Show I WHAT SPAIN STILL RETAINS 1 Spains vulnerable points in the present pres-ent warare her possesslons outside the i peninsula itself says a wrier in the Commercial Advertiser On thepenin sua the war is carried on for us better than we could conduct it ourselves by internal dIssensIons And these dissensions 1 dis-sensions are aggravated by each disturbance dis-turbance of the Spanish colonIal possessions pos-sessIons while they 1vould be stilled by an attack on the mother country herself It is Interesting therefore to note the widely distributed possessions of Spain in all quarters of the globe generally small and scattered and badly protected or not protected at all Beginning nearest the penInsula there are several possessions of SpaIn which are Counted zz integral pars of the government though not on the I peninsula the Balerlc Islands and the Canaries form politically each a provInce prov-Ince of Spain and send representatives to the cortes while the possessions on the Mediterranean coast of Africa are counted In with Cadiz The last are small but would be c great strategic Importance If they had better ports and more fresh water The best and most important is Cta at the eastern entrance of the straits and directly opposite op-posite Gibraltar from which it Is about 30 miles distant I Is a small town of about 10000 inhabitants strongly fort fed with a poor and artificial port and is In Spanish eyes a sort of offset to the great fortress of Gibraltar which Is loaned for the present to Great Britain The other possessions or presidios on the Moroccan coast are Penon de Velez lIia small rocky peninsulas with very poor harbors and two small rocky islet groups uith no harbors at all All are devoid of fresh water except ex-cept as rain is collected in cisterns and are of no importance except for strategic reasons All are used as penal establishments and those directly on the coast have a precarious existence because of the attacks of the Rifs a warlike Moorish trIbe adjacent to them Of great value to Spaip in protecting pro-tecting her commerce fom the neIgh boring piratical Moors Ceuta alone would be of value in the war with Spain The title to the others would at once extinguish by starvation and thirst f Spains commerce in the lIedi terranean were disturbed The Balearic Islands are five In num ben lying opposIte Valencia from 50 to 300 miles from the central Mediterra can coast of SpaIn They are about midway In the course of French vessels ves-sels plying between Marseilles and Algiers and are of hIgh importance for any nation needing to control the commerce com-merce of the western Mediterranean They are rIch and populous have some fair ports and are fortified They have a total area of 1860 square miles and a population of about 315000 Spain is reported to be strengthening theIr fortifications but an American feet in I the Mediterranean mIght be bottled up unless Ceuta were in its possessIon lessVery and SpaIns home feet rendered barns I Very different would be the possession I posses-sion of the CanarIes though their bar bors me poor and they are 600 miles from CadIz They lie off the coast of the Sahara opposite the southern ex tremit of Morocco at distances from 50 to 200 miles and are stretched In a CUrve over 300 miles in length The group is composed of seven larger and six smaller inhabited islands aggregating aggre-gating 2808 square miles In area and nearly 300000 In population The na tve Berber population has long since disappeared and the people now there are Spanish and presumably as patrI otc in feeling as the Spanish on the peninsula Being politically an actual province of Spain the Canaries have Jess reason to complain of the government govern-ment than have Cuba and the Philip pine archipelago The principal fort is fortified In an antiquated fashion and could be easily taken easiy BeIng only two or three days from the nearest Span ish coat the possession of these islands would be of great value were it not for the poorness of their harbors Along the Atlantic coast of Africa Spain has several possessions the most of them small some of precarIous ex istence or contested title and all of very little value Ini is a Port and town north of Cape Nun on the Moroccan Mo-roccan coast of value because of the Commerce between Span and the Canaries Ca-naries About in the middle of the Saharan coast Is a small gulf or large bay called Rio de Oro caled This means golden rIver but there Is no river there and I no gold On this bay Spain has one factor or trading station the existence I of which Is precarious Indeed she claims large territory aggregating 243 000 square miles and embracing the oasis region to the southwest which Is II called Admr The population of the whole district is estimated at 100000 but Spains control over them or In fuence over them Is of the flimsiest sort Probably a large percentage of these people have never heard of Spain and the possession is only a paper convention con-vention with France which Spain may make effective In time If she can On the Guinea coastSpain has several sev-eral small Islands and a considerable coast area the possessions coat of the at tel being contested by France The largest uncontested possession here Is I the Island of Fernando Po in the angle an-gle of the Gulf of Guinea with an area of 800 square miles and a population of about 15000 I is a beautiful Is land hilt very unhealthy and far away from all strategic use to the Americans Ameri-cans The other islands have in the aggregate but a few square miles of territory small population a few trad ing stations mostly in hands other than Spanish and one has an Amen I I can missionary station This Is Cor I Isco a small Island in a bay of the I same name Anyone of these could betaken be-taken with the simple effort to possess I them but their value Is not likely to I justify even this So much for the African possessions of Spain Her great American possessions I posses-sions have dwindled to Cuba and Porto I Rico The character and condition of I the frt are very familiar to Amen cans and those of the second have been recently published The Asiatic possessIons comprise the Philippines and the Sulu Islands The later is geographically a part of the former but politically it Is a small sultanate sul-tanate of which SpaIn is suzerain suzeran The Sulu Malaya are Inveterate pirates pi-rates and the cOlonizing nations have often found it necessary to chastise them Finally by definite convention the responsibility for them was handed over to Spa The islands are adju cent to BoriT o or stretch to the northeastward north-eastward from i to Mindanao They have an area of 950 square miles and a population of about i5OOO I Is a vigorous vIg-orous and warlike maritime nation devoted de-voted to peaceful pursuits only when compelled The Philippines are by fa the most Important of Svtins possessIons In size population and natural wealth They are threeffhs 3S large as Spain and have nearly as dense a population They comprise threefourths Ot four fifths or the entire colonIal population I ot Spain That country has drawn I from them for centuries a large profit yet the SpanIsh sentiment looks on the loss of Cuba with much more regret than the loss of the Philippines The arEa of this arClipelago s 14000 square miles and the population is variously estimated at from 6000 to 900000 and Is probably about 800000 The oceanic possessions of Spain are three Pacific groups of small islands named the Pelew or PaIaos the Care line and the Marianne or Ladrones They all lie Immediately to the east of the Philippines and adjoin each other Their waters are dangerous the good and accessible ports few and they appear ap-pear to be undefended The Pefe islands are ImmedIately east of Mindanao ana have the Caro lines on the north and east They are volcanic oral islands imbedded in coral cor-al reefs and are eleyen in number The divldual islands vary in size from 11 f one to 10 sQuare Iies Together they aggregate 200 square iles The population pop-ulation now numbers only 10000 or less and there 1s evIdence hat it was four Or five times a great a century ago Not more than tO women in five bear I children and a family of threechidren I Is unusually large he products are unimportant except a tobacco or superIor I su-perIor quality produced in the largest of the Islands anc on one of the smaller onds anc smaIer The Caroline islands for a astcor al archIpelago stretchIng over a bad of 200 miles long east and west and 200 broad The number of Islands and Islets is very great but there are only about 40 which nrc known to be inhabited inhab-ited The lagest is Ponapoi or As nslon Island near the eastern extremity extrem-ity of the group and pearly half way from the Philippines to Hawaii I Is of a circular form about 12 miles in diameter and has a population of 5000 Roulk Touk 01 Hogolon island near the center of the group is somewhat smaller but has about the same pop ulaton The aggregate area of this vast extent of Islands is only 300 or 400 square miles and the total population about 20000 The people are like the Hawaians in character The climate is one of the most delightful found on the earths surface The Carolnes are separated from the Marshall Islands to the eat and from the Mariannes to the north by rela tiyely narrow stretches of very deepwater deep-water The Peew Islands lie on the same submarine plateau a the Caro lines and are associated with them physically as they now are politically The people of the Pelews are however darker and belong to another rae The Marianne or Larone islands lie to the north of the western end of the Caroline band They are physically assocIated as-socIated with the japanese Islands and along the submarIne plateau connecting connect-ing them lies a serIes of small coral islets strung along a distance of 1500 miles some of which are now In the possession of Japan Doubtless this government would b glad to possess at least the lIariannes of the tropical archipelagos This group has 15 islands large enough to note They aggregate about 440 square miles and have about 10000 InhabItantS The 10 northern islands isl-ands are mountainous and motly unoccupied un-occupIed The five southern are generally gener-ally low The largest is Guani with 200 square miles and 7000 Inhabfantf Te total possessions of SpaIn outside out-side the peninsula excluding a large area on the Guinea coast also claimed by France but including the Philippines Philip-pInes and Cuba have an area of 410 000 square miles and a population of about 1000000 ThIs is twIce as large as the peninsula itself but the population popu-lation Is less than th quarter that of Spain proper Of the seven colonizing colon-Izing European nations Spain stands sixth In area and fourth in population of cplonles Great Britain has nearly a much colonial population as the rest Spain and France claim a large part of the Sahara and so swell their colonIal I area amazingly Threffhs of Spains colonIal area is Saharan With the loss of the Philippines and Cuba Spain I will sink to the last place In the serIes I and wi have no more Important colony col-ony proper than Porto Rico This Is apathetic a-pathetic condition when compared with her state when Pope Alexander VI magnaminousl divide between Portugal Por-tugal and herself the unknown pas of the earth gIvIng to Span all the AmerIcan continent except a little of Brazil This was In 193 Since then Span has come near making effective the popes gIft only to lose again grad ualJ and hopel dly about all she had gained The moral of the los lies In the proposition that a successful colon I Ial policy must keep the prosperity of the colony itself In the first line and that of the mother country as second I and dependent on the first |