SPAIN IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.*
FIFTEEN years have passed since Spain seemed permanently crippled by the Spanish-American war ; yet, as always in time of peace, she has made slow but steady progress, and that in spite of strikes, revolutionary movements, and fighting in North Africa. Her finances have in some measure been set in order, although the expenditure has risen alarmingly, and recently the revenue has become again unable to keep pace with it, so that a deficit of over four millions sterling is expected for 1913-14 (in view of the African campaign it will certainly not be less). Her trade has increased, and, for the first time, in 1912 the exports (1,058 million pesetas) exceeded the imports (1,047 million pesetas). The deposits in the savings banks showed an increase of four millions sterling between the years 1906 and 1910. Something, though little, has been done for education, and the estimates of this depart- ment have risen by half a million sterling in the last six years, reaching two and a half millions in 1913. The strikes have attracted much attention to the workmen in the towns, and have been followed by a running fire of legislation. The rural labourers, for whom it is more difficult to associate in strikes, have been less dandled by the politicians, and their protest, more eloquent than the more or less artificial strikes of the towns, manifests itself in ever-increasing emigration. The number of emigrants has advanced from 40,000 in 188.5 to 110,000 in 1909 and to 194,000 in 1912. To this must be added many thousands of clandestine emigrants ; and, though this emigra- tion is not necessarily a dead loss to the Mother Country, the Impardal has calculated the number of those who do not return to Spain at 300,000 every four years (out of a population of twenty millions).
Spanish agriculture has a real grievance, and it clamours to obtain from the State protection similar to that received by Spanish industries. But the high tariff granted for political reasons, chiefly at the demand of the Catalans, has really helped to crush Spanish industries (cotton goods, for instance, have been produced in excess, and while their price has not diminished, their quality has deteriorated, and they
• L'Ilsragne as IX, SiAele. stud, politiquo et iconoinique. Par Angel Marvaud. Paris : Armand Colin. [5 francs.]
have difficulty in finding a market); tied agriculture has nothing to gain from the extension of a system which reacts so fatally—" un systeme," as M. Marvaud says, " dont le con- sommateur national pale tous les finis " "Au point de vas proprement espagnol, le principal effet du protectionnisme exagere, qui a trouve son expression definitive dans le tarif de 1906, a ete un rencherissement considerable de la vie " (p. 286. The agricultural problem in Spain is rather, M. Marvaml points out, " une facile d'education," to be solved by slow and natural improvement, not by artificial imposition of tariffs. Although Spain, with the exception of its fringe of lowlands, is largely a corn-producing country, some two millions sterling of cereals are imported annually. The wheat crops in Spain produce per acre two-thirds or a half of what should be the average yield. Were an additional tax imposed on foreign wheat Spanish wheat, like Catalan cotton goods, might increase in quantity, but the average yield per acre would become even smaller than it now is. The real needs of Spanish agriculture are irrigation, more and cheaper means of transport by land and sea, a lower tariff on foreign machinery, and education of poor and rich alike—of the poor to learn to co-operate, to use the agricultural banks, to cease to regard all modern inventions and implements with distrust; of the rich landowners not to live entirely absentee, not to defraud (allow their agents in their absence to defraud) the State of its dues, nor to influence elections by unfair methods. Spain, in order to reach pro sperity, requires no abrupt changes or panic legislation. What she does require is that the laws once passed should not remain a dead letter, and that the distinction between the towns and the rural districts should not be such as to give the impression of two parallel Spains that never meet, the one of the twentieth, the other of the sixteenth century. The agitation in the so-called religious question has been based partly on the accusation that the religious orders engage in industries without paying the usual taxes. If this charge is well founded, it concerns not religion but the tax collector ; and, similarly, if large estates often succeed in evading the land tax, this is not an argument for the abolition of private property, but for the enforcement of the law. Honest administration without favour or oppression is a programme less high-sounding than anti-clericalism, regionalism, republi- canism; but it is a task in which all sincere patriots can co-operate, and which would benefit Spain more than all the wars of the Isms.
The reader will find in the five hundred pages of M. Marvaud's book many statistics, set forth clearly and without dullness. Political parties, administration, regionalism, the religious question, the finances, capital, commerce, customs duties, industry, agriculture, education, all receive their chapters, and especial attention is given to Spain's action in Morocco and to her recently renewed relations with South America.
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