These are the opinions of a man several years resident in Cuba, evidently a shrewd observer, and who can hardly be suspected of misrepresentation on this head; and we do not hesitate to place confidence in them in preference to the rose-tinted accounts of the Madrid Heraldo, and other official prints, according to which the present happiness, prosperity, and loyalty of the Havaneros are such as were never surpassed in the annals of colonies. Mr Madden, we have seen, is of opinion that the Creoles and resident Americans, if guaranteed from foreign intervention, are of themselves a match for Spain, and could throw off her yoke and defy her efforts to reimpose it. What, then, would be the state of affairs, if three or four thousand Yankee volunteers, who, by themselves, we suspect, could give occupation to all the disposable part of the sixteen thousand Spaniards in garrison, were suddenly to drop upon the Cuban shore, by preconcerted arrangement with the disaffected? In 1849 this has been within an ace of occurring; in a future year, not very remote, it may actually occur. What would Spain do, when news were brought her that the red-and-yellow banner was replaced by the speckled bunting of the States? Would she declare war against America, on the strength of the war-steamers she has been lately building with her creditors' money? Brother Jonathan, we suspect, would mightily chuckle at the notion, and immediately seize Puerto Rico, and perhaps make a dash at the Philippines. But the Spanish government, loud as they can bluster when sure of impunity, would hardly render themselves so ridiculous. No; in the hour of their distress they would piteously look abroad for succour, and turn their discomfited countenance to the old ally to whom, in their brief day of seeming prosperity, they forgot their numerous obligations. It is our belief their appeal would not be made in vain. But although this country, being great and powerful, could afford to forget its cause of complaint—as a man overlooks the petulance of a froward child—it would be right and fitting that an amende honorable should previously be exacted from Spain, and that humiliation should be inflicted on her arrogant government, for an insult which, let them mis-state the circumstances as they like, was far from justified by the alleged provocation. And moreover, before a move was made, or a note transmitted by the British government on behalf of Spain-robbed-of-its-Cuba, a solid guarantee should unquestionably be exacted for an equitable and speedy adjustment of the claims of the ill-used holders of Spanish bonds.
These gentlemen, roused at last by a long series of neglect and broken promises to depart from the suaviter in modo, and to substitute an energetic remonstrance for the honeyed and complimentary epistles they have been wont to address to the president of the Spanish council, are raising a fund to be employed in the advocacy of their claims by an agent in Madrid. Although the gradual progress of the subscription does not bespeak the fund-holders very sanguine in their hopes, they may rest assured that this is a step in the right direction. Their only hope is in agitation—in keeping their just and shamefully-neglected claims before the world, and in such a conjunction of circumstances as may enable the cabinet of St James's to put on the screw, and compel the Spanish government to be honest. As to an appeal to arms, however, it might be justified in equity, and by references to Vatel and other great authorities, it would hardly be consonant with prudence, or with the spirit of the times: but other means may be devised; and in the event of a European war, we can imagine more than one circumstance in which, as in the case of the seizure of Cuba by America, Spain would be too happy to subscribe to the just conditions this country might impose for the settlement of English claims. But there is danger in delay; and if we are unwilling to believe that Spain is, in the words of one who knows her well, "irremediably insolvent,"[7] there is no doubt she must speedily become so, unless some radical change takes place in the views and system of her rulers. What she needs is an honest government, composed of men who will make their own advantage subservient to their country's weal. "My firm conviction," says Marliani, "is, that when the day comes that men of heart and head shall seize, with a firm grasp, the rudder of this vessel now abandoned to the uncertain movement of the political waves, they will take her into port. Spain is in the best possible position to make a giant's stride in the path of prosperity. She offers to the foreigner a thousand honourable and profitable speculations; the application of capital to public works, to agriculture, to mines, will be an inexhaustible source of profit."[8] When M. Marliani wrote this, capitalists were more prone to embark their money in distant speculations than at the present day. But still the principle holds good; and there can be no question in the minds of any who have studied Spain, that an honest and moderately able government is all that is wanted to develop her vast resources, and enable her to come to an honourable compromise with her creditors, who, there can be little doubt, would show themselves accommodating, if they saw evidence of a desire to pay, and had some certainty that, when they had accepted an arrangement advantageous to Spain, it would not be broken in a few months, leaving them in worse plight than before. How this has been repeatedly done was lately clearly exhibited in a letter addressed by a Spanish bondholder to the Times, of which we here quote a portion:—
"Between 1820 and 1831, Spain contracted loans as follows, [details given], to the amount of 157,244,210 dollars. And on no portion of these loans does Spain now pay interest. In 1834 there was owing, in interest upon those loans, 49,541,352 dollars; and the Spanish government then offered, at the meeting of bondholders, held at the City of London Tavern, to give for all those loans, and the interest upon them, new stock, on the following terms:—A new active five per cent stock, upon which the interest should be always punctually paid, for two-thirds of the capital; a new passive stock for the remaining third; and a deferred stock for the overdue interest, on condition that they had a new loan of £4,000,000 sterling. These terms were agreed to, and the conversion took place; and there were issued in exchange for the old loans and overdue interest, £33,322,890 five per cent active stock; £12,696,450 passive stock; and £13,215,672 deferred stock. These are the stocks now in the market, in addition to the £4,000,000 loan then granted. In two years after this transaction, the Spanish government stopped payment again, and left the bondholders in the same situation, with one-third of their capital cancelled, or made passive stock, which bears no coupons, and is, consequently, not entitled to claim interest. In 1841, the Spanish government paid the active bondholders four years' interest; i. e., from 1836 to 1940, in a three per cent stock, instead of cash, and which produced the holders about four shillings in the pound; (this is the three per cent stock now in the English market, on which the interest is paid.)"[9]
It is not very easy to get at information about the amount of Spanish debts, accumulated dividends, and so forth; but the above lucid statement of the liabilities to foreign creditors, combined with the testimony of other authorities before us, leads to an aggregate estimate of the whole debt, external and internal, at upwards of one hundred and twenty millions sterling,—probably at the present time nearly or quite one hundred and thirty millions, unpaid interest being added. Without entering into the intricate complications of the question, we shall not be very wide of the mark in asserting, that less than three millions sterling per annum, in the shape of dividends, would constitute an arrangement surpassing the wildest dreams in which, for a long time past, sane bondholders can possibly have indulged; in fact that, considering the amount of passive stock, and the concessions that would willingly be made, it would pay what would pass muster as the full dividends. An enormous sum for Spain—will be the remark of many. We beg to differ from this opinion. An enormous sum, certainly, for a dishonest Spanish government. Charity begins at home in Spain as much as anywhere; and if people squander their cash in paying creditors, how shall they enjoy their little comforts and luxuries, and make up a purse for a rainy day? How shall the royal family of a poor and insolvent kingdom have a civil list of half a million sterling, besides crown property and appanages to Infantes?—how shall Queen Christina and her uncle, the ex-king of the French, be repaid the sums they lavished to oust Espartero, and to bring about the infamous Spanish marriages?—how shall the same illustrious lady make her investments in foreign funds, and add to her hoard of jewellery, already, it is said, the most valuable in Europe?—how shall Duke Muñoz play at bulls and bears on the Bolsa, and give millions of francs for French salt-works?—how shall the Spanish ministers, men sprung from nothing, and who the other day were penniless, maintain a sumptuous state and realise princely fortunes?—how, finally, shall the government exercise such influence at elections as to reduce the numerous and powerful party opposed to them in the country to utter numerical insignificance in the legislative assembly, and to fill every municipal office with their own creatures and adherents? It is a very singular fact that, although for many years past the revenue of Spain has been steadily increasing, the annual deficit always continues about the same. Thus much can be discerned even through the habitual exaggerations and hocus-pocus of Spanish financial statements. M. Mendizabal, in his budget for 1837, (in the very heat and fury of the Carlist war,) showed a deficiency of seven millions sterling, the revenue then being about £8,700,000 sterling. In 1840, the minister of finance stated the deficit at £6,800,000 sterling, the revenue having then risen to upwards of ten millions.[10] And since then the deficiency has averaged about five millions sterling; and even now, that Spain is declared so prosperous, will not be rightly stated at a much lower figure, although finance ministers resort to the most ingenious devices to prove it much less. But if it is so trifling as they would have us believe, why do they not pay their dividends? Forced loans, anticipated imposts, unpaid pensions, and shabby shifts of every kind, show us how far we are to credit their balance-sheets. One financier—that very slippery person, Señor Carrasco—actually showed a surplus—upon paper. "The present revenue," wrote Mr Ford in 1846, "may be taken at about twelve or thirteen millions sterling. But money is compared by Spaniards to oil—a little will stick to the fingers of those who measure it out; and such is the robbing and jobbing, the official mystification and peculation, that it is difficult to get at facts when cash is in question." The sum stated, however, is about the mark, and bears out Lord Clarendon's often-quoted declaration in the House of Lords, that the Spanish revenue is one-half greater than it was ever before known to be. Few men have had better opportunities than Lord Clarendon of acquiring information on the affairs of Spain; and his well-known friendly feeling towards her present rulers precludes the suspicion of his giving a higher colouring than the strictest truth demands to any statement likely to be prejudicial or unpleasant to them. It is a fact that the revenue is still upon the increase; and it has augmented, in the last fifteen years, by more than one-half, for in 1835 it was but seven hundred and fifty-nine millions of reals, or, in round numbers, £7,600,000 sterling. It certainly seems strange that, with an increase of revenue of at least four millions, the decrease of deficit should barely amount to two, although the country, at the former period, was plunged in a most expensive war, and had an enormous army on foot; the estimate for the war department alone, for 1837—according to Mr Mendizabal's budget already quoted, presented to the Cortes—being upwards of seven and a-half millions sterling, or within one million of the total amount of estimated revenue. Thus we see that Spain presents the curious phenomenon of an expenditure augmenting in proportion as the revenue increases. In most countries the puzzle is the other way; and how, to force the revenue up to the expenditure, is the knotty point with statesmen. The most benevolent can hardly help suspecting that some foul play is at the bottom of this augmentative propensity of Spanish financial outgoings. But Spain is par excellence the country of itching palms; and in view of the statements we have here made, and which defy refutation, most persons will probably agree with a writer already cited, when he says that, "with common sense and common honesty, much might be done towards releasing Spain from her financial embarrassments. Perhaps it is not too much to say, that a vigorous government, capable of enforcing taxation, might, with integrity and energy, and a forgetfulness of selfish gains, provide for the interest of every portion of her debt, and, in the end, pay off the principal.... If Spanish finance ministers, and the capitalists and sharpers by whom they are surrounded, could bring themselves to think of their own fortunes less and of the nation's more, we should hear very little of new foreign loans. A virtuous native effort is wanted; themselves must strike the blow! All governments are bound to support their several departments, and obtain a sufficient revenue; and the administration of Mon and Narvaez has not the excuse of want of power."[11] This is the language universally held by all persons acquainted, from actual observation, with the extent and abuse of Spain's resources. The taxes in Spain are exceedingly light in proportion to the population, but they are unfairly distributed, and most iniquitously collected—the state paying an enormous percentage on most of them, and being besides scandalously robbed by officials of every grade. But the inequality of taxation in Spain, which presses (by the threefold means of direct impost, excise, and exorbitant import duties upon manufactures) especially on the peasant and agriculturist—crushing the very nerve and right arm of Spanish prosperity—brings us to the consideration of a recent measure, from which much good has been predicted, and from which, as we trust and believe, advantage will ultimately be obtained.
An ably conducted French periodical, which acquired considerable weight under Louis Philippe, from the circumstance that its closing article expressed, every fifteen days, the views and opinions of the government, and which, since it ceased to be official, has shown a strong Orleanist leaning, put forth in a recent number a glowing statement of the immense advantages to be derived by Spain from the newly promulgated tariff bill.[12] Prepared by a previous article in the same review, which had taken for its base, and accepted as incontrovertible, a tissue of scurrilous and mendacious statements strung together by a Salamanquino doctor, and notoriously instigated by a Spanish minister and ambassador, with reference to the suspension of relations between England and Spain, we were no way surprised to find, in the discussion of the internal situation of the latter country, implicit reliance placed on the figures and assumptions of Spanish financiers, and a most naïve conviction that their showy theories and projects would be honestly and effectually put in practice. Under the ingenious one-sidedness and apparent good faith of the writer, it was not difficult to discern an inspiration derived from Claremont or the Hotel Sotomayor. The object of the article was to prove that Spain, relieved from the incubus of English influence, and blessed with an enlightened and honest government, is rapidly emerging from her political, social, and financial difficulties; nay, that this astounding progress is half accomplished, and that the despised land has already risen many cubits in the European scale. "We ask," says the writer, after summing up at great length the benefits conferred on Spain by the Narvaez cabinet—benefits which, for the most part, have got no further than their project upon paper—"We ask, is not Spain sufficiently revenged for thirty years of disdain? Would not this Job of the nations have a right, in its turn, to drop insult upon the bloody dunghill whereon display themselves these haughty civilisations of yesterday's date?" Having given this brief specimen of style, we will now confine ourselves to figures, for most of which the writer in the Revue appears to be indebted to Mr Mon. The result of his very plausible calculations is an immediate annual benefit of thirty-four million francs to the consumers of foreign manufactures, ninety-two millions to the country at large, in the shape of increased production, and a clear gain of sixty-three millions to the public treasury. We heartily desire, for the sake both of Spain and of her creditors, that this glorious prospect may be realised. If this is to be the result of what the Revue des Deux Mondes admits to be but a timid step from the prohibitive to the protective system, what prosperity may not be prophesied to Spain from further progress in the same path? Nor are these a tithe of the benefits foretold, and which we refuse ourselves the pleasure of citing, in order to make room for a few remarks as to the probable realisation of those already referred to. And first, we repeat our previous assertion, that in Spain the real benefit of such a measure as the new tariff can never be rightly estimated till the law has been for some time in force. There is so much tampering and corruption in such cases, so many interests and persons must be satisfied and get their share of the gain, that such reforms, when they come, often prove very illusory. With respect to the tariff, we will take no heed of the statements of the Spanish opposition, who denounce it as a most defective and bungling measure, from which little is to be expected. In Spain, as much as in any country, the men out of power will admit little good to be done by those who are in. Neither do we profess to have digested and formed our own opinion upon the probable working of a tariff which comprises 1500 articles, (about twice and a half as many as the British tariff,) and whose complications and conditions are anything but favourable to its easy comprehension and appreciation. We can argue, therefore, only from analogy and precedent; the latter, especially, no unsafe guide with a people so wedded as the Spaniards to old habits and institutions. The pacific manner in which the great army of Spanish smugglers have received the tariff, is a strong argument against its practical value. The Revue des Deux Mondes estimates the number of smugglers in Spain at sixty thousand. This is far under the mark; and it is the first time we have known the Spanish smugglers to be reckoned at less than one hundred and twenty thousand men, whereas we have seen them rated as high as four hundred thousand, which, however, could only be explained by including all those persons in the country who are directly or indirectly connected with the contraband trade. But the figure is not important. The principal point, and that which none will dispute, is that the Peninsular smugglers form a powerful army, including the finest men in the country, and capable, as we fully believe, if assembled and with the advantage of a little drill, of soundly thrashing an equal number of Spanish soldiers, detachments of whom they not unfrequently do grievously ill-treat. Now how is it, we ask, that this formidable and generally turbulent body have submitted without an indication of revolt to the passing of a law which, if the Revue des Deux Mondes is right, will entirely take away their occupation? The self-styled manufacturers of Catalonia, most of whom are extensive smugglers, are as acute judges of their own interests as any men in Spain. In Andalusia, on the Portuguese frontier, in nearly every frontier province in short, men of wealth, ability, and consideration are at the head of the contraband traffic. It is not to be supposed that all these have their eyes shut to the meditated destruction of their interests, or that they thus tranquilly receive a blow which they believe will be fatal. It will be remembered by many that when first the new tariff was seriously brought forward, and appeared likely to become the law of the land, the Catalan newspapers and other organs of the smuggling interest were furious in their denunciation of it: alarming rumours were set abroad, insurrections were talked of, and there seemed a very pretty chance of a pronunciamiento in favour of prohibitive duties and contraband trade. But suddenly modifications were talked of, the publication of the bill was postponed, the storm was allayed and has not again arisen. There was something so remarkable in this sudden stilling of the troubled waters, that persons, who are either very malicious or better versed than their neighbours in the ways of Spain, did not scruple to assert that there had been buying and selling, that weighty arguments had been advanced and had prevailed, and that the result was to be the emasculation of the tariff bill. No trifling consideration would suffice to clench such a bargain, and doubtless the concession, if obtained, was well paid for; but what of that? The trade of a smuggler is the most profitable in Spain, excepting, perhaps, that of a cabinet minister; and it was worth a sacrifice to retain a traffic whose profits, the Revue des Deux Mondes assures us, range from 60 to 90 per cent on the value of the cotton tissues introduced, and a lower percentage on silks, woollens, and other goods, of greater value in proportion to their bulk, weight, and difficulty of transport. For this percentage, the master-smuggler receives the goods without the frontier, and delivers them within, supporting all charges, and running all risks: it is a premium of insurance, as regularly fixed as that of any marine risk at Lloyd's. But does the Revue suppose that the present very high charge for passage will not be materially reduced, sooner than altogether relinquished? Spanish smuggling requires capital and stability, on the part of those undertaking it on a large scale, and is a sort of monopoly in the hands of a certain number of individuals and companies. These pay the working smugglers (the men who lift the bales, and drive the mules, and fight the custom-house officers) a few reals a-day, a few dollars a run, and pocket enormous profits. Amongst themselves, they are leagued to maintain the high rates of insurance. But now that the custom-house steps into the field as a competitor, removing prohibition and lowering duties, we may be well assured the smugglers have lowered theirs; and an inquiry at Perpignan, Oléron, Mauléon, on the Five Cantons at Bayonne, or in any other smuggling depot on the Pyrenean frontier, would, we doubt not, satisfy the Revue of the fact. The Spanish custom-house must cut lower yet to beat the smuggler. The Revue admits that, on certain articles of great consumption, (silk,) the difference is still in favour of the contrabandist, even at the duty of thirty to forty-five per cent ad valorem, fixed by the tariff bill, and at the old high premium of smuggling insurance. But whilst we insist and are confident that the latter will be reduced, (and therein find one reason of the tranquil indifference with which the tariff has been received by the smuggling population of the Peninsula,) we are by no means certain that the former has not been considerably raised by the alterations and modifications that took place in the tariff, between the date of its passing the chambers and that of its publication by the government; alterations by which the ad valorem duties imposed on several important classes of merchandise have been converted into fixed duties. This change, which may very well prove a juggle brought about by the golden wand of the smuggling fraternity, at once invalidates the calculations of the Revue, which are all based upon the ad valorem percentage originally prescribed by the tariff law, and upon the assumption that the high contraband premiums are immutable and unreducible.
Setting aside the mere financial consideration of the tariff question; losing sight, for a while, of the great accession of revenue it is universally admitted that Spain would derive from an honest and effectual reduction of her import-duties on manufactures, which she herself can produce only of inferior quality and at exorbitant rates; losing sight, also, of the moral obligation there is upon her to adopt all such measures, not injurious to any great class of the community,[13] as shall enable her to pay her way, and acquit her debts to home and foreign creditors,—temporarily averting our view, we say, from these considerations, we fix it upon others whose weight none will deny. What are the chief causes to which the major part of the crime, misery, and degradation prevalent amongst the lower classes in Spain, is attributed, by all impartial observers of her social condition? They are three in number. The demoralisation produced by smuggling; the burdens upon agriculture, and impediments to its progress; the high prices the peasant is compelled to pay for the most necessary manufactures. Upon the evil of smuggling we need not dwell, nor dilate upon the ease of the transition from defrauding the government to robbing upon the highway, and from shooting a douanier to murdering the traveller who may be so rash as to defend his purse. By the lower classes in Spain the smuggler is admired and respected, and his calling is deemed gallant and honourable; by the classes above him he is tolerated, and often employed. His random, perilous, fly-by-night manner of life, made up of alternate periods of violent exertion and excitement, and perfect idleness and relaxation, exactly suits his taste and temperament: it will be hard to wean him from his illicit pursuits, though they should so decline in profit as only to yield him bread, garlic, and tobacco. You must find him occupation profitable and to his taste before you can reclaim him; for he will not dig, and would rather rob than beg. Whenever such import-duties are adopted in Spain as will really stop smuggling, there will undoubtedly be a great increase of crimes against property, innumerable bands of robbers will spring up, and probably there will also be risings under political banners. The present moment is by no means unpropitious for the experiment. The government of Spain has perhaps the power, but we doubt that it has the will. We have shown cause for believing that the recent change will prove delusive, and of small benefit. If we are mistaken—and it is very difficult to decide beforehand of the result of Spanish measures—we shall sincerely rejoice.
We have already observed that, whilst the brunt of taxation is borne in Spain by agriculture, that interest obtains in return scarcely any of the facilities and encouragements to which it is fairly entitled. Spain is the rash child that would run before it can walk, and consequently falls upon its face. She dashes headlong at the greatest and most costly improvements realised by other countries; forgetting that she has stood still whilst they moved onwards, and that a wise man gets a bed to lie upon before troubling himself about a silken coverlet. In all the arts of life Spain is immeasurably inferior to most other European nations. In agricultural implements, in carts and other vehicles of transport, in her methods of elaborating her products, and her means of carrying them, she is centuries behind all the world. Vast tracts of her territory are desolate for want of that irrigation for which modern ingenuity and invention have devised such great facilities: the broad waters of her mighty rivers, which in other countries would be alive with traffic and bordered with villages, are choked and desolate. "The Guadalquivir, navigable in the time of the Romans as far as Cordova, is now scarcely practicable for sailing vessels of a moderate size up to Seville."[14] Few are the boats, scanty the dwellings, upon the green waves and flower-grown shores of Tagus and Ebro. When these glorious natural arteries are thus neglected, we need not expect artificial ones. Canals are sadly wanted, and have been often planned, but they have got no farther than the want and the project. As to roads, the main lines are good, but they are few, diverging from the capital to the various frontiers; and the cross-roads (where there are any,) and the country tracks, are mostly execrable, and often impassable for wheels. But all this, we are informed by the Revue des Deux Mondes, is on the eve of a thorough change. "Labour, like credit," says that periodical, in its article on Spain, "has received a beneficial impulse. The roads are repaired, the means of water-conveyance are being improved or terminated, railroads are begun. The creation of a vast system (ensemble) of adjacent roads will soon connect all parts of the territory with these vivifying arteries." We scarcely know which is most admirable; the cleverness that contrives to condense so many misstatements into so few words, or this tone of candour, conviction, and philanthropical exultation. As regards the impulse given to Spanish credit, it is but a few days since we read, with some astonishment at the barbarity and impudence of the plan (emanating though it does from a Spanish finance minister), the arrangement by which Mr Bravo Murillo, in order to diminish the acknowledged deficit in the budget for the year 1850, mulcts the army and state functionaries of a month's pay, and pensioners and half-pay men of two months' means of subsistence, besides wiping out, in a still more unceremonious manner, other pressing claims upon the treasury. The budget itself is a truly curious document. The customs' revenue is swollen by the supposed profits of the new tariff; the expenses of the war department are boldly set down at a reduction which must accord rather with Mr Murillo's wish than with his expectations. On the debit side figure also the claims of the public creditor, for much less than is due, certainly, but for far more than will be paid. The result of the estimate is, as usual, most satisfactory, or would be so, at least, if there were the slightest chance of its justification by the actual receipts and expenditure of the year for which it is made. To return, however, to the improvements and public works announced by the Revue des Deux Mondes. We certainly find in the budget a sum of about three hundred thousand pounds—something more than half the involuntary contribution wrung from the unhappy employés and pensioners—set down to roads, railways, and canals. Is this magnificent sum to complete the valuable water-communications and the network of roads promised to expectant Spain? Hardly, even if applied as appropriated, which little enough of it ever will be. As to railways, they are certainly begun, but that is as much as can be said. There is a thirty mile railroad open between Barcelona and Mataro, upon which accidents seem of pretty frequent occurrence; and that said, we have said all. A good many others have been planned, involving the most magnificent projects of tunnels through chains of mountains, viaducts over great rivers, cuttings through dense forests, and the like; and at some of these there may be attempts at work, enough to justify demands for funds; but their termination is altogether another matter in a country where, according to its national proverb, things are begun late, and never finished. Doubtless it is a satisfaction to Spanish pride, when it sees other European countries veined with iron tracks, to be able to talk of Spanish railroads as things that are not only projected, but begun. A great country like Spain must not lag behind in the race of improvement, and its natives would deem themselves humiliated if they did not attempt to have what England, France, and Germany enjoy. Nothing can escape these ambitious hidalgos. They have heard of the electric telegraph, and it is easy to discern, by newspaper paragraphs, that they are agog for the novelty, although the country has just been put to considerable expense by the completion and improvement of the aërial semaphores. These work very well, the Diario Mercantil of Valencia told us the other day; but fogs are a great nuisance, the electric plan is much better and surer, and a German company has offered to lay any length of wires at the rate of two hundred pounds sterling per league; and the Diario trusts the government will keep the matter in view, and adopt the new system, if it can be done without obstacles arising from political disturbances, and from the ignorance and malevolence of the people. If the electric telegraph were to await the completion of the "vivifying arteries" of railroad promised by the more sanguine friends of Spain, the German company would do well to offer its services elsewhere; but evidently there is some notion of carrying the posts and wires across country, over sierras and despoblados, with boards, no doubt, affixed here and there, requesting the public, to "protect the telegraph." How long the posts would stand—how long the wires might escape injury from the superstitious peasantry, or from robbers and smugglers, interested in retarding the transmission of their misdeeds, is another question. Really, to use a popular comparison, the establishment of electric telegraphs on Spanish soil seems to us about as necessary and sensible as to affix a gilt handle to the door of a pig-stye. Not that we would, in any way, assimilate to the unclean beast our friends the Spaniards, whom we greatly esteem, and desire to see more prosperous: but thus it is with them ever. They would fain pass over the rudiments, and attain at a bound that height of civilisation which other nations have reached only by a toilsome and patient progress.
The dearness of most manufactured goods in Spain, and especially of the commonest and, as Englishmen would consider, most essential articles of clothing, is, we are fully convinced, a grave impediment to the moral and physical progress of the lower classes of Spaniards. If, quitting certain frontier districts, where smuggling gains diffuse a fallacious appearance of prosperity, we penetrate into the interior of the country, we behold a rural population sunk in filth and sloth, wrapped in squalid woollen rags, basking listlessly in the sun, dwelling oftentimes in community with their domestic animals. Yet, give him but the means, and no man more than this self-same Spanish peasant loves clean linen and neat attire. If he is dirty and shirtless, and afflicted with vermin and impurities, it is because he has never had the means of being otherwise. How can he, out of his scanty earnings, supply himself with the calico shirt and clean jacket of jean or flannel which, in the countries of their manufacture, are within the reach of the poorest labourer, but whose price is trebled, before they reach him in Spain, by exorbitant smuggling premiums or import-duty, and by an expensive and defective system of transport. We cannot agree with those who assert the Spaniard of the lower class to be a born idler, who will never willingly do more work than procures him the day's frugal meal. We have too great faith in his natural good qualities to receive this opinion otherwise than as a calumny. At any rate, before deciding thus harshly, give him a chance, which he has never yet had; show him the possibility, which he has never yet seen, of attaining, by his own exertions, to comfort and respectability; put the necessaries of life within his reach, which they have never yet been, and spur him, with his own pride, to cleanliness and industry. Teach him, in short, self-respect, which he can hardly feel in his present sunken condition, and, rely upon it, he will make an effort and take a start.
It is not our intention to dwell upon the recent temporary displacement of the Narvaez ministry, at the very moment when its stability and power seemed most assured, when the exultation of its partisans was the loudest, and the subjection of the nation most complete. The singular manner of the change, the ignoble agents by whom it was immediately effected, the obscurity and inaptitude of the individuals who for a moment made their apparition at the helm, to be at the next thrown overboard; the strangely heedless and inconsistent conduct of the young Queen, and the ambiguous attitude of her mother, have found abundant commentators, and the whole episode has been wittily and not unjustly compared to one of those old Spanish comedies based on a palace intrigue. We cannot, however, admit that the entire glory of the curious and abortive plot belongs to the apostolical camarilla which is alleged to exist in the palace, and to consist, amongst others, of the feeble and bigoted king-consort, of a fanatical confessor, a hysterical nun, a jesuitical secretary, and others of similar stamp. Time will probably dissipate part of the mystery that now envelops the affair; but, even now, those accustomed to watch the show will have shrewd suspicious whose are the hands that pulled the wires and made the dull puppets dance. The hands showed little skill, it will perhaps be urged, in the selection and manœuvring of the dolls. This objection will hardly stand. When a juggler misses his trick, it is still something if he hides his arm from his audience. And as to the incapacity of the agents, they were probably not employed until others, abler but less docile, had refused to act. We entertain little doubt in what quarter the attempt was fostered—perhaps concerted. Notwithstanding the outward cordiality of the French and Spanish governments, it is notorious that the old alliance between Queen Christina and a lately deposed monarch still exists, for the attainment of objects dear to both their hearts. In what manner these objects were to be advanced by the recent shuffle of the Spanish political cards, is not at first sight apparent. But we entertain scarcely the shadow of a doubt, that the arch-plotter whose influence has more than once wrought evil to Spain, had a hand in the game. We would be the last to press hardly upon the fallen. Did we feel tempted so to do, we should truly feel ourselves rebuked by the noble example of that illustrious Lady, who has forgotten the treachery of the king in the sorrows of the exile, and has extended that sympathy and kindness to the dweller in the English cottage, which she could not have been expected again to show to the inmate of the French palace. We are guarded, then, in the expression of our regret, that one who, by the pursuit of purely personal objects, has been the cause of great calamities to his native land, should still indulge his dynastic ambition at the expense of the tranquillity of another country, previously indebted to him for much discord and misery. And we deem it a painful sight when a man whose years already exceed the average span of human existence is still engrossed by plans of unscrupulous aggrandisement, still busied with Machiavelian intrigues, still absorbed in the baser things of earth, instead of addressing himself to considerations of higher import, earning by his virtues in adversity that respect refused to his conduct in prosperity, and passing the last days of his life—the posthumous ones of his royalty—resigned, revered, and beloved, like one who preceded him on his throne and in his banishment, and whose name was on his lips in the hour of his fall.