Cushing to I saw last night, casually, for I am not in the habit of reading the Correspondencia , that that journal knowingly errs in stating on its own account (or of others) that the deportations which, for political motives , were made, according to what is said by some newspapers, to the number of 1,300 during the last year, took place in the time of Mr. Garcia Ruiz, immediately after the 3d of January , that journal thereby endeavoring to cause the odium of all the imprisonments and deportations to fall upon me personally, leaving therefore untouched Mr. Sagasta and other, April 10, 1875

No. 531. Mr. Cushing to Mr. Fish.

Sir: The chief subject of interest in Madrid at the present moment is the public disclosure of the large number of arbitrary deportations carried into effect by the party of the revolution, as they are sometimes called, comprehending the liberals, radicals, republicans, and constitutionals of the various administrations which have ruled Spain since the overthrow of Queen Isabel.

It is one of the characteristic traits of all these parties that they do not possess the discretion and self-control either to frame or to administer a practicable constitution. While in opposition, they attack without measure, and in their declamatory speeches and writings commit themselves to extravagant doctrines which are of impossible application in power. Hence the adoption of a constitution is speedily followed by a legislative act suspending its guarantees. Hence, also, the loudest professions of adhesion to parliamentary forms is accompanied by systematic disregard of the fundamental idea of such government, namely, in legislation by executive decrees and orders, and in the imposition of taxes and appropriation of the public moneys without authorization by the Cortes.

In the matter of private rights the inconsequence of these parties has been equally conspicuous. They commence with such exaggerated assertion of private rights as, if observed, would render all government impossible, and then proceed in total disregard of all private rights to a degree utterly unknown at the present time to any of the most despotic governments in Europe.

Mr. Castelar is a conspicuous example of these contradictions. His writings and speeches abound with declamatory assertions of impracticable theory, with advocacy of retraimientos, that is, withdrawal from legitimate political opposition at the polls, to conspire in pretended retirement, and, strangest of all on the part of a theoretical republican in praise of military pronunciamentos. Of course, when in office, he turns his back on all these absurdities, and loudly condemns in others what he had systematically preached as political truth.

Others of the same visionary school, when placed in power, have frankly confessed the impossibility of governing according to their professions, and have resigned rather than subject themselves to the charge of inconsequence and self-contradiction, such as Mr. Salmeron and Mr. Pí y Margall.

The deportation question curiously illustrates this defect of true statesmanship.

The constitution adopted in 1869, which the self-styled liberals assume as the embodiment of their political creed, enacts that no person shall be detained over twenty-four hours without being delivered to the proper court for trial; that no person shall be imprisoned except by judicial authority; that private domicile is sacred; that no person shall be compelled to change his place of abode otherwise than by executory judicial sentence 5 and that no law or other disposition shall be established to limit any of these personal immunities.

I say nothing at present of constitutional provisions which profess to secure liberty of press, speech, and public assembly, or those which require that all laws shall be passed, all taxes imposed, and all appropriations made solely by authority of Cortes; all which provisions are and always have been substantially a dead letter.

Now, it happened a few days since that two or three of the professors of the university, officers appointed and paid by the government, and subject by express laws to its discretion and discipline, undertook to quarrel with the government because of a circular of instructions issued by the minister of fomento. An account of this affair will be given to you in another dispatch. Dissatisfied with the conduct of these professors, the government contented itself with requiring them to leave Madrid and take up their residence in some other part of Spain.

Discontented parties at once seized on this act to indulge in the most vehement inculpation of the government for alleged arbitrary violation of private rights and of the letter of the existing constitution. The organs of the government defended the act on legal grounds. But the question of the legality of this act was lost sight of very soon in a larger question.

Among the journals which vehemently attacked the government two were conspicuous, the Pueblo, belonging to Mr. Garcia Ruiz, and the Iberia, belonging to Mr. Sagasta, who had been each ministers of gohernacion in so-called liberal or constitutional cabinets.

Thereupon came to light (indirectly, on disclosure by the present government, we may suppose) that Mr. Garcia Ruiz had himself as minister authorized or participated in the arbitrary deportation of some fourteen hundred persons to the Marian Islands, the Spanish Botany Bay, in addition to multitudes arbitrarily confined in Spain or its colonies by similar unconstitutional administrative orders of other liberal ministers; to all which the attention of the actual government had been called, partly in consequence of the general act of indulto for such cases lately granted by the King, (copy and translation of which are hereto annexed,) and partly in consequence of a demand from the governor of the Filipinas for a large sum of money to save the host of deportados from starving in the desolate Marian Islands.

The retort was a terrible one. These deportations had been concealed from outside notice or commentary at the time they occurred. As arbitrary acts, they so much exceeded in number and degree anything done or imagined by this or any other royal government of Spain in modern times as to produce a profound impression on the public mind and spread consternation in the opposition camp.

“Behold the statesmen,” said the Alfonsinos, “whose creed is the assertion of ‘inalienable and imprescriptible rights, anterior and superior to all human society!’ These are the men who, while complaining that half a dozen mischievous persons are merely invited by the king’s government to leave the court, have themselves deported fourteen hundred persons to the ends of the earth without trial, besides crowding we know not how many others into the jails and presidios of Spain. These are the men whose victims are now crying to Heaven for relief, and are receiving it from the indulgent hands of King Alfonso!”

How many persons have been thus imprisoned in jails and presidios it does not yet appear. They began, it is said, with detentions at the African presidio of Ceuta, dating back to the time of Mr. Salmeron and Mr. Castelar, and continued during the first and so-called liberal cabinet of President Serrano.

Of the deportations we now have some precise information; for Mr. Garcia Ruiz, stung to the quick by the manifestations of public indignation, and silenced as journalist, stepped forth into personal publicity in a letter to the “Impartial,” of which translation is annexed.

He admits in substance that in the time of his ministry two hundred and seventy-seven persons were thus deported; but he insists on charging eighty eight of these to previous orders of Mr. Salmeron, Mr. Castelar, and Mr. Maisonnave; and he proceeds to say that one thousand of the whole number of fourteen hundred are chargeable to the subsequent ministry of Mr. Sagasta.

That blow struck home; for Mr. Sagasta’s newspaper had also, in the matter of the rebellious professors, undertaken to censure the government. He felt constrained to make personal explanation, translation of which is annexed. He speaks in a more manly spirit than Mr. Garcia Ruiz, as might have been expected, from the different characters of the two persons; he defends the deportations on the ground of political expediency, which, if admitted, effectually dispels any dream of constitutional free government in Spain.

These disclosures, addressing themselves as they do to the comprehension of all persons, high and low, are operating to the immense discredit of the implicated political parties or factions.

The discussion has drawn forth a letter from Mr. Salmeron, absolutely denying any action of his in the matter; and also another from Mr. Maisonnave, in which he admits sending persons to Ceuta, how many he does not remember, but asserts that it was for the object of provisional or temporary detention merely, and disavows any responsibility for their subsequent deportation to the Marian Islands.

That explanation leaves standing an issue between Mr. Maisonnave and Mr. Garcia Ruiz, and also leaves unexplained the violation of law by the former in not bringing to trial the persons at Ceuta during five months, which is quite as much a violation of constitution as the act of deportation itself.

Indeed Mr. Garcia Ruiz objects that the eighty-eight persons sent to Ceuta came there with professed destination to the Filipinas.

Public attention has been called to this matter, not only by the before mentioned decree of indulto, but also by a decree making appropriation to pay the expenses of the deportations, for which the previous governments neglected to make provision.

I annex an article of the Epoca which sums up the whole matter, in the sense, of course, of making the most of it, to the advantage of D. Alfonso.

It mainly serves, in my estimation, to show that not one of these personal factious is entitled to any special or exclusive sympathy on the part of the United States.

I have, &c.,

Extract from an editorial article published in the “Iberia” Mr. Sagasta’s organ.

deportations to the philippine islands.

[From “La Politico,” Madrid, April 8, 1875.]

The Iberia makes important explanations with respect to the matter of the deportations to the Philippine Islands. Our colleague says:

“The Epoca reminds us that the deportations alluded to began on a large scale when the republican, Mr. Garcia Ruiz, was minister of gobernacion, Mr. Martors of grace and justice, and Mr. Echegary of finance. It behooves us to add that the presiding officer of that ministry was General Zavala, figuring in it beside our esteemed and dear friends Messrs. Sagasta, Topete, and Balaguer.

“Such were the members of the cabinet which ‘appointed itself,’ according to the expression used by the Imparcial, in 1875, (sic; should be 1874,) and which the Epoca considers graphic, without remembering that this capricious phrase may find other applications.

“We do not, therefore, under any strict and absolute obligation, to assume all the responsibility of those deportations. We assume it, nevertheless, resolutely and completely, for in this manner will ever act the present management of the Iberia whenever it is interested in acts which may partially or wholly pertain to the constitution party.

“With respect to those deported, whom the Epoca calls ‘unhappy,’ we confine ourselves for to-day to declaring that they were for the greater part the prime actors in the drama whose successive stages Spain will ever remember in the names of Montilla, Seville, Alcoy, Cadiz, Malaga, Valencia, Catalonia, and so many others, persons whose lot we pitied then and pity still more now, without other journals being able to outdo us in this feeling of pity, but persons also who had contributed collectively to perpetrate those grave acts, and who could not have been in every case submitted to the investigation and judgment of a court, because the courts for a long time lacked the means and forces necessary to inquire into and even decide upon the cases in which their action would have had to be concreted upon determinate individuals, and many more months would infallibly have been required to enable the judges to pronounce any exemplary sentence, when so many so severe, and so energetic examples were demanded by the state of the country.

“This being stated, we have only to add that of the deportations mentioned, which were unknown, it is said, to all the country, full knowledge was possessed by all the prominent political men even to the leaders of the most advanced parties, it having sufficed on several occasions that the most pronounced republicans should give assurance that a deported person was banished solely because of his political opinions to have the order revoked, and even to have the voyage interrupted, after it had begun, by means of a telegraphic communication.

“In order to respond to the fullest extent respecting the assertions made by the “Impartial,” and to know how far the decisions of the governments constituted during the year 1874 were influenced by the state of slavery in which the press then was, it would be necessary for us to know how many and which journals were suspended, fined, or seized because of taking up the question of the deportations. We much fear that the number will be found small; perhaps that not one journal will be found in that category, and this notwithstanding that up to the beginning of the present year there were published various republican newspapers, and one which, without declaring it, was Carlist.

“In return, we recall that many journals, toward the end of 1873, and a considerable number after the commencement of 1874, demanded, at all times and in every possible tone, persevering energy, salutary rigor, decision, and untiring activity, until the Spanish social structure should be restored to complete tranquillity and genuine quietude. But not in vain do the times pass and change.

“Our readers assuredly will not expect that, imitating the Epoca, we shall compare those circumstances and the motive’s of those deportations with the situation in which the country is to-day and the banishment of professors.”