Twenty years since, the means of transporting produce throughout the country were so bad that famine might prevail in Andalusia, and men might perish there in thousands, while grain wasted on the fields of Castile, because the silos of the latter no longer afforded room to store it. Even now, "in some districts, it is a familiar fact,
"That the wine of one vintage has to be emptied, in waste, in order to furnish skins for the wine of the next—the difficulty and cost of transportation to market being such as utterly to preclude the producer from attempting a more profitable disposition of it. Staples of the most absolute and uniform necessity—wheat, for instance—are at prices absurdly different in different parts of the kingdom; the proximity to market being such as to give them their current value in one quarter, while in another they are perhaps rotting in their places of deposite, without the hope of a demand. Until such a state of things shall have been cured, it will be useless to improve the soil, or stimulate production in the secluded districts; and of course every circumstance which wears the promise of such cure must enter into the calculations of the future, and avail in them according to its probabilities."—Wallis, P. 328.
We see thus that here, as everywhere, the power to make roads is least where the necessity for them is greatest. Had the farmers of Castile a near market in which their wheat could be combined with the wool that is shorn in their immediate neighbourhood, they could export cloth, and that could travel even on bad roads. As it is, they have to export both wheat and wool, and on such roads, whereas if the artisan could, in accordance, with the doctrines of Adam Smith, everywhere take his place by the side of the ploughman and the shepherd; and if women and children could thus everywhere be enabled to find other employment than in field labour, towns would grow up, and men would become rich and strong, and roads could be made without difficulty. Even now, however, there is a rapidly increasing tendency toward the construction of railroads, and the completion and enlargement of canals, and not a doubt can be entertained that in a few years the modes of intercourse will be so improved as to put an end to the enormous differences in prices here observed.[198]
Those differences are, however, precisely similar to those now regarded as desirable by English writers who find compensation for the loss of men, "in the great stimulus that our extensive emigration will give to every branch of the shipping interest."[199] The nearer the place of exchange the fewer ships and seamen are needed, and the richer must grow the producer and the consumer, because the number of persons among whom the total product is to be divided is then the least.
With increased power of association there is a steady improvement in the provision for education. Half a century since, the whole number of students at all the educational establishments in the kingdom was but 30,000,[200] and it had not materially varied in 1835; whereas the number now in the public schools alone, for the support of which there is an annual appropriation of $750,000, is above 700,000, or one to 17 of the population. The primary and other schools reach the number of 16,000; and besides these and the universities, there are numerous other institutions devoted to particular branches of education, some of which are provided for by government, and others by public bodies or private subscription. "No impediment," says Mr. Wallis—
"Is thrown by law in the way of private teachers—except that they are required to produce certain certificates of good character and conduct, and of having gone through a prescribed course, which is more or less extensive, in proportion to the rank of the institution they may desire to open."
As a necessary consequence of these changes there has been a great increase in the value of land, and of real estate generally. Mr. Wallis states that the church property has "commanded an average of nearly double the price at which it was officially assessed according to the standard of value at the time of its seizure," and we need desire no better evidence that man is tending gradually toward freedom than is to be found in this single fact.
It might be supposed, that with the increased tendency to convert at home the raw products of the earth, there would be a diminution of foreign commerce; but directly the reverse is the case. In the three years, from 1846 to 1849, the import of raw cotton rose from 16,000,000 to 27,000,000 of pounds; that of yarn from 5,200,000 to 6,800,000 pounds; and that of bar-iron from 5,400,000 to more than 8,000,000; and the general movements of exports and imports for the last twenty-four years, as given by M. Block, (p. 18,) has been, as follows:—
Imports, in francs. Exports, in francs.
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1827……… 95,235,000……… 71,912,000
1843……… 114,325,000……… 82,279,000