70 CUBA AND PORTO RICO 



.standing army of the United States, and with police 

 powers unknown in this country. 



Cuba has two high courts; but the captain-general is 

 above either court, having the right of setting aside all 

 judgments, as appears from the royal decree of June 9, 1878, 

 defining his duties and prerogatives. His power not only 

 overrules decisions of all the judicial authorities, including 

 the justices of the court of judicature, but also enables 

 him to withhold the execution of any order or resolution 

 of the home government " whenever he may deem it best 

 for the public interests." 



During the present century the Spanish crown has made 

 various pretenses of giving to the inhabitants of the island 

 greater political privileges ; but all of these, down to the 

 latest autonomy scheme, have been the merest subterfuges, 

 void of the true essence of local self-government, with a 

 reservation by which absolute and despotic power remained 

 in the hands of the Spanish captain-general. Thus it 

 was that in February, 1878, the ten years' revolution was 

 ended by G-eneral Campos. Under the stipulations of the 

 treaty the island was allowed to be represented in the 

 Spanish Cortes by sixteen senators and thirty deputies; 

 but restrictions were so thrown around their selection that 

 Cubans were practically debarred from participating in 

 the choice of these members, notwithstanding that these 

 so-called representatives were utterly powerless to press 

 any Cuban measure in a Cortes of over nine hundred 

 members, or to put it to a vote. 



While the primary functions of the government have 

 been to attend to the prerogatives of the crown and the 

 collection of revenues, its attention has been largely de- 

 voted to the personal enrichment of the officials through 

 misfeasance and to the prevention of the secession of the 

 island. It has practically ignored the collection of statis- 

 tics, the promotion of education, and the establishment of 

 public works and proper public sanitation. Few, if any, 

 educational institutions have been erected at public ex- 



