SIR,—Yon ask in your article on "The Decay of Spain"
in the Spectator of April 30th how the decay is to be explained except by the existence of some "root of inefficiency" in the Spanish race; and you support your question by a variety of historical parallels. It is not necessary to labour the point that historical parallels are apt to break down if closely followed. Even if the "Roman" who fought under Stilicho or Aetius can fairly be made to represent the Roman who fought under the Scipios, or if the Greek who followed Tzimiskes can be taken as a descendant of him who fought at Marathon (which is something more than doubtful), their fortune seems hardly to throw light on that of the Spaniard. The battle of the Roman Empire was that of civilisation fighting to keep its ring-fence against the pressure of an overwhelmingly large barbario world, and overpowered at last owing to latifundia and the consequent decay of population. The struggles of the Byzantine Empire are more an instance, it would seem, of the resistance of a wonderfully constructed organisation rather than the resistance of a nation. But in both cases
there was a unity of interest so far as the populations affected were concerned. The whole civilised world was practically at one in wishing Markman or Hun kept outside the border, and the whole Byzantine world shuddered at the sack of Thessalonica. The Spanish Empire was something very different. Of all her vast territories she gained almost none by conquest outside the Peninsula except the lands in the New World. The Burgundian inheritance, and its consequent connection with the Empire, and the necessity of spending endless blood and treasure in European wars to hold down alien populations, were the ruin of Spain. The size of the Empire was no index of its strength. Two-thirds of the subjects of Philip H. wished his ruin, and the treasure obtained from his great colonies (which were in great part not colonies, by the way, but mere tropical provinces) did not suffice to meet expenses; for his despatches to his lieutenants in the Netherlands are full of complaints that there is no more money to send. After a hundred years of such strain Spain, to use Bismarck's ghastly phrase, was "bled white."
In brief, what I contend for is the substitution of "exhaus- tion" for "decay." And from exhaustion there is recovery. It is admitted that the Spaniard was efficient up to 1600. Why should he not be so again ? Who, fifty years before Leo the Isaurian, could have dreamed of the glories of the Icono- clast and Macedonian Emperors ? Who could have predicted Austerlitz from Louis XV., or the Germany of to-day from the Germany of 1851? Europe just at present is restless for fear of asphyxiation by Anglo-Saxon and Slay. It is for- gotten that the only Latin race which has an equally large sphere for expansion is the Spanish. And I would suggest that the progress of Spain itself during the last half-century is no sign of inefficiency, but of revival. Surely, if we com- pare her with the Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella, we should compare her also with the Spain of Charles III. or Isabella —I am, Sir, Sze.,
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