Spain is still under its Ministerial crisis ; for it
can scarcely be said to have ceased during the existence of the feeble Ministry of LOPEZ. The new Minister insisted on the dismissal of General LINAGE and General ZURBANO from the army. Whether the de- mand was meant as a show of realizing the puffing programme by some earnest of conciliation towards the malecontents, or whether, as it is said, it was a mere ruse to procure dismissal after the Mi- nister had found public credit closed against his financial exigencies, it appears certain that such a demand must have met with nothing but refusal. ZURBANO is reputed cruel ; but there was no present charge to be preferred against him, except energy in repressing re- volt. LINAGE is ESPARTERO'S Achates. ZURBANO'S place was to be filled, it is added, by a friend of LEON, who suffered for his crimes against Queen hal:m.1.1A and her Government. The Minister who thus defies the ordinary decorums of office is greeted by the Cortes, on his retirement, with a vote of confidence ! The National Repre- sentatives, then, are at issue not only with ESPARTERO, the repre- sentative of order and something like regular government in Spain, but with the practice of government in the free countries of Europe. Were Spain on the other side of the Atlantic, she might fight and struggle through her centuries' arrear of civilization, and come out at last with credit : but the eyes of the Nineteenth Century are upon her—the working of her disease is exposed to the whole world; and her " patriots " have neither the shame nor the sense to procure her that short interval of quiet which is needed, not less for safe existence than for national decency.
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