| Show GAGE ON FILIBUSTERING EXPEDITIOUS EX-PEDITIOUS Secretary Gage has submitted to the state department a report on what his department has done in the way of preventing the departure of filibustering filibuster-ing expeditions to Cuba The facts he states in regard to the number of successful suc-cessful expeditions will be a surprise to the public He says that during two years and a half only six American vessels with an aggregate of 1331 registered reg-istered tons are alleged to have safely landed expeditions from the United States in Cuba The secretary displays some warmth when he says that If the Spanish patrol of 2000 miles of Cuban coast has frustrated onehalf the number of expeditions which were frustrated by the United States authorities author-ities alon a coast line of 5470 miles not one man nor one cartridge would have been illicitly hnded in CIba from the United States Out of the 60 alleged expeditions only four have been broken up by Spain Illustrating this statement he refers particularly to the expedition that left on the Laurada from Baltimore and landed at Banes on March 21 Banes Is an important seaport on the rorthern coast of Cuba with which the United States carried on a valuable fruit trade until the Spanish order prohibiting the exportation exporta-tion of bananas was issued He further says that unless Spain is prepared to avow her inability or iu disposition to defend her interests in Cuba then the responsibility for any filibustering expeditions may properly be fixed on Spanish authorities in Cuba who had been properly informEd by the Spanish legation He makes the further statement that the Spanish have repeatedly re-peatedly asserted that all the seaports in Cuba were in their possession There is a world of meaning in that last statement and it would be well for the Spanish to heed it All that the secretary says is not only full of meaning mean-ing but shows a disposition to treat Spain less cordially than has been the custom and to recognize a condition of things in Cuba that it has been the policy of the government to ignore There are mutterings in this report |
