THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR. 210 And now the irreconcilables of 1878, mostly exiles in various parts of America, had their chance and seized it. Maximo Gomez, a native from Hayti, and one of the most dashing soldiers in the Ten Years' War, had returned to San Domingo, but was only waiting for the opportunity to take the field again in Cuba. Jose Antonio Maceo had gone from Zanjon to Costa Rica. There he had lived as a coffee planter, apparently thinking no more of politics or war; and Jose Marti, one of the younger men, had entered the service of the Argentine Republic, had acted as its consul in the United States, and had represented its Government at the Pan-American Congress organised by James G. Blaine in1890. But these andother leaders were in correspondence,and Marti gave them a centre of communication and common action by forming the Cuban Junta or Committee in New York.

dealingwith thelast of therebelbands,Martinez Campos in the Governor's palace at Havana was busy reorganising the affairs of the colony, the harbour wasagain fullofships,and the sugar and tobaccoplantations werebusy. Slavery wasbeing abolished by a gradual process. Some of the Cuban leaders had accepted posts under the SpanishColonial Government. Others had gone abroad, and seemed for the most part to have abandoned the struggle. Optimists held that the Cuban question was closed for at least a hundred years to come. One dayin 1880, when Polavieja told Martinez Campos that the fire of Cuban revolt was not extinguished but only smouldering, the Marshal replied that he was a dreamerof nightmares.

Inthe island there weretwoparties openly at work. First there was that of the " ConstitutionalUnion," which was in plain English the Spanish party,its centre made up of those who would profit by a continuance of the oldregime under which Cuba was regarded chiefly as a means of making money for Spain and officials sent out from Spain. Then there were the "Autonomistas," whose ideal was theconcession by Spain to Cuba of suchself-governmentas has made French Canada contented and prosperous under British rule. For some time after the Convention of Zanjon there was little outward sign of the existence of yet a third party, the partisans of independence and separation from Spain, whose watchwordwas Cuba Libre, "Free Cuba." The Spanish party,for the most part, made thebadmistake of confounding the Autonomists with theRebels. Anyone whospoke of reformat Havana was for the friends of the old colonial system a disguised separatist. And,unfortunately for Spain, the military party threw their enormous influence into the same scale with that of the so-called " Constitutionalists," and thus even the honest efforts at reform of Sagasta's first Ministry werebrought to nothing by the friends of the oldregime at Havana.

In 1893 General Calleja was appointed Governor-General at Havana. He had been one of Martinez Campos' lieutenants in the " pacification" ofCuba. He was a man of easygoing ways. It was said of him that if there had been an anti-Spanish meeting under the windows ofhis palaceat Havana he would have closed his shutters to keep the noise out, smoked a cigar, and declared that there never was such absolute contentment in Cuba in the memory of man. He laughed at warnings that trouble was brewing among the exiles and the growing party of independence in Cuba. Personally he threw in his lot with the Constitutionalists, and regarded the Autonomists as a set of talkers who could be kept quiet with a few well-turned phrases. When, notwithstanding the warnings of some of his colleagues,the winter of 1894-95 was drawing to an end without disturbance,Calleja felt more sure than ever that all was peace in the island. But Gomez,Marti,and the other leaders hadlearned the lessonof the Ten Years' War— that summer was the time for fighting the Spaniards. They haddecided to raise again the standard of Free Cuba the "lonestar" with the broad stripes of white and blue, towards the close of the cool season, so as to have the insurrection well on foot by summer and draw the Spanish troops into the field, where theycould be wearied out and destroyed during the rainy months that begin with May. So at the end of February the war began in the east of the island, among the woodedhills of the Santiago province. . At first despatches nomHavanadeclared that Trade wasreviving, even thoughforeign competition waschecking the old prosperity of the sugar planters. The tobacco industry, the most profitable inCuba, was flourishing. Mines were beingopened,railwaysextended. A generation was growing up which had known nothing ot thelong war,and Cuba had recovered from the exhaustion which made all but a few menin the island welcome the peace of 1878. But with renewed prosperity came the renewed craving for morejust lawsand a fairer system of taxation than that which overburthened the island.