In the Spanish and Portuguese elections, the Ministry of the
day have secured a no less great or even greater Ministerial majority than the French Ministry has secured in the French Chamber. In Spain, there are 301 Ministerialists returned, while the Opposition must manufacture itself out of the rather heterogeneous elements of 46 Conservatives, 37 Democrats, five Independents, and six Ultramontanes. In Portugal, the triumph of the Ministerialists, if triumph it be to have no tangible Opposition at all, is even greater. The new Chamber consists of 126 Ministerialists, six Progressists, nine Constituents, one Democrat, and one Independent Deputy, so that if all the non- Ministerialists united together, they would only number 17,— or about one-ninth of the whole Chamber. This absence of resisting power is the worst political symptom in the Latin peoples. Without Opposition, no Government is ever really coherent enough to act strongly. The Ministerialists fall to pieces, for want of esprit_de corps.
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