The condition of Spain since the last French revolution, and especially since the commencement of the present year, has been taken as a theme of unbounded self-gratulation by persons who ascribe her tranquillity and alleged prosperity to their own patriotism and skill. For many months past, the friends, organs, and adherents of the dominant Camarilla have not ceased to call attention to the flourishing state of the country; repeatedly challenging the Continent to produce such another example of good government, internal happiness, and external dignity, as is now afforded by the fortunate land which their patrons and masters rule. When so many European states are revolutionised and unsettled, it is indeed pleasant to hear this good report of one which we have not been accustomed to consider a model for the imitation of its neighbours. Delightful it is to learn that Spain has cast her blood-stained slough of misrule, discord, and corruption, and glitters in renovated comeliness, an example to the nations, a credit and a blessing to herself, a monument of the disinterested exertions and unwearied self-devotion of her sage and virtuous rulers. We are anxious to believe that these glowing accounts are based upon fact, and worthy of credence—not a delusion and a blind; and that the happiness and prosperity so ostentatiously vaunted exist elsewhere than in the invention of those interested in proclaiming them. But we cannot forget that the evidence produced is entirely ex-parte, or lose sight of the great facility with which the French and English press and public accord credit and praise to the present government of Spain, simply on its own or its partisans' assertions of the great things it has done, and is about to do. It is not easy to obtain a correct knowledge of the condition of the bulk of the Spanish nation. That the country prospers means, in the mouths of the schemers and place-hunters of Madrid, and of the smugglers of the frontier, that there is a brisk flow of coin into their own pockets. That it is tranquil signifies that no rebellious banner is openly displayed in its territory. No matter that the government is carried on by shifts, by forced loans and forestalled taxes and ruinous contracts; that the public servants of all grades, irregularly paid, and with bad examples before them, peculate and take bribes; that the widow and the orphan, the maimed soldier and the superannuated pensioner, continually with long arrears due to them, are in rags, misery, and starvation; that to the foreign creditor is given, almost as a favour, no part of the interest due upon the capital he has disbursed, but the interest on a small portion of the accumulation of unpaid dividends; that the streets and highways swarm with mendicants, and are perilous from the multitude of robbers; that the insecurity of life and property in country-places drives the rich proprietors into the towns, and prevents their expending their capital in the improvement of their property; and that the peasantry, deprived of instruction, example, and encouragement, deprived too, by the badness and scarcity of the communications, of an advantageous market for their produce, sink, as a natural consequence, daily deeper into sloth, ignorance, and vice. What matter all these things? The miseries of the suffering many are lightly passed over by the prosperous few: in Spain the multitude have no voice, no remedy but open and armed resistance. Thus it is that Spanish revolutions and popular outbreaks startle by their suddenness. Until the victim openly rebels, his murmurs are unheard: the report of his musket is the first intimation of his misery. In England and in France, abuses, oppression, and injustice, of whatever kind, cannot long be kept from the light. It is very different in Spain, under the present rÉgime. There the liberty of the press is purely nominal, and no newspaper dares denounce an abuse, however flagrant, or speak above its breath on subjects whose discussion is unpleasing to the governing powers. On the first indication of such presumption, number after number of the offending journal is seized, fines are inflicted, and if the editors audaciously persevere, they may reckon with tolerable certainty on exile or a prison. On the other hand, the ministerial and Camarilla organs, those of the Duke of Valencia and of SeÑor Sartorius, and of the dowager queen, and even of the dowager's husband—for his Grace of Rianzares follows the fashion, and has a paper at his beck, (partly for his assistance in those stock exchange transactions whose pursuit has more than once dilapidated his wife's savings,)—papers of this stamp, we say, carefully disguise or distort all facts whose honest revelation would be unpleasant or discreditable to their employers. From the garbled and imperfect statements of these journals, which few Frenchmen, and scarcely any Englishmen, ever see, the "Madrid correspondents" of French and English newspapers—not a few of whom reside in Paris or London—compile their letters, and editors derive their data (for want of better sources) when discussing the condition and prospects of Spain. Hence spring misapprehension and delusion. Spain is declared to be prosperous and happy; and Spanish bondholders flatter themselves, for the hundredth time, with, the hope of a satisfactory arrangement—to which their great patience certainly entitles them, and which they might as certainly obtain were the ill-administered revenues of Spain so directed as to flow into the public coffers, and not into the bottomless pockets of a few illustrious swindlers, and of the legion of corrupt underlings who prop a system founded on immorality and fraud. The system is rotten to the core, and the prosperity of Spain is a phantom and a fallacy. Not that she is deficient in the elements of prosperity: on the contrary, the country has abundant vitality and resource, and its revenue has been for years increasing, in the teeth of misgovernment, and of a prohibitive tariff, which renders the customs' revenue almost nominal. But it matters little how many millions are collected, if they be intercepted on their way to the exchequer, or squandered and misappropriated as soon as gathered in.

In the absence of better evidence as to the real state of the country than that whose untrustworthiness we have denounced, the narrative of an unprejudiced and intelligent traveller in Spain has its value; and although the title of a recently published book by Mr Dundas Murray,2 proclaimed it to refer but to one province, yet, as that province comprises many of the principal Spanish posts and cities, we hoped to have found in his pages confirmation or correction of our opinion as to the true condition of the nation, and more particularly of those middling and lower classes whose welfare is too frequently lost sight of in the struggles and projects of political factions. Since those pleasant "Gatherings" in which many home-truths were told with a playful and witty pen, no book on Spain worth naming has appeared; and if Mr Murray's visit be recent, which he does not enable us to decide, he had abundant opportunity during his pretty long residence and active rambles—aided, as we learn he was, by thorough familiarity with the language—to collect materials for a work of no common interest and importance. He has preferred, however, to skim the surface: the romantic and the picaresque, sketches on the road and traditions of Moorish Spain, are evidently more to his taste than an investigation of the condition of the people, and an exposure of social sores and official corruption. His book is a slight but unaffected production, containing much that has been said before, a little that has not, some tolerable descriptions of scenery, a number of legends borrowed from Conde and other chroniclers, and here and there a little personal incident which may almost pass muster as an adventure. Young Englishmen of Mr Murray's class and standard of ability, who start on a tour in Spain, are of course on the look-out for the picturesque, and think it incumbent on them to embody their experiences and observations in a book. Such narratives are usually praiseworthy for good feeling and gentlemanly tone; and indeed would be almost perfect, did they combine with those qualities the equally desirable ones of vigour and originality. But doubtless we shall do well to take them as they come, and be thankful; for it is not every one who has fortitude and courage to travel for any length of time in the flea-and-robber-ridden land of Spain. And as we cannot expect to meet every day with a Widdrington, a Carnarvon, or a Ford, so we must welcome a Murray when he presents himself, look leniently upon his repetitions, and be grateful if he occasionally affords us a hint or a text. It is perhaps a pity that Englishmen do not more frequently turn their steps towards the Peninsula, instead of pertinaciously pursuing the beaten tracks of Italy, Switzerland, the Levant; the furthest of which is now within the leave-of-absence ramble of a desultory guardsman or jaded journalist, covetous of purer air than Fleet Street or St James's afford. Spain, we can assure all who are rovingly inclined—and Mr Murray, we are certain, will corroborate our word—has at least as much to interest as any of the above regions, and much more than most of them. And assuredly an influx of British travellers would, by putting piastres into the pockets of the aborigines, do more than anything else towards improving roads, towards cleansing ventas of the chinches and other light cavalry, against whose assaults Mr Murray was fain to cuirass himself in a flannel bag, towards ameliorating the Iberian cuisine, and diminishing the numbers and audacity of the knights of the road. For, as regards the last-named peril, greatly increased by the dispersion of the republican and Carlist bands, and by the misery prevalent in the country, Englishmen, if they have the reputation of travelling with well-filled pockets and portmanteaus, have also that of fighting stoutly in defence of their property; and if they would make it a rule to travel two or three together, with light purses, a sharp look-out, and a revolver a-piece—or, as Mr Murray and his companion did, each with a double-barrel on his shoulder—they might rest assured there are not many bands of brigands on Spanish roads bold enough to bid them, in the classical phrase of those gentry, "Boca abajo!" which means, freely interpreted, "Down in the dust, and with the dust!" But let the traveller be on his guard against a surprise, and, to that end, avoid as much as possible all night-travelling, especially by diligence, which to many may seem the safest, on account of the society it insures, but which is in reality the most dangerous mode of journeying, for there the pusillanimous hamper and impede the resistance contemplated by the bold, and the bravest man can do little when jammed in amongst screaming women and terrified priests, with a carbine pointing in at each window of the vehicle. We find Mr Murray and his friend riding unmolested through an ambuscade where, a couple of hours later, three calesas full of travellers, including a colonel in the army, were assailed by no more than three highwaymen, and deliberately and unresistingly plundered. For the traveller in Spain there is nothing like the saddle, whether for safety, independence, or comfort; and as to time, why, if he is short of that, he had better not visit the country, for there all things go despacio, which means not with despatch but leisurely, and for one "to-day" he will get twenty "to-morrows," and most of these will never come. And, above all, let him put no faith in the word police, which, in Spain, is a mere figure of speech, the thing it indicates never appearing until it is not wanted; and let him not reckon on an escort, which is rarely to be obtained even by paying, and on roads notoriously dangerous, except by tedious formality of application, to which few will have patience to submit. And even if granted, it usually, as in the case of the calesas above cited, is either too weak to be useful, or lags behind, or fairly turns tail. To which prudent course it is more than suspected that the faithless guards, who are mostly pardoned robbers, are frequently stimulated by promise of a share of the spoil. Nor are they, if all tales be true, the only class in Spain whose duty it is to protect the public, and who foully betray their trust. During this present year of 1849, cited as so prosperous a one in Spain, robberies in the capital, and on the roads within a radius of twenty leagues around it, have been so numerous and audacious, and perpetrated with such impunity, that the finger of public suspicion has pointed very high, and the strangest tales—which to English ears would sound incredible—have been circulated of the collusion of personages whose rank and position would, in any other country, preclude the idea of participation, however secret and indirect, in gains so lawless and iniquitous. But in this, as in many other matters peculiar to the Peninsula, although the few may be convinced, the many will always doubt, and proof it is of course scarcely possible to obtain. In so extensive and thinly peopled a land as Spain, and which has been so long a prey to civil war and insurrection, security of travelling in rural districts, and on cross roads, is only to be obtained by increased cultivation of the soil, and by improving the condition of the peasantry. But in the capital, and on the roads leading to it, and in the towns and villages, some degree of law and order might be expected to prevail. A glance at the Spanish papers, any time for the last six months, proves the contrary to be the case. Their columns are filled with accounts of atrocious assassinations and barefaced robberies in the very streets of Madrid; of diligences stopped, and travellers plundered and abused; of farmers and others carried off to the mountains in open day, and detained until ransomed; and with letters from all parts of the country, complaining of the insecurity of life and property, and of the sluggishness and inefficiency of the authorities. Such statements are of course rarely admitted into the ministerial prints, to read which one would imagine that the very last malefactor in the country had just fallen into the hands of the guardias civiles, and that a virgin might conduct a gold-laden mule from Santander to Cadiz, unguarded and unmolested.

Since the death of Ferdinand, no such opportunity of improving and regenerating Spain has been afforded to a Spanish ministry, really solicitous of their country's good, as during the present year. It opened inauspiciously enough; with an impoverished exchequer, a ruinously expensive army, Cabrera and ten thousand Carlists in arms in eastern Spain, and with insurgent bands, of various political denominations, springing up in Navarre and other provinces. There was every prospect of a bloody civil war in early spring. But causes, similar to those which, on former occasions, had frustrated their efforts, again proved fatal to the hopes of the Carlist party. With great difficulty, and with little aid beyond that of contributions levied in Catalonia, Cabrera had subsisted his troops through the winter. But, when spring approached, money was needed for other purposes besides mere rations. In the civil wars of Spain, gold has often been far more efficacious than steel to overcome difficulties and gain a point. But gold was hard to obtain. Revolutions had raised its value; and those who possessed it were loath to embark it in so hazardous a speculation as the restoration of Count Montemolin. This prince, who, for a Spanish Bourbon, is not deficient in natural ability, has one unfortunate defect, which more than counterbalances his good qualities. Infirm of purpose, he is led by a clique of selfish and unworthy advisers, some of whom—evil counsellors handed down to him by his father—have retained all the influence they acquired over him in his childhood. Amidst the petty wranglings and deplorable indecisions of these men, time wore away. A sum of money (no very large one) was all that was needed to achieve a great object, which would at once have multiplied fifty-fold the prestige of the Montemolinist cause, and have placed vast resources at the disposal of its partisans. Between the sum required and the advantage certain to be obtained, the disproportion was enormous. Letter after letter was received from Cabrera and other promoters of the Montemolinist cause in France and Spain, urging and imploring that, at any sacrifice, the money should be procured. But this was beyond the power of the incapable ojalateros who surrounded the young pretender. Without conduct, energy, or dignity, they had not a single quality calculated to obtain credit or induce confidence. In all their attempts they miserably failed. At last, towards the end of March, a rumour was spread abroad that Count Montemolin was on his way to Catalonia, to head his faithful adherents. Soon this was confirmed by newspaper paragraphs, and presently came a romantic account of his arrest on the frontier, when about to enter Spain. The next news was that of his return to England, which was almost immediately followed by an article in a London paper, denying point-blank that he had ever left this country, declaring that the journey was a hoax, and that the Spanish prince had been arrested by proxy. And although this article, which was extensively copied by the press of England and the Continent, elicited an angry contradiction from a hanger-on of Count Montemolin, yet many persons, of those most versed in the intricacies of Spanish intrigue, were convinced that its statements were founded on fact, and that the Count was in reality secreted in London at the very time he was supposed to be travelling towards the Pyrenees. And some of his own partisans, who credited the reality of the journey, declared their conviction from the first to have been, that he would be betrayed before he got through France, since by that means only could certain individuals, who dared not refuse to accompany him, hope to return to the flesh-pots and security of their London home, and to avoid encountering the perils and hardships of mountain warfare. The abortive journey or clumsy hoax, whichever it was, gave the finishing stroke to the Catalonian insurrection. Cabrera, seeing plainly that nothing was to be hoped from the feeble and pusillanimous junta of advisers who swayed and bewildered Count Montemolin by their intrigues and dissensions, found it necessary, after sending repeated and indignant letters and messages to London, to abandon a contest which it was impossible for him to maintain single-handed, and from which many subordinate chiefs, and a large portion of his troops, had already seceded. His little army fell to pieces, and he himself fell into the hands of the French authorities, by whom, after a brief detention, he was allowed to go at large. The game was now good for General Concha and his fifty thousand men. The scattering and hunting down of the broken bands of insurgents was exactly the sort of amusement they liked; a fine pretext for magnificent bulletins, and the easiest possible way of gaining praise, honours, and decorations. Before summer came, Catalonia was quiet. The most vigorous effort made by the Carlists since the Convention of Bergara; the one offering the best chances of success, and on which the very last resources of the party, (even, it is said, to a few jewels and pictures of price—the last relics of princely splendour,) had been expended; the effort, in short, of whose happy issue such sanguine expectations were entertained, that some of the leading adherents of the cause declared that, "if they failed this time, they deserved never to succeed," had terminated in complete abortion. On the sierras of Spain not a Carlist cockade was to be seen; in the coffers of the party not a dollar remained. Many of its most valued members, disgusted by the weakness of their prince, and by the baseness of his councillors, withdrew from its ranks, and made their peace with the existing government. And now the most steadfast well-wishers of Count Montemolin are compelled to admit, that few contingencies are less probable than his installation on the Spanish throne.

Delivered from the disquietude and expense of civil war, backed by an overwhelming majority in the Chambers, and having no longer anything to fear from that "English influence," of which the organs of Christina and Louis Philippe had made such a bugbear, the Spanish government, it was expected, would deem the moment favourable for those reforms so greatly needed by the country. It was full time, and it was now quite practicable, to adopt extensive and systematic measures of retrenchment in the various departments of the administration; to reduce the army; to regularise and lessen the expense of collecting the revenue, which, like a crop intrusted to negligent and dishonest reapers, is wasted and pillaged in the gathering; to encourage labour and industry; to stimulate private enterprise, to which the tranquillity of Spain was sure to give a first impetus; to encourage and co-operate in the formation of roads and canals, so essential to agriculture, which there languishes for want of them; to give a death-blow to smuggling by an honest and sweeping reform of the absurd tariff; and, if they could not give money to the public creditor, at least to come to a loyal understanding and arrangement with him, instead of vexatiously deluding him with fair promises, never kept. Instead of at once, and in good faith, setting about these, and many other equally requisite reforms, in whose prosecution they would have been supported by a large number of their present political opponents; instead of riveting their attention on the internal maladies and necessities of the country, and striving strenuously for their cure,—turning a deaf ear to the clamorous voices abroad in Europe, and thanking heaven that the position and weakness of their country allowed her to stand aloof from the struggles of her neighbours—what did the Spanish government? They acted like a needy spendthrift who, having suddenly come into possession of a little gold, fancies himself a Croesus, and squanders it in luxurious superfluities. They had come into possession of a little tranquillity—in Spain a treasure far rarer and more precious than gold—and, instead of using it for their necessities, they lavished it abroad. Aping wealthy and powerful nations, they aspire to interfere in the domestic affairs of others, before thinking of putting their own house in order. Rome is to be the scene of their exploits, religion their pretext, the Pope the gainer by their exertions. From their eagerness in the crusade, it might be supposed that Rome and the pontiff had some great and peculiar claim on the gratitude and exertions of Spain; with which country, on the contrary, ever since the death of Ferdinand of petticoat-making memory, until quite recently, they have been on the worst possible terms—the Holy See having openly supported the cause of Don Carlos, refused the recognition of Isabella, and the investiture of the prelates she appointed, and played a variety of unfriendly pranks, of no material consequence, but yet exceedingly painful and galling to the bigoted portion of the nation, who considered their chances of salvation not a little compromised, so long as their government was thus in evil odour and non-communication with the head of the Church. Altogether, the attitude assumed by Rome towards Spain, since 1833, was most detrimental to Queen Isabella, because it sent a vast number of priests (always active and influential partisans) to the side of the Pretender. Considering these circumstances, when Rome at last, at its own good time, and in consideration of concessions, and also because it suffered pecuniarily by the duration of the rupture, again took Spain into favour, and acknowledged her queen as Most Catholic, Spain, in her impoverished condition, would surely have sufficiently responded by her best wishes for the prosperity of the Pope, and for the safety of his pontifical throne. She might also, if it was desired, have sent that poetical statesman, M. Martinez de la Rosa, to display his eloquence in Italian counsels. But Spanish pride, the bigotry of the queen-mother and her son-in-law, the fanaticism of some, and the hypocrisy of others, could not be contented with this. Pinched, starved, indebted, as Spain is, nothing would serve but to despatch to Italy, at heavy cost, a useless corps d'armÉe. Little enough has it achieved. The troops have got a bad name by their excesses, and the generals have been treated slightingly, almost contemptuously, by the French commanders, who, doubtless, at sight of the half-disciplined Dons, felt old animosities revive, and thought how much they should prefer a trip to the Trocadero to this inglorious and unprofitable Italian campaign. To console General Cordova and his staff, however, for the necessity of playing second fiddle to the French, they have been praised, and caressed, and decorated by his Holiness, and by that enlightened monarch, Ferdinand of Naples; and they have been allowed to send an aide-de-camp to Barcelona for three nice little Spanish uniforms, which they are to have the honour of presenting to three nice little Neapolitan princes. Whilst this popinjay general and his men-at-arms idle their time, and spend their pay, in Italian quarters, the Moors besiege and cannonade the Spanish possessions in Africa, within sight of the Andalusian coast, whence not a soldier is sent to the assistance of the beleaguered garrisons. A most characteristic sample of "things of Spain." In this country we are blind to the propriety of leaving your own barn to be pulled down, whilst you build up your neighbour's mansion. And, to our matter-of-fact comprehension, it seems dishonest to waste money in a frivolous foreign expedition, when starving creditors are knocking at the door. But we are a shop-keeping people, and it is folly to subject Spanish chivalry to the gauge of such grovelling, mercantile ideas.

Notwithstanding the draft of troops to Italy, the Spanish government has ventured to decree an extensive reduction in the army. In view of the penury of the exchequer, of the total suppression of the Carlist insurrection, and of the small probability of any fresh outbreak in a country worn out as Spain is by civil wars and commotions, they could not, in common decency, avoid some such economical measure. So a third of the army has been formed into a reserve, which means that the officers retain their full pay—with the exception of those who voluntarily exchange from the active army into the reserve, thereby putting themselves on half-pay—and that the sergeants and privates, with the exception of a skeleton staff, return to their homes, and no longer receive pay or rations; but are to hold themselves in readiness, until the regular expiration of their term of service, to join their colours when required. From this measure the government anticipates a great saving, and their partisans hint a million sterling as its probable amount. But it is a peculiarity of Spanish administration that the real economy of a change of this kind can never be ascertained, even approximatively, until it has been for some time in force. By a strange fatality, the most brilliant theoretical retrenchments crumble into dust when reduced to practice. This has been so repeatedly the case in Spain, that we receive such announcements with natural distrust. In this instance, however, it is impossible to doubt that there will be a considerable saving, although far less than would at first sight be expected from the reduction, by nearly one-third, of an army of 120,000 men. The reduction will de facto be confined to the soldiers and non-commissioned officers; for, half-pay in Spain being a wretched pittance, and usually many months in arrear, few officers are likely to avail themselves of the option afforded them. With reference to this subject, we shall quote an extract from a Madrid newspaper, a strenuous opponent of the present government, but whose statistics we have never found otherwise than trustworthy; and which, in this case, would hardly venture to mis-state facts so easy of investigation. "Calculating," says the Clamor Publico of the 30th October 1849, "that the reduction in the active army amounts to 40,000 men, there still remain 80,000, too great a number for a nation which yields no more than 90,000 electors of deputies to the Cortes; besides which there should also be reductions in the staff. In Spain there is a general for every four hundred soldiers—[we believe the Clamor to be mistaken, and the proportions of generals to be even larger than here stated;] and although we do not possess any great magazines of clothing, arms, ammunition and other military stores, our army is yet the dearest of the whole European continent, as is proved by the following statement. [A statement follows of the annual cost of a soldier in the principal Continental services, showing the Spanish soldier to be the most expensive of all.] From all which we infer that the economy decreed is by no means that required by the condition of the treasury, and permitted by our present state of profound peace. The Spanish nation cannot maintain the immense army with which it is burdened. Retain, by all means, the artillery, the engineers, the staff-corps, and the other elements of war which cannot be created at brief notice. Keep up, on full pay, the framework of officers necessary to form, at two months' notice, an army of one hundred thousand men on a war establishment, whenever it may be necessary; but, whilst we are at peace, restore to agriculture and the arts a portion of the men now employed in carrying arms." Under the regency of Espartero, the Spanish army was reduced to 50,000 men, and that when the country was far less tranquil than at present, when a Moderado junta was plotting, at Paris, the downfall of the government, and Christina and Louis Philippe furnished abundant means of corruption. Then such an army was too small; now it might well be deemed ample for a country that at most contains thirteen or fourteen millions of inhabitants, with few fortresses to garrison, few large towns in which to guard against insurrection, and, above all, with a population that would evidently rather submit to misgovernment than plunge again into war. From external foes Spain has nothing to fear; and, even if she had, we are by no means sure that, paradoxical as it may seem, a reduction in her army would not be one of the best means of guarding against them. For retrenchments that would enable her to acquit herself, at least in part, towards her foreign creditors, would assuredly procure her, in the hour of need, friends and allies far more efficient in her defence than her own armies could possibly be. For however prone the Spaniards as a people are to exaggerate their power and means of self-defence, it must surely be patent to the sensible portion of the nation that, in case of aggression from without, they must look for aid to France or England. And although it will doubtless confirm the opinion of Spanish Moderados and French Orleanists as to the invariably mercenary motives of Great Britain, we will not conceal our conviction that the readiness of this country to succour Spain would be much greater if she were paying her debt to English bondholders, than if she were still in her present state of disreputable insolvency. At least we are quite certain that "the pressure from without" would be materially influenced by such a consideration. And this reflection naturally leads us to ask in what position Spain would have found herself, had the projected expedition from the United States against Cuba taken place and succeeded. The danger appears at an end for the present; but it may recur, under the rule of an American president who will not interfere to prevent the piratical enterprise. As to its chances of success, we find some striking facts whereon to base an opinion, in a recently published book on Cuba, the work of an intelligent and practical man, on whose statements and opinions we are disposed to set a high value.3 From Mr Madden's evidence it is quite plain that the Spanish colonial government is admirably calculated to excite a desire of independence, or, failing that, of annexation to America, in the breasts of the people of the Havana; and what is more, that it has already done so, and that a body of liberators from the States might confidently reckon on being received with open arms by a very considerable fraction of the inhabitants. When the mother country is deplorably misruled, it is not to be expected that the dependencies should be models of good government.

"In 1812," says Mr Madden, "the constitution being proclaimed in Spain, the whole people of the colonies were assimilated to the inhabitants of the mother country, with respect to representation.... In 1818, the good effects of colonial representation were manifested in the successful efforts of SeÑor Arango with the king, Ferdinand VII., for Cuban interests. He obtained a royal ordinance from his majesty for the abolition of restrictions on Cuban commerce. From this epoch, the prosperity of the island may be dated. Instead of being a charge to the imperial government, it began to remit large sums of money yearly to Spain; instead of having authorities and troops paid by the latter, both were henceforth paid by Cuba. An army of 25,000 men, sent from Spain in a miserable plight, was maintained in Cuba, in a few years entirely equipped and clothed, and disciplined in the best manner, without costing a real to the Spanish government. From 1830, the treasury of the Havana, in every embarrassment of the home government, furnished Spain with means, and was, in fact, a reserved fund for all its pressing emergencies. When the civil list failed Queen Christina, Cuba furnished the means of defraying the profuse expenditure of the palace. The contributions arising from the island formed no small portion, indeed, of the riches bequeathed by Ferdinand VII. to his rapacious widow, and to his reputed daughters."

In 1841, the same writer says, Cuba yielded a net revenue to Spain of a million and a quarter sterling, furnished timber and stores largely for the Spanish navy, and entirely supported the Spanish army in Cuba. From the amount here stated, deductions had to be made, or else the revenue has diminished since that date; for Mr Madden subsequently sums up by saying, that "Cuba produces a revenue of from ten to fifteen millions of dollars; of this amount, upwards of three millions (£600,000 sterling) are remitted to Madrid; and these three millions of taxes are paid by a class not exceeding four hundred thousand inhabitants, of free persons of all complexions." A Spanish writer estimates the revenue, in 1839, at eleven millions of dollars;4 and an English one, who had good opportunities of obtaining information, although he is sometimes rather loose in his statements, declared, six years later, that "Cuba contributes fifty millions of reals, or £500,000 sterling, of clear annual revenue to the Spanish crown."5 From this concurrent testimony, the sum annually pocketed by the mother country may be estimated at £500,000 to £600,000 sterling; an important item in the receipts of the Madrid government—more so, even, from its liquid and available nature, than from its amount. Moreover the revenues of Cuba, like the mines of Almaden, are a ready resource as security for a loan. But how has Spain requited the services of her richest colony? Of course with gross ingratitude. Strange to say, the equality of rights sanctioned by the despotic Ferdinand was arbitrarily wrenched from Cuba by the liberal government that succeeded him.

"The new Spanish constitution shut out the colonists from the imperial representation. This most unjust, impolitic, and irritating measure affords a fair specimen of the liberality and wisdom of Spanish liberalism. It produced a feeling of hatred against the mother country that never before existed in Cuba. In 1836-7-8-9, [years passed by Mr Madden in the Havana,] a general feeling of disaffection pervaded the whole white Creole community of Cuba. All the intelligence, education, worth, and influence of the white natives of the island (or Creoles, as they are there called) was enlisted against the government and the sovereign of Spain, and an intense desire for independence excited. The old rapacious policy of Spain was renewed, of considering every species of Cuban produce as a commodity of a distant region, that it was legitimate to burden with oppressive taxes."6

Now, it appears that by one of those strange absurdities which are of no unfrequent occurrence in Spanish governments, American settlers in Cuba have been, and still are, exempt from a variety of personal contributions and other imposts, which the natives have to pay. The laws of the island forbid the establishment of foreigners in Cuba; and though the settlement of Americans has been connived at, out of respect to the laws the settlers were supposed, by a curious fiction, not to exist. Hence the exemption.

"This immunity," says Mr Madden, (p. 83,) "drew great numbers of settlers to Cuba, from the Southern States of America; so that some districts on the northern shores of the island, in the vicinity, especially, of Cardenas and Matanzas, have more the character of American than Spanish settlements. The prosperity of the island has derived no small advantage from those numerous American establishments. Improved modes of agriculture, of fabrication, of conveyance, were introduced by the Americans. Several railways have been made. In the course of ten years, no less than ten have been carried into effect. At the opening of the first, from Havana to Guines, in 1837, I was present. To American enterprise and energy solely, I have reason to know, this great undertaking was indebted. The loan for it was made in England; but the projectors, the share-jobbers, the engineer, and the overseers, were Americans.... Cuba, ever since I knew it, has been slowly but steadily becoming Americanised. I pestered my superiors with my opinions on this subject in 1836-7-8-9. 'Liberavi animam meam' might be fairly said by me, if the star-spangled banner were floating to-morrow on the Moro Castle, or flaunting in the breeze at St Iago de Cuba. In the course of seven years a feeling, strongly prevalent in the colony, in favour of independence, has been changed into a desire for connexion with the United States. It is needless for recent political writers on Cuba to deny the existence of a strong feeling of animosity to the mother country, and a longing desire for separation. From my own intimate knowledge of these facts, I speak of their existence. If England could have been induced, in 1837, to guarantee the island of Cuba from the intervention of any foreign power, the white inhabitants were prepared to throw off the Spanish yoke. There was then a Spanish army nominally of twenty thousand men in the island, but the actual number of native Spaniards in it did not exceed sixteen thousand. The leading men of the Creoles had then little apprehensions of the result of an effort for independence. A liberal allotment of land in the island, for the soldiers who might be disposed to join the independent party, was a prospect, it was expected, which would suffice to gain over the army.... It is not to England, now, that the white natives of Cuba look for aid or countenance in any future effort for independence. It is to America that they now turn their eyes; and America takes good care to respond to the wishes that are secretly expressed in those regards."

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 manoeuvring 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.