Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1898 — SPAIN IS LIABLE. [ARTICLE]

SPAIN IS LIABLE.

Dqns Are Pecuniarily Responsible for Loss of the Maine. Good authorities on international law say that if it is proved that there were mines in the harbor of Havana, Spain is liable for the disaster to the Maine, whether those mines exploded by accident or through the criminal act of an individual Spaniard, Whether an official or not. They believe that if Spain had laid submarine mines in the Havana harbor it was her duty to warn the officers of the Maine of the danger they incurred in anchoring there. They cite precedents, whereby nations have recovered damages in instances very similar to the one in point, to prove Spain’s liability, not only for the loss of the ship, but for indemnities for the sailors whose lives were lost in the explosion. The liability of Spain, they say, could not be denied if neither the place of anchorage was assigned to the Maine bySpanish officials nor the explosion was due to the criminal act of some individual, but simply to some unacountable necident. For while Spain had unquestionably the right to provide her harbor with submarine mines and torpedoes, she was

morally bound to warn any ship of a friendly nation—not only a man-of-war, but the same holds true of any merchantman—of the danger that would be incurred by anchoring in that harbor except in a safe position consigned to her. Any

power that allows a ship of a friendly nation to enter her harbor thereby implicitly declares that it is safe to do so, fortified or not. So in all these eases there seems to be a cleat ease of responsibility on the part of Spain.