The age of territorial discoveries seems almost finished. New fields, or new countries, are few. Everything that is to be found has been laid bare to the eyes of the world, and the telegraph gives us hourly pictures of the detailed life of the remotest nations of the earth. With the exception of the poles and the celestial bodies, the occupation of the explorer is almost gone, and the diplomatists and publicists now turn their eyes inward to a study of the possibilities of a division, or separation, of present territorial ownership. The method of acquiring title by occupancy can no longer be exercised, for want of new territory; and the other methods of acquisition—i.e., cession and conquest—now remain the sole means of geographical aggrandisement. With no new fields to explore, the scenes and events of history must be laid in old places, and the diplomatic or political issues will be directed to reapportioning, or redistributing, the old territories.
{37}
What part of this great international drama will be assigned to the Spanish and Portuguese people? Can they dominate; or will they be subordinate to one or more powers, and become absorbed in the national life of the latter? Can there be a unification of the Spanish and Portuguese people? Can they cure their present political imperfections? Can they make a thorough introspection of their condition, and follow the proper remedies which it suggests? Can they turn their faces towards the common goal of a free government? Is there a Moses among them, who can lead this great people from the wilderness of political, moral, and financial confusion into the broad plain of a free, enlightened, and modern government?
I shall not undertake categorically to answer any of these questions, but I shall briefly try to lay bare the general existing conditions of the Spanish countries, from which proper and fair deduction may be made. This study may enable us correctly to determine—first, whether the Spaniards can unite; and second, if united, whether they have the capacity to form a permanent, federation, in time to anticipate the march and progress of other nations, whose policy must be to absorb the weaker races in their own political bodies.
I begin with Spain proper. In almost all the essentials of a prosperous government, Spain is, at the present time, deficient. Her treasury is depleted, and financial aid from the outside world practically cut off, or obtainable only upon terms humiliating or prohibitive.
{38}
Her army and navy are disorganised. The sources of wealth and employment of the people are shrunken, and in some instances absolutely gone.
Worse than all the above grave difficulties, her people are disaffected with the government, thus giving countenance, on the one hand, to open revolt against it by the advocates of republicanism, and encouragement to the efforts and diplomacy of the Carlists, on the other. Apart from this view, a determined opposition to clericalism prevails, the success of which means actual separation of State and Church, so long and unhealthfully entwined in the operations and administration of the Spanish government.
It will require a clear judgment and a skilful hand to extricate the nation from all these entanglements. But I believe it can be done, and that a wise and firm ruler can guide Spain into a state of prosperity and internal peace, by the introduction of radical reforms in her administration—reforms which will demonstrate to her people that they are abreast with and enjoy the blessings of the freest form of modern government. Whether the boy-monarch who now governs Spain will be such a guide, I cannot predict. But I believe that that country can thrive better as a monarchy, conservatively administered, than as a republic. That the people have felt the impulse existing in all modern societies towards a government of laws combined with freedom, we are assured by recent observers. As is natural, much blindness and {39} indirection has hitherto attended their efforts, but the spirit of the people, though overlaid, survives, and along with it, a strong principle of fidelity and sense of duty, making the best material out of which to build institutions. These, with their noble and hitherto almost impregnable territory, securing them in large measure from foreign interference, constitute what may be called the capital of their natural resources, moral and national. Drawn within herself, self-depending, a new period of substantial greatness may yet arise. Her patriotic fervour has other aliment than the mere recollections of a never well-ascertained or well-founded empire. She can recall that her race has never been subjugated; that it defied for ages the power of the Romans and the Saracens, and that Napoleon at the height of his power failed utterly in the attempt.
If, however, owing to the weakness or inability of the present King to sustain a monarchy, a republic must be tried by the people; if one political experiment after another is to be added to those of the past before a stable and satisfactory government, of some kind, is inaugurated and established, the influence of Spain, during such formative periods, as a party to any consolidation or solidification of the Spanish people, will be dissipated and become merely formal. She can and will contribute nothing substantial to such a movement.