But of this increased prosperity far more than her share has fallen to France, owing chiefly to its being put in the same category with Germany, Italy, Belgium, and Austria, as most favoured nations, who import their goods under the customs tariff of July 17, 1877, while England and the United States continue-under the old tariff, as favoured nations only. This disproportion will probably be still more marked, owing to the immense importation of Spanish wines into France required to make up for losses by the phylloxera disease; while the exportation of sherry to England has been gradually lessening for some years, and now we take only some 4 per cent, of the quantity, and 12 per cent in value, of the wine exported from Spain. One of our chief imports into Spain, coal, is likely also to diminish, owing to the development of the native coal-fields in the Asturias and in Andalusia. Our other chief exports from Spain in fruits and minerals largely increase. The present wine tariff of England, by which she virtually refuses to purchase the bulk of Spanish wines in their natural state, while importing them largely when mixed with inferior French white wines, and treated as clarets, &c., is felt by Spaniards to be so unfair that, until this system is modified there is little hope of obtaining a better tariff for English manufactures; while the making Gibraltar an immense depôt for a contraband trade is a wrong that rankles in the mind of all southern Spaniards. The decline of the English import trade into Spain would be much more marked but for the immense amount of English capital employed in the larger mining and industrial enterprises.
The battle between protection and free trade is not yet fought out in Spain. The manufacturing districts of Catalonia and the east coast clamour loudly for protection, while the mining and agricultural and wine-growing interests demand free trade. It is impossible to say on which side the balance may turn. A conservative Government would probably favour the former, while a liberal ministry might venture upon the latter system.
Heavy as the public debt of Spain undoubtedly is, and serious as are the charges imposed upon her by the still unsettled political condition of the country and of its principal colony—Cuba, she might more than pay the interest of her debts at the present rate of interest, and balance the expenditure, but for the administrative corruption and utter want of political morality, the fruit of long years of financial abuses, and which has become almost a fixed habit amongst all classes of the inhabitants. The Government seems to be a mark for fraud to every class, from millionaire bankers and the largest landed proprietors down to the ill-paid employé who ekes out his scanty salary by accepting petty bribes, and the labourer or fisherman on the frontier who never misses the occasion of smuggling. It is easy to prove the truth of these assertions. In 1877, in an official report, Mr. Phipps writes: "A few English, French, and Spanish bankers advance money to Spain, with safe security, on conditions as disastrous to the treasury as they are discreditable to themselves." The territorial tax, which forms one-fourth of the whole internal revenue is notoriously levied on only 54 per cent, of the whole area of the country. In some provinces not two-thirds of the whole is returned at all, and much land that is productive is returned as uncultivated. From the extent of the contraband trade and the corruption of the custom-house officers, the amount levied on imports and exports can hardly be above two-thirds of their proper value. In fact, what Spain needs above everything at present is an honest and impartial administration. The causes of her poverty lie not so much in bad laws or a faulty constitution, but in a corrupt and negligent administration. The system of empleomania, whereby nearly every ill-paid employé is almost forced to pillage, the preference of this ill-paid idleness and of professional poverty to honest toil in trade or agriculture—these are the true foes to the prosperity of Spain. For party and political purposes, taxes are relaxed for those who should bear their equal share of the burden, only to fall with crushing weight on the honest workers, unconnected with, or who refuse to bribe the administration.
CHAPTER VII.
EDUCATION AND RELIGION.
THE fame of the Spanish universities has greatly fallen from what it was in the early Middle Ages, when Salamanca ranked with Bologna, Paris, and Oxford, as one of the four great universities in Europe; when its halls were thronged with thousands of eager though needy scholars, and it was the centre whence Semitic learning and civilization spread to the rest of Europe. Even in a later day, in the sixteenth century, under the patronage of Cardinal Ximenes, the university of Alcala de Henares (Complutum) flashed into sudden fame as one of the great offshoots of the Renaissance, with its 7800 students, and its noble production of the first great Polyglot Bible since primitive times. In the eighteenth century, however, this learning had all but disappeared from Spain, and the education given in its universities was all but worthless. Little was effected towards any true revival or improvement until 1845, though something had been attempted before this in secondary education by the successive reforms of 1771, 1807, and especially of 1824 and 1836.
The universities of Spain are now ten: Madrid, with 6672 students; Barcelona with 2459; Valencia, 2118; Seville, 1382; Granada, 1225; Valladolid, 880; Santiago de Compostella, 779; Saragossa, 771; Salamanca, 372; and Oviedo with 216: making a total of 16,874 university students. The number of regular professors is 415, with 240 supernumeraries and assistants, making a total of 655; that is, one professor to every 26 students. The salary of the professors varies from 120l. to 260l. per annum, except in Madrid, where it is from 160l. to 300l. The budget of the whole universities is a little over 1,000,000l., and the expenditure slightly in excess, leaving a deficit in 1879 of 4600l.. The average cost of each student to the university is a little over 6l..
Though the above institutions are all classed as universities by the State, yet the course of instruction is by no means the same in all. At Madrid alone the whole programme of university education is followed out. This comprises the faculties of civil, canon, and administrative law, of philosophy and literature, of science, of medicine, and of pharmacy. Since 1868 theology is no longer studied in the universities, but in the seminaries, of which there is one in each diocese, under the direction of the bishop. The total number of pupils studying in these institutions is 8562. At Valladolid are two theological colleges for English, Scotch, and Irish students, established, one at the close of the sixteenth, the other by the Jesuits at the close of the eighteenth century.
Law is studied in all the Spanish universities, and medicine in all but one—Oviedo; Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, and Compostella have faculties of pharmacy, under which head a certain amount of natural science is taught; of the exact sciences there are chairs only at Madrid, Barcelona, and Salamanca; philosophy and literature are studied in Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, Salamanca, Seville, and Saragossa. In Oviedo, Santiago, Valencia, Valladolid, only the first year's or preparatory course of law is read, this consists of Latin, general literature, and universal history.
Besides these State universities, there are several institutions supported by the provincial deputations; for instance, there is a faculty of medicine in Seville supported by the province, another in Salamanca at the joint expense of the province and of the municipality. In addition to these there are technical schools for the study of special branches of industry or of administration, such as those of roads, canals, and harbours, of mines, and of forests, in Madrid and Villa Viciosa. A school of industrial engineering, and of the application of chemistry and mechanics, is working at Barcelona. There are technical schools of commerce at Madrid and at Barcelona. Schools or colleges of veterinary science are to be found in Madrid, Saragossa, Cordova, and Leon. Naval schools are established in Santa Cruz (Teneriffe), in Palma (Majorca), in Masnou (Barcelona), in San Sebastian, supported by the funds of the provinces; there is also one at Gijon, in the Asturias, founded by Jovellanos; two other private foundations also exist at Lequeito and Santurce in Biscay. In Madrid there is a special school of architecture, and also one of painting, sculpture, and engraving. Excellent schools of the fine arts exist in Barcelona, Cadiz, Corunna, Granada, Malaga, Oviedo, Seville, Valencia, Valladolid, Saragossa, and at Palma in the Balearic Isles; this last is remarkable for the number of its pupils and its generally flourishing condition.
In each of the forty-nine provinces of Spain are institutions of superior or secondary education. With the exception of the institutes of Cardinal Cisneros and of San Isidro at Madrid, which depend on the Government, and which hold the first and third rank as to the number of their pupils, these institutions are supported by the funds of the provinces or municipalities, but the professors are nominated by the Government; besides those in the capital of each province, there are also 11 others in various large towns in Spain. There are also 356 colleges of secondary education affiliated to the institutes, 58 of which are under religious corporations, making a total of 417 establishments of secondary education, with 2730 professors who have all taken degrees in science or literature.