperial power forcibly maintains free cabotage between itself and the nations subjected to its will by force, as is the case with Puerto Rico. We must congratulate them for their nonconformity with the current political status of irresponsible government that prevails in Puerto Rico. Now then, if they aspire to autonomy, and of course, that Puerto Rico enjoys tariff Independence, and Independence to make commercial treaties, whether these harm or do not harm Estados Unidos, it is clear and conclusive, that such a thing is not possible within the North American constitutional regime. We understand that the autonomists want the empire of Estados Unidos over Puerto Rico not to cease for reasons that do not interest us at this moment. Their autonomic aspiration is not possible under the flag of Estados Unidos. The creation of the classic type of autonomy is due to monarchical regimes, of England and España. The constitution of the monarchy has enjoyed sufficient elasticity to allow the recognition of autonomic governments without the complete separation from the empire, maintaining over the autonomic nationality the personal sovereignty of the imperial monarch as a vital link of relations between it and the metropole. England, upon recognizing the autonomy of the nationalities that were its dominions, deprived them of representation in its own parliament, definitively ending the interference of its own parliament in the affairs of the nationalities whose autonomy it had just recognized. España retained in the cortes the representation of Cuba and Puerto Rico after having recognized their autonomy. In both cases, however, tariff Independence is recognized and, as a corollary, Independence to make commercial treaties. This power, to be effective, must be irrevocable. This is what article two of the additional articles of the autonomic constitution of Puerto Rico provides, which reads as follows: “Once the present constitution for the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico has been approved by the cortes of the Reino, it may only be modified by virtue of a law and at the request of the Insular Parliament. The powers recognized by the Mother Patria obliged all foreign powers, because the recognition of an international statute by the Mother Patria is the most perfect recognition, which obliges third powers and grants them the rights of contracting with the new entity that begins to figure in the international concert. Where does sovereignty reside in a State, using this term in its true sense, whether it is in the monarch or in the nation, is not a topic of discussion in the Republic. In this latter system of government it is assumed that the sovereign is the nation. This consideration does not prevent a Republic that exercises empire over another nationality from recognizing the autonomy of the latter. This depends, however, on the constitution of the imperial Republic. Under the North American constitution, there are provincial governments; called state governments and the federal government that has the power to govern without any responsibility to the territories or nations that fall under the empire of Estados Unidos. The North American province does not have international status, but within the constitution, the central government has to respect its rights, because it enjoys the constitutional statute that guarantees the existence of all the organisms created by the constitution, such as the Congreso Nacional, the Tribunal Supremo, and the Presidencia. As the constitution can be amended by the only sovereign, that is, El Pueblo de Estados Unidos, the powers of the province, “state”, can be modified when the sovereign so orders within the procedures established in the constitution. Likewise, the powers of the Presidencia del Congreso, and the Tribunal Supremo can be modified. If the sovereign resolved to destroy the present provincial organization, called state and replace it with any other, of course, he could do so. The same can be said regarding the modification of the powers or existence of any national organism. The national organisms are obliged to exercise the faculties that are granted to them in the constitution. These faculties are duties that must be fulfilled. Thus the Congreso de Estados Unidos has the duty to govern the territories and nations under conquest without being responsible to the governed in any way. Any law that they approve for a territory or possession is revocable at any moment, in whole or in part, by the same Congreso or by another successive Congreso. Any power that is granted to the governments of the territories is in their capacity as mandataries of the national power, and therefore any resolution or territorial law can be annulled in whole or in part, at any moment by the Congreso nacional. The North American constitution grants tariff power to the Congreso. The tariffs are uniform. The same types govern in the provinces “states”, as in the territories, possessions, or nations subjected to the empire like Puerto Rico and Filipinas. The Congreso could not in any case grant tariff power irrevocably to Puerto Rico, because as we have said, every statute of said legislative body is subject to revocation or amendment by the same. It has been alleged that within the constitution a federal statute can be practically irrevocable, although constitutionally, it is revocable at any moment. And as proof, it has been pointed out that not only does the desuetude of rights of the Congreso exist but also the desuetude of constitutional rights. As proof of this assertion, we are presented with the case of the desuetude of political rights in the south of Estados Unidos. Here are more than sixteen million North American citizens who, for the sole fact of carrying African blood in their veins, have been deprived of the electoral vote, although the constitution expressly prohibits that a citizen be deprived of the exercise of suffrage for considerations of race. With this example it could be deduced that, if the Congreso approves a law granting a power to one of the territories, such a law, due to its transcendence, could be respected by the same Congreso subsequently or by other Congresos that would succeed it. The unusual case of depriving more than sixteen million citizens of the electoral right, in frank and open opposition to the constitution itself, is explained, however, by the barbarous prejudice that exists in Estados Unidos in racial matters. The opinion of the dominant elements of that nation in this matter is almost unanimous. No one in the Congreso or in the Presidencia or in the Tribunal Supremo of that country has insisted that the electoral right of those who carry African blood in their veins be respected. That could be repeated in Puerto Rico with the benefit of those who exercise the omni-powerful influence in Estados Unidos, if our country is fused into a province “state”, of the North American nation. All the elements of pure African blood, ours or mestizos, could be deprived, with the acquiescence of the central power, of suffrage. Granting tariff independence to Puerto Rico, while Estados Unidos exercises empire over our nationality, is an economic question, of greater transcendence for the dominating nation than the racial question. When the thirteen original states fused under the present constitution, they constituted the sovereignty, called the Pueblo de Estados Unidos, they were reduced to provinces of the new sovereign, and forcibly lost the tariff independence that they had enjoyed during the brief period of the confederation. The tariff front is uniform, the same in the provinces, “state”, as in the territories. Neither directly nor indirectly has it been permitted that any national political division can intervene in the exercise of this power, which is a symbol, by itself, of national unity. To ask that Estados Unidos amend its enjoyment of tariff independence, while that right is expressly denied to the same “states”, provinces, and to the other territories, is to fall into one of those dreams of those who do not have the courage to exercise their own inalienable right to Independence. It goes without saying that Puerto Rico could not have the corollary power to tariff independence, that is, the faculty to make commercial treaties. It must be pointed out, for greater clarity, that the powers that the Congreso de Estados Unidos has granted to the territorial governments have always been interpreted by the courts in a restrictive sense like any ordinary mandate. And it is also to be noted that the Congreso de Estados Unidos, instead of expanding powers granted to a territorial government, has always tried to restrict them by subsequent legislation. That is why the continental territories tried to get out of the territorial condition that imposed on them an irresponsible government of the Congreso, in many cases, appealing to violence against the federal authorities that the central government sent them from Washington to govern their destinies. There are two ways to get out of the absolute dominion of the Congreso: to become a province, “state”, or to establish the Independent Republic. Within the North American nation, the province, “state”, as happens in all constitutions, absolutely lacks tariff power. So that Puerto Rico can exercise its tariff independence and the power to make commercial treaties, it has to constitute itself into an Independent Republic. THE PROTECTORATE IS AN AGGRESSION To establish Autonomy, and with it Tariff Independence, and the power to make commercial treaties, it would be necessary for Estados Unidos to recognize the Independence of Puerto Rico, in order to then burden it with limitations that would reduce the exercise of sovereignty powers to the limits of the Autonomic status. We have been asked if that political solution should not satisfy the legitimate demands to constitute the Republic. In other words, it is asked, if the Republic should be established with the protectorate of Estados Unidos. The term protectorate, the declarations of guarantee of Independence, the securities to maintain firm the internal regime, etc., are the promises that strong powers generally make to impose servitude on nations that enjoy the recognition of their Independence, with the purpose of acquiring strategic positions in their territories and acquiring a privileged position in their economic development. Territorial integrity cannot be violated either directly or indirectly, without compromising political Independence and economic Independence. This grave danger is not imposed by third powers but by the nation that declares itself the protector. Those who have no notion of national unity, whether territorial or spiritual, do not see the consequences of making concessions of the national patrimony to foreign powers. The establishment of coaling stations, naval bases, cablegraphic or wireless communication centers, etc., is not permitted by any country, without immediate and irreducible force being imposed on it, whatever the pretensions of the power that requests concessions, which endanger the very life of the nationality. Nation protected, nation aggressed by the supposed protector. Such is the aphorism of international life. To make territorial concessions of the nature that we have described, is to sanction in advance the military and naval coercion of the power that intends to direct the national destinies, with the aggravating circumstances that that aggressor is allowed to accumulate troops and war material in the native homeland itself. In front of the “protector”, the protectorate is always defenseless. The constant presence of an army and a fleet in the territory of the protectorate is only to intimidate it or to mobilize them against its rivals in imperialist ambitions. When the “protector” is at war, the protectorate is forcibly a zone of operations. The territorial concessions, whether ad perpetuam or for a determined time, are considered by the enemies of the “protector” as their own territory and subject to attack, occupation, and even annexation. As the “protected” nation is a mandatory ally of the “protector”, it is considered a belligerent and as such a victim of all the contingencies of war, which can cost indemnifications, fiscal interventions, and even cession of territory. It is not strange that no nation wants to accept protectorates, and that all the nations subjected to such a dangerous imposition fight tenaciously to recover their full Independence. The protectorate chains the “protected” nation to the international policy of its “protector”, but always to its detriment. The international conditions that favor the “protector”, it exploits them for its exclusive convenience. When those same conditions harm it, it uses the protectorate as spoils of war. There are currently two nations in our continent that enjoy independence under the protectorate of Estados Unidos: Cuba and Panamá. Cuba, under the permanent treaty called the Platt Amendment, had to cede to Estados Unidos the naval base of Guantánamo and the right to intervene to ensure a stable government in the Republic that gives sufficient guarantee to natives and foreigners. It is worth examining how it was that Estados Unidos imposed the Platt Amendment on Cuba… The Cuban revolution had triumphed when Estados Unidos saw the need to intervene for reasons of “humanity” in the war between the great Antilla and the Mother Patria. This intervention was considered an act of generosity by the unwary who did not know the intentions of North American policy. It was believed that the Independence of Cuba and Puerto Rico was assured. The treaty of París, however, established something very different: the annexation of Puerto Rico to Estados Unidos and the Independence of Cuba under the Platt Amendment. Despite its noble declarations, the government of Estados Unidos did not recognize, upon entering the war, the personality of the Cuban revolutionary government and its army. It refused to deal with the legitimate representatives of Cuban sovereignty. And it assumed that in Cuba there was only one sovereignty: the Española. That attitude disconcerted the Cuban patricians. A government, a liberating army, and a nationality in arms, found themselves without recognition before these supposed protectors. They made it clear to Cuba, in the most express way, that its Independence depended exclusively on North American will. Once the war was over, the government of Estados Unidos decreed the demobilization of the Cuban Liberating Army, and Cuba remained under a North American military occupation. Of course, the occupying power dissolved the Cuban revolutionary government, thus destroying all vestige of Cuban representation. Disarmed the great Antilla, abolished its government, and under a military occupation of Estados Unidos, the invading government convened the constituent convention of the Republic. The patriots drafted the constitution of the new State, but something was missing, very important for the North American Department of State: to define the relations between Estados Unidos and Cuba. Let us not forget that the international representation of Cuba had been usurped by Estados Unidos, which had made itself responsible before the world for what happened in Cuba to people or foreign interests. Required the Cuban convention to define the permanent relations between the Republic and the North American Nation, it answered in a brilliant and heartfelt document, which in synthesis, declared that the two nations were linked by eternal ties of affection, since Cuban gratitude would never forget the help that Estados Unidos lent to the cause of Independence. This answer, however, did not satisfy the practical mentality that governs North American destinies. The terms affections seemed good but very ambiguous: the Yankee Department of State wanted material concessions, in consonance with the secret perverse intention that led Estados Unidos to the war against España. Estados Unidos demanded a definition of the relations between Cuba and the North American Republic. The Cuban Constituent Convention that had received this requirement, answered in affective terms, full of gratitude, as we have already said. The North American Department of State gave no importance to that Cuban moral promise. It wanted territorial concessions, economic privileges, tariff dominion. To the Cuban incomprehension of this unusual North American attitude, the Yankee Department of State directed an ultimatum to the Cuban Constituent Convention, in which
they specify the North American demands in Cuba. Of these we will cite the most vital: 1st. Privilege of intervention in Cuba when political, sanitary or financial conditions justified it; 2nd. Cession by Cuba to the United States of two Cuban naval bases; 3rd. That Cuba could not make any treaty without the advice and consent of the United States. The Constituent Convention of the Cuban Republic, upon receiving this enormous aggression by the United States, was overwhelmed. It recalled the memorable words of the immortal Maceo that repudiated the interested help of neighbors, in the cause of Cuban redemption. Maceo’s vision had culminated in a very harsh reality. The United States wanted by force to impose on Cuba an international statute inferior to that recognized in the autonomous charter granted by Spain. The indignation of the constituents had no limit before this betrayal of the supposed North American friends and protectors. This aggression was incomprehensible to anyone when Cuba had done no harm to the United States. And when in reality Cuba had nothing to thank the United States for its intervention in the war. On the contrary, there were many damages that derived from that intervention, damages still deeply felt in the Republic. By express declaration of the United States in the terms of armistice imposed on Spain, the damages that the Yankees had suffered due to the war would be compensated with the cession of Puerto Rico. It was our Homeland the pledge of immense value that Spain had to cede to the United States so that Yankee power would recognize the Independence of Cuba. Helpless Cuba under a North American military occupation, and its Constituent Convention besieged by Yankee bayonets, realized that upon liberating itself from Spanish sovereignty, it had fallen into more brutal claws than it could ever have supposed. The privilege of intervention, the pure and simple cession of two naval bases, and the annulment of its right to make treaties of all kinds destroyed the libertarian effort of two Cuban generations. In addition, the Convention was required not to define the political situation of the precious Isla de Pinos, which would remain under North American military occupation, until its international status was defined by a subsequent treaty between Cuba and the United States. The intention of the Yankees to keep Isla de Pinos by force became manifest. Before this aggression in full peace against a nation sheltered by its protection, the North American nation revealed itself in the full nakedness of its absorbing intentions. It practically pretended the annexation of Cuba. By imposing a treaty of that nature, it reduced the Republic to a lifeless skeleton, which could only move to assent in the future to the definitive annexation of Cuba to the United States. And in exchange for what did the United States demand these concessions? The United States pledged to guarantee the Independence of Cuba! History was repeated. The “protector” speaks of guaranteeing an Independence that it has already destroyed or intends to destroy. The Cuban Constituents, moved, with the anger that the libertarian spirit gives when witnessing an attack on the Homeland, stood up and invoked the influence of the patrician forebears to save their nationality from this treacherous attack when the nationality was completely disarmed and all its resources exhausted after the long and bloody wars of Independence. The voice of patriotism rose in the bosom of the Convention. The illustrious Juan Gualberto Gómez, director of the revolution in Cuba itself during the Spanish occupation, proposed to return to the jungle, no longer against Spain, but against these hypocritical invaders, who, under the title of protectors, wanted in one fell swoop and without any sacrifice, since Cuba was completely impotent to resist an aggression, to end Cuban nationality, pretending that the great Antilla in defense would agree to establish the conditions for the future annexation to the United States. The Convention showed itself unanimous. It repudiated the ultimatum of the Yankee State Department. Negotiations came. The omnipotent Yankee invader had to give in on some of his vital pretensions. Such is the force of law before the aggressor himself. The United States assented that Cuba could freely make treaties with all powers. Without that power independence does not exist. They were inexorable, however, in their pretensions over Isla de Pinos and in their pretensions to the privilege of intervention. They consented to snatch from Cuba only one naval base: that of Guantánamo. The North Americans believed that with what was snatched from Cuba they could ensure the future annexation of the Republic to the United States. Immediately, and with its spirit of a hunting dog, they set to work to destroy the Independence they had just recognized. Let us see the process. The Platt Amendment laid the foundations for North American hegemony, political, economic and military in Cuba. It also ensures the United States free transit to the Gulf of Mexico over whose waters ends the vast basin of the Mississippi, the richest region of North America. And on the contrary, its hegemony in Cuba constitutes a danger for Mexico whose Atlantic trade must necessarily pass between Yucatán and the Cuban province of Pinar del Río or between Havana and Cayo Hueso. With its naval base in Guantánamo they dominate all international trade via the strait between Cuba and Haiti towards Central and South America. That these have been the intentions of the United States, is proven by the repeated declarations of North American theorists about the privilege of intervention granted to them by the permanent treaty. They allege that the United States, in its capacity as guarantor of the Independence of Cuba, is the only interpreter of the situations that justify an intervention. The consequence of this pretense, would impose on Cuba a North American intervention every time Yankee interests were threatened by Cuba or by other powers. Cuban patriotism, informed by pure legal doctrine, has rejected these North American arrogances, pointing out with reason that, if there is a treaty between Cuba and the United States, its interpretation has to be bilateral. The opposite doctrine, would establish that such a treaty does not exist, but rather the North American imposition in Cuba, consigned in the Platt Amendment. It was not enough for North American egoism to enjoy these enormous advantages snatched by force from its Cuban victims. It was necessary to snatch from the hands of the Cubans all the riches of their homeland so that it would be North American property. Thus the invaders obstructed by all means the consignment of an article in the Cuban Constitution that prohibited foreigners from owning real estate in the Republic. In that respect, Cubans and foreigners were on an equal footing before the Constitution, but, given the disparity of economic force, between Cuba and the United States, it was to be expected that the invaders would overwhelm the natives. In ‘98, the only interest that Washington had in Cuba was reduced to its strategic pretensions and to the acquisition of Cuban property. To achieve these ends, the invaders were willing to impose on Cuba the annexation, from whose calamity the Great Antilla was saved by its legendary patriotism. It was proven once again that the empire is never exercised for sentimental reasons but to satisfy collective material egoisms of the invading nation or of the privileged class that rules its destinies. Under this enormous North American pressure, the most valuable wealth of Cuba has passed into North American hands. The commercial treaty between Cuba and the United States facilitated the process, granting a twenty percent reduction in the tariff rates of both nations on imports from one to the other. But, as the dominant capital in Cuba was North American, the tariff bonus benefited almost exclusively the interests of the invader and increased his greed to acquire land, waterfronts, communication routes and dominate Cuban banking. The Cuban has been impoverished rapidly, without distinction of classes. The number of wealthy families of the great Antilla is being reduced violently due to this devastating invasion. The great North American sugar mills seek to import cheap laborers to lower the salary of the Cuban worker. The great Antilla is in a desperate economic situation. The development of the sugar industry in the United States and in the nations under its empire such as the Philippines and Puerto Rico that are victims of free cabotage, of almost exclusive benefit for North American capital, has developed Yankee capitalist interests in competition with interests of the same nationality in Cuba. We have just witnessed the great tariff struggle that these conflicting interests have waged in Washington during the discussion of the bill recently approved, on the tariff. The reciprocity treaty that grants a reciprocal bonus of twenty percent in tariff rates is still in place. But the tariff rate on sugar not produced under the empire of its flag has been raised to two dollars quintal. With this protection that they