16 APRIL 1904, Page 7

M ANY Spaniards—and among them, unfortunately, some of influence—entertain an invincible

belief that Great Britain at heart is hostile to Spain, and watches her decline in comparative prosperity with secret satis- faction. She is always, they say, nervous for the safety of Gibraltar, which a powerful Spain might try to recover, and never quite forgets what she suffered in the days of the Family Compact. If it were not so, why did she arrest the interference of Europe when it might have saved to Spain the last relics of her Colonial Empire, and why even now does she hand over to France the only region in which Spain might one day obtain the means of indefinite expansion? There never was a more groundless illusion. The Government and people of this country have no fears for the safety of Gibraltar as against any Spanish attack ; they acted during the Spanish-American War from sympathy with their kinsmen, not from hatred of Spain, which, in their judgment, gained by losing burdensome colonies ; and as regards Morocco, they have in the recent negotiations with France protected Spanish interests quite as much as their own. France would naturally have signed the agreement without the re- serves which appear in it in regard to Morocco, reserves which protect all the claims that Spain is as yet in a posi- tion to maintain effectively ; but Great Britain, it is evident from Lord Lansdowne's letter to Sir E. Monson, and from Mr. Balfour's answer to a question in the House on Thursday night, warmly defended not only the interests of Spain, but her justifiable claim to special respect. If Spain, indeed, were able to claim and govern properly the whole coast of Morocco from Algeria to the Atlantic, the British people would witness that expansion without repug- nance, and with a feeling that a conceivable danger in the future had been very happily averted. As to the more general feeling of this country towards Spain, it is one of sincere, if necessarily passive, friendship. It is always our interest that our neighbours should prosper, and it is specially our interest that Spain should not decay, for the decadence of Spain implies of necessity an increased submission to France, which might end—or, indeed, if it went beyond a certain point, must end—in the French protectorate which Bourbon and Bonaparte alike en- deavoured to establish. The excessive jealousy upon that subject which governed Lord Palmerston, and seemed reasonable to Queen Victoria, has, indeed, died away ; but still, any absorption by France of Spanish resources would be viewed with a certain suspicion in London, and a feeling that France had expanded in a direction which must inevitably inflame ambitions that are now happily laid at rest. Great Britain, in fact, desires to see Spam prosperous and contented, and, above all things, independent.

That is unquestionably the feeling of the Government, and it is fully shared by the people, who, however, add to it another feeling, which sometimes, we fancy, provokes Spaniards not a little. This is a certain sense of sur- prise, which is sometimes mistaken for one of contempt. Englishmen never quite understand why the Spanish people, who am eighteen millions and very brave, do not work through their difficulties a little more quickly and completely. They are in many respects a most competent people, they have in their country an estate as valuable as that possessed by any nation, and they are perfectly conscious that they have a great work to do before they can take their proper place in the great current of modern progress. Moreover, they have a pretty clear idea of the best, or at least the easiest, means to be employed for attaining their end. If we understand recent events at all, they would prefer a liberalised Monarchy to any other instrument, and would, if they could obtain it, employ it to modify the tenure of land, to reform the Spanish Church, at present the most backward of all the Roman Latholie Churches, and to leave Labour free to fight its own battle with the capitalists. Those seem to be the necessities of which Spain is conscious ; and to Englishmen none of them appears to be unattainable, yet none of them is ever attained. The force which might liberalise the Monarchy is wasted, partly in compromises useful only to office-seekers, partly But, says a Spaniard, what would you have us do ? It is utterly useless, as well as very impertinent, for outside observers to advise an ancient people ; but we may perhaps state what Englishmen who have watched the course of Spanish affairs conceive to be the line of least resistance. They would say, we believe, with one voice, that the best chance for Spain would be to leave the question of a future Republic alone, to accept the Monarchy loyally under the present dynasty, and to concentrate effort on strengthening the Cones. Insist that the representative body shall be fairly elected, and that its will, when clear and coherent, shall be supreme. There is nothing in that course contrary to the genius of Spain, or to the habits of the people, or to their historic methods of discovering statesmen. That, at all events, is within the power of national opinion ; and that once accomplished, they will soon find leaders who can and will give them the internal reforms they require to set their energies free. Revolutions in our day are only waste of power. Spain has surely had enough of civil war, and of contests that are only not civil wars because the Army keeps up some appearance of order. The Monarchy can do no harm if it will accept guidance, nor can a Church be overthrown by urban riots against its concrete institutions. The thing required is a law-snaking power, fairly in accord with the general will, and strong enough to enforce obedience, whether it insists upon radical changes, or upon the com- promises before which opposition dies away. That is the wish of all sensible Englishmen, that and not the injury of Spain, which, we repeat, is a great country wonderfully situated, full of resources, and with a people strong enough, if only they once know clearly what they want, to ensure the reforms which are all they need to start them afresh upon a great career.

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN VIEWS OF EDUCATION.

MR. ALFRED MOSELY has done a very real public service. The Report of the Commission he sent out at his own cost to investigate the conditions of