The largest single item in these expenditures is that of the interest on the public debt and general expenses, which aggregates $12,574,709.12. Of the total, about $10,500,000 undoubtedly found its way to Spain to pay interest and sinking-fund payments on the enormous debt which Spain had saddled upon Cuba. There has been much controversy over this debt, and as the discussion has ended by the American Peace Commission insisting on Spain's assuming the debt, and thus freeing Cuba forever from the legal obligation, a brief review of the subject will be of interest to the reader. Owing to the fact that Cuba has been, until United States occupancy, a colony without personality and without real representation, the question of the public debt was never properly settled. The Spanish Government, the Cubans contend, arbitrarily burdened the Island with the weight of the whole war debt of 1868-78. The Cubans have rightly taken the ground that this debt was Spanish, not Cuban. As a matter of fact, the Spanish Government, during the insurrection of 1868-78, never admitted that there was any war in Cuba, affirming, on the contrary, that the trouble was only a disturbance limited to some parts of the Island, and that the immense majority of the population of Cuba were loyal Spaniards. The conclusion to be drawn from this official fact and from its assertion by the Government was that Cuba was not bound to pay the expenses of that revolt. A somewhat similar instance occurred in the Peninsula at the same time. The Carlist War was likewise a very serious disturbance spread over some important provinces of Spain. The cost, however, of that war was not charged to the revolted provinces, but was considered a national debt. Besides, there are some items which have been held as forming part of the Cuban debt, which by no means can be accepted as such. Thirty or forty years ago Spain sustained war with Mexico, San Domingo, and Peru, the cost of those three wars having been charged to the Cuban Treasury, which, since then, has annually paid the interest thereon. In 1878 or 1879, a general liquidation of Cuban accounts took place, in which the "Banco Hispano-Colonial" of Barcelona assumed a very important position. Probably the cost of the three above-mentioned wars (in Mexico, San Domingo, and Peru) and some other accounts were then settled. Not even the smallest part of the whole debt has been employed in any kind of Cuban improvement. A memorandum prepared by the Cuban planters and addressed to Madrid in 1894 thus referred to the debt: