.TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE PROGRESS OF THE SPANISH REVOLUTION.
SPAIN is evidently in for much more than a series of changes of government. She is undergoing, nearly a century later, something very like the same process that France underwent in her great throes of 1789 and the following years, but undergoing it in a milder form,—milder partly on account of the familiarity of the mind of Europe with the character of the social movements which created so much wonder, enthusiasm, and terror then, partly on account of the more phlegmatic nature of the Spaniard, which does not seem to take the malady of suspicion nearly so violently as the nature of the Frenchman. There was—as De Tocqueville very well brought out in those latest chapters of his book on the French Revolution which Mr. Henry Reeve has just added to the second edition of his excellent translation—a universal expectation of com- pletely new social forces and new possibilities of government, pervading Europe for years before the French Revolution, an expectation which added enormously to the exciting character of 'hat great event. Throughout Europe men believed that they were on the eve of changes in which society would be quite transfigured, and this belief, which, curiously enough, per- vaded most completely not those classes which were most miser- able, but those which were far above want and living in luxury, stimulated every wave of emotion and passion which spread over France, and intoxicated the actors in those great scenes. Spain has at least the advantage that the changes which her political and social life seem destined to undergo are no longer waited for with awe, as if they were the results of the inspira- tion of a sort of divine Muse. The excitement of the drama has been in great degree discounted by the history of the revolutions of 1789, 1830, and 1848. Spain knows that no golden era of society is to be expected from any changes, how- ever fundamental ; that the alternative between anarchy, and strict taxation under some form of government, is the only alternative to be hoped for ; that the most enthusiastic republics have once and again been much severer sufferers than even despotic States ; that if a Federal Republic is to succeed, the Federal Republic must not hope to restore a social Paradise, but must drill its troops, impose discipline, resist riot, adjust taxation, and en- force justice. There is now, thanks to France, no vast illusion, no rainbow of imaginary hope, to dazzle the eyes even of ignorant Spain. There may be great changes for the better, or great changes for the worse,—and for a time, at least, we fear the latter are the more likely,—but there will be no such wild intoxication as alone rendered I the great French agony of hope and fear possible. And fortunately, too, Spain takes differences of political opinion easier than France. Carlists, Alfonsists, Radicals, and Re- publicans. get on very fairly together, except during the crisis of a physical struggle. That " fear " which M. Gambetta justly tells us is the great curse of France does not seem to take root easily in Spain. The danger rather is of an apathy too great to admit of the people taking any side definitively, so as to render organisation possible. As the French have always had a genius for centralisation,—which it is a pity, by the way, they did not manage to impart more effec- tually to the Spaniards during their occupation of Spain,—the Spaniards appear to have always had, and still to have, a taste for decentralisation, and the fear is that this will so favour disorganisation as to render the process of new political crys- tallisation difficult, tardy, and inadequate. The example of Madrid has none of the fascination for the other great cities of Spain, for Barcelona, and Seville, and Malaga, that the example of Paris has for Lyons, and Marseilles, and Bourdeaux. This indeed, is the argument for that "Federal" Republic which is now apparently in the ascendant. But this fact makes the political future of Spain even more uncertain than the political future of France ever was. Spain is like a ship built in cellular compartments, less easy to wreck as a whole more easy to break up into distinct parts. Now that the Army is in active decomposition, and that the voice of the only actual authority left, is favourable to Federalism rather than unifica- tion, it becomes a very difficult matter indeed to anticipate the course of political change.
It seems, however, from the accounts, that the actual Government is not only not in fault for suppressing the Permanent Committee appointed by the National Assembly before its separation, but that it was almost compelled to take that course. A rebellion had been apparently organised
by the friends of the Permanent Committee against the Govern- ment. The Government was called upon by the Permanent Committee to revise the course decided on by the National Assembly, to recall that body, and put off the election of a. Constituent Cortes. An armed demonstration, it is said by "Monarchical" Volunteers, was made in favour of this policy,. so that it became a question of life and death between the- Permanent Committee and the Government. If the Permanent. Committee had won, there would have been a coup d'e'tat and a reaction. But the victory of the Government only means the dissolution of the Permanent Committee. The unitary party, some of them Reactionists —including apparently Marshal Serrano—some of them Radicals, clearly demanded a retro- grade step, and the indefinite postponement of the election of the Constituent Cortes. They have been beaten in fair fight, and Senor Castelar and his friends remain at the head of affairs, and intend to convoke the Constituent Cortes for the 1st of June, when there seems at present little doubt; that the idea of a Federal Republic will be broached,. and probably command the votes of a majority of the members.
But to our minds, it matters far less what kind of' government is to rule at Madrid, than what sort of authority that government is to exercise. The reason we look upon. the crisis at Madrid as a new stage in a slowly-developing- revolution, is that hitherto at every change in the political kaleidoscope since the death of General Prim, there hasp been clear loss of administrative force to the Government. Amadeo found little, and that little ebbed gradually away, during his short *reign. The Republic which succeeded. Amadeo inherited a very small remnant of authority, but. even that it has wasted through the fear of incurring un- popularity. It cannot maintain any of its Captains in Cata- lonia, but removes one after the other for their unpopular measures for restoring discipline to the demoralised Army. The last report, not yet confirmed, before the news came of the struggle in Madrid, was that General Velarde- was about to resign because his measures of discipline against. the mutinous soldiers were not supported by his civil superiors. Of course it is the special danger of a Federal Government to- yield too much to local opinion on all political matters. But a Federal Government without a central army to depends upon is not really a Government at all, it is only a Board for hearing complaints from all sides on which it has no. power to take action. With the Northern provinces overrun by the Carlists, with secret Alfonsists clothed in whatever- military prestige may be left to the officers of the Army,. with Radicals dreading the break-up of Spain into a federation,. and Federalists governing only by the favour of the masses,, and without any power to enforce their will concerning any matter on which the masses do not regard it with complacency,. it seems to us more than likely that Spain is on the way to a complete dissolution of her political unity into its elements.
But though we see, or think we see, signs of a mucl. longer interval than we had hoped before civil order can be. re-established in Spain, we are disposed to think that the very process of disintegration itself is as likely as not to overcome that strong municipal feeling, that preference for the authority of local juntas and the federal idea, which is now for the moment clearly in the ascendant. History seems to show that, a despotic monarchy, while it admits of something very like practical federation under it, without endangering the outward form of national unity, has very little tendency to pro- duce such ardent popular love of national unity as we have seen prevalent in Europe of late years. But it seems also to- show that the inevitable tendency of popular revolutions like that which is now progressing in Spain is to bring about,. —through much grief, through tribulation and anguish, and perhaps much blood,—that sense of mutual neea and mutual dependence out of which true national unity grows. Revolution on the large scale,—on such a scale as Spain seems but too likely to undergo,—is a terrible fire ; but it does frequently seem to fuse the com- ponent elements of national life as nothing else fuses them, and this in spite of the bitter party animosities it is apt to excite. We fear the Federal Republic in Spain is little more than a name for a period of revolution ; but we should expect to find that the Federal idea itself would hardly survive the chaos into which it will probably plunge Spain, and that Spanish unity will mean a much more solid thing after the chaos than it did before.
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