Less is known in England of the actual condition of
Spain than o' any other civilized country in Europe. It might be difficult to account for this fact. Our troops remained in Spain for nearly ten years ; during which it might have been expected that the more observant spirits among them would have gleaned some valuable information re- specting its commerce, agriculture, and population—the nature of the government, and its operation on the people ; and that some of theye would have communicated to the public the result of their observa- tions. Such, however, has not been the case ; and in the absence:of almost all previous authentic information, we have perused with the stimulus of an excited curiosity, in the number of the Foreign:Quar- terly Review just published, a paper on the state of Spain. replete with information of the most valuable kind, derived from sources whicia_prechide the possibility of doubting it to be authentic.
The apiculture of Spain seems to be in the most miserable state. With the and climate in-Europe, the fanners are the least
capable of profiting by their natural advantages. Scarcely any farms are enclosed, that the migration of the flocks may not be interrupted. This, indeed, is a condition by which most of the land is held. Agri. cultural implements are of the rudest sort, the habits and condition of the cultivator of the lowest kind, and his rate of profit less on an average than two per cent The greatest landowners are embarrassed, for the custom of the country requires not only that they shall support in idleness large establishments of servants, but that they shall swell these by the adoption of the domestics of their friends who may die. Canals for irrigation and for the purposes of conveyance are wanting; and there are scarcely any carriage-roads. Grain is carried to the coast on mules ; and this mode of conveyance is found to acid, for every hundred miles of carriage, six or seven shillings to the price of each quarter. • Yet even under this tremendous tax, their grain can enter foreign markets at a low rate; for such is the fertility of the soil, that in plentiful seasons part of the produce is left to rot upon the ground. Bad, however, as the roads still are, a spirit of improvement is at work —though, even under its influence, the Government of a country nearly four times as large as England, does not expend upon roads and bridges one twentieth part of the sums annually devoted in England to the furtherance of internal communication.
The population of Spain is increasing, and the influence of the priesthood is beginning to decline. taxation is heavier than any- where else in Europe ; and many:of the taxes, besides being capes. sive from their amount, are capriciously levied from individuals. Ma- nufactures in silk, cotton, and coarse woollen cloth, have been esta- blished of late years ; but the old iron manufactures seem to have declined within the same period. Nothing but cash is employed in ordinary transactions, but in their dealings with each other the mer- chants employ a great many bills of exchange. Beggary is a profes- sion which even the students at universities are not ashamed to prac- tise; and the labourers are, as might have been expected, as indolent as possible. The state of the law is hideously defective, and its inhe- rent vices are aggravated by the profligacy with which it is adminis- tered. The consequence is, that every man makes a law for himself, and administers it without delay or respect of persons. Murders and highway robberies are frightfully. common. The Reviewer quotes the latest returns on the state of comes, and adds- " The view which they give of the state of society in Spain is such as, fortu. nately, cannot be matched in any other country, not even in Portugal or Tipperary. That there should, in a population of only fourteen millions, he, in the course of a single year, 1,223 murders, and 1,773 attempts at murder, accompanied by stabbing and wounding, exhibits a ferocity on the part of the people, and an imbecility on the part of government, without a parallel, we shall not say in the history of civilized nations, but even amongst savage hordes. The population of England and Wales differs very little from that of Spain ; and during the years 1826 and 1827, there were seventy-four indivi- duals, being at the rate of thirty-seven each year, convicted of murder, and of attempts at murder by stabbing, shooting, poisoning, &c. Hence it results, that for every single individual convicted of these crimes in this part of the British empire, there were eighty-one convicted in Spain ! Such are the comparative fruits of good government, and of tyranny and misrule. Surely if there be any truth- in the remark of Hume, that when human affairs have sunk to a certain point of depression they naturally begin to ascend in an op- posite direction, the regeneration of Spain cannot be far distant."
Such are the general results of a faithful survey of Spain, by a per- son who had the means of verifying his personal observations by inter- course with the most enlightened inhabitants in various parts of the country. From these, it is obvious, that Spain is scarcely higher in the scale of civilization at this moment than in the days of CHARLES the Fifth; and while the actual condition of the country, its arts, its commerce, the spirit of its people, have improved but little, the enter- prising disposition of CHARLES'S government, wise after the wisdom of his age, has disappeared. A government but a little more enlightened than that of Spain, would be able to discern prouder triumphs in con- quests over ignorance, poverty, and injustice at home, than any which the subjugation of Mexico can afford ; and its subjects would ere long repay the obligations which a little honesty on the part of Government would confer on them, and by the rapid accumulation of capital, rein ik I foreign loans, or at least a breach of the national faith, unnecessary-
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