MARGINAL COMMENTS
By ROSE MACAULAY
IT is an old saying that those who go among Spaniards must go warily, but we in England never seem to have taken the caution greatly to heart. On the contrary, we have, for many centuries, gone out of our way to tease this proud and vindictive race. One should be infinitely careful with a people .so prickly with prejudices, ven- geances and distastes. One perceives that one has never been careful enough. Our bold seamen, for example ; how recklessly they have always adventured into Spanish. precincts, and still do. Visiting, for purposes of com- merce, exploration and acquisition of slaves and gold, the coasts of New Spain, they never seemed to learn caution, however bitterly they might bewail the sufferings inflicted on them when captured by " this barbarous and devilish people, whose cruelty ravens without pause or mercy,". who destroyed the meek Indians (without even giving them time to be baptized, as the missionaries protested) by strange sorts of cruelties never before either seen or heard of, falling on them as wolves. Not even this made English seamen wary of tweaking the whiskers of the fierce wild cat, which had got there first and crouched snarling in the way. And now there is Captain Kane. And an English lady artist, who still lies, it seems, in a Barcelona gaol, awaiting deportation, a Spanish informer, whom she had possibly disappointed of a tip, having claimed to have heard her pass a remark insufficiently appreciative of the government. Perhaps the police and judge did not care for her clothes ; the Spanish are a highly conventional people about female wear, and lady artists often less so.
Be that as it may, it seems incautious at the moment. for the English to visit Spain, unless they are enquiring; as the English habit sometimes is, into foreign prison conditions: If they wish to do this, now is their chance Someone lately returned from Spain reports that this. highly sensitive people are still feeling annoyed by a recent British visit of inquiry into their alleged injustices to political prisoners, and are resolved to pay us out by showing us, if we really want to know, what Spanish injustice, and what Spanish prisons, are • actually like. For that is the kind of characteristically British enterprise that inflames and rankles in the haughty bosom of the Spaniard: Should 'emissaries from Spain make the trip. to this island to enquire after British injustice; we 'might reply similarly, by gaoling such Spanish 'sailors and artists as we could lay hands on. Or, again, we might not, since we are a casual and indifferent people and might preserve our negligence even in the face of such an affront. But the Spanish have their pride ; affronts envenom it.
I think that I shall not visit Spain until her officials and people feel that this score has been fully .paid they: are getting on with it fairly rapidly just now. Meanwhile, not to waste .a useful supply of ill-feeling, there are various English persons who might advantageously be sent on• a • Spanish trip. A few quiet months or years in a Spanish' prison might be beneficial to many people of whom our own more pedantic laws cannot quite contrive the incar ceration. We lack in this country. public purgers ; we are shy of appointing metropolitan police chiefs with the , firm continental touch; and bearing such names as Wolf of Helltown ; but we can at least encourage our' undesirables to join -Tourist Parties. to Spain, where they- will doubtless be adequately dealt with by the local purgers. Italy also bids fair, at the present rate of acceleration of feeling and events, to become a good purging-ground for the British, anyhow when no black or yellow persons are at hand as counter attractions. It is a solemn thought, that before long there may be no European country whose prison conditions present any secrets to us. •
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