SPAIN. T HE meeting of Queen Victoria and Queen Christina at
San Sebastian on Wednesday is a picturesque and pleasing incident in one of the most perplexing of histories, that of Spain since 1815. Hardly anything in modern politics is so difficult to explain as the slowness in the pro- gress of the country during the past seventy-four years. Between 1650 and 1800, the decadence of Spain, though almost unprecedented in Europe, is still more or less intelligible. The energy of her people was exhausted in the conquest and colonisation of the New World, a feat of which Englishmen have never fairly recognised the grandeur, and the flower of her population kept on departing to countries where their prospects of advance. ment and wealth were so indefinitely more attractive. Those who remained, probably about nine millions, were subjected for generations to what was probably the most impotent Government that ever existed outside Asia. All power, all right of initiative, all control of material means, were centralised in the dynasty, and the dynasty was so worn out as to be positively cretin. The people were prohibited from acting, the dynasty could not act, and the minute middle class, which alone retained any vigorous life, expended its whole energy in adventures on the other side of the Atlantic. From 1815, however, Spain ought to have advanced as rapidly as any European State, and to occupy to-day a widely different position. She had enfranchised herself by her own effort as well as by English assistance, and her people had fully recovered their self- respect. The country, nearly as large as France, is much richer in minerals ; is, in fact, probably the richest of European countries, and is as fertile as France in wheat, and wine, and oil. Planted on the Atlantic and the Mediter- ranean, with direct access to Africa, and cut off from France by the difficult range of the Pyrenees, still almost impassable for an army, Spain has almost all the advantages of an island. Her people are among the best soldiers in the world ; they make, in Nelson's opinion, admirable seamen ; and they have among them the tradition as well as the lingering habit of mercantile and maritime adventure. The population, though not as laborious as that of Belgium, or of those districts of France where the peasantry work themselves to death, is as industrious as that of most countries, is as frugal as that of Scotland, and is willing, in the great cities, to labour under the strict discipline of the manufactory. Though deeply divided by traditional prejudice and political faction, the people are singularly submissive to the central authority ; outside Biscay they obey the con- scription without . resistance ; and they pay a taxation which, though less than that of France, approaches closely to that of the British Islands. We pay for Imperial pur- poses a little more than £11 per household every year, while Spain pays a little more than £10 ; and her local taxation, comparative incomes being considered, presses more heavily than ours. Such a country ought to have risen in the three-quarters of a century to be among the first in Europe ; but though the population of Spain has nearly doubled, and is now seventeen millions, and her wealth has greatly increased, she displays a weak- ness in her organisation which politicians and economists try in vain to explain. Most of them attribute it to the national character; but that character is wholly masculine, and Spaniards have not only founded, but still retain— though Spain does not—an empire as broad as that of Britain. From Texas to Tierra del Fuego the civilisa- tion of the two Americas, its language, and its creed, remain entirely Spanish or Portuguese ; and through- out the ports of the world outside Europe, English and Spanish are the two only tongues universally known. The energy of a people like that cannot have wholly died away ; and, as a matter of fact, Spain rose against Napoleon as energetically as Prussia, and even now produces men with every capacity for war, adventure, and administration. Some observers attribute the com- parative torpor of Spain to economic conditions ; but the country is the most self-governed in Europe, the lower people are unusually independent, and there is no ap- parent reason why a bad tenure or an imperfect system of communications should continue for a year. Spaniards themselves attribute everything to the Government, but for which, they say, Spain would render men indifferent to the hope of Paradise ; and it is perhaps true that the country never succeeds in obtaining the political organisation which' would exactly suit her. She is fitted by her history, by her geographical formation, and by the wide differences among her people, for the Constitution of Switzerland, plus a strong Royal Government at the centre for national purposes; but though she always tends to this kind of organisation, she has never yet attained it. That solution, however, only pushes the perplexity one step back. A people which is never conquered moulds its own Government, and the failure of Spaniards to arrange theirs to their liking indicates some deep-seated weakness among themselves. There they are, a homogeneous people, high- spirited, full of pride and ambition, and deeply conscious that they have not reached their goal, but unable, never- theless, either to found a secure Government, or to make their Government popular, or to keep their financial system, which is essential to modern administration, reasonably straight. With a revenue of £35,000,000, they are always borrowing, always making shift, and always trying ex- pedients not invariably in accord with rigid honour. At this very moment, when everything else is favourable, and they have a chance of steady improvement for twelve years at least, it is doubtful if a break-down in the Treasury, which is pressed almost beyond its bearing, will not again throw everything into confusion. That is not political success.
The completeness of the puzzle is greatly increased by the fact that, certain conditions being granted, it is not difficult to govern Spain. The people have a loyalty of a 'kind in their very blood. They never rebelled against the extraordinary succession of cretin, Princes who ruined them throughout the eighteenth century. They fought Napoleon to the death for the wretched Bourbon dynasty. They bore with, and rather admired, the tyrant Ferdinand the Seventh. Had Queen Isabella lived a commonly dignified life, had she even conciliated the Army, she would have been reigning now - and, indeed, after her fall, the Minister Ayala:. declared publicly in Congress, amidst assenting silence, that he and his colle•gnes dared not resort to a pleliscite, for it would infallibly restore the Queen. Her son Alfonso, an undignified-looking lad, though possessed of courage and ability, restored the power of the Monarchy, reduced the Army to discipline, and, though almost openly irregular in his private life, made himself completely master of all the politicians. His widow, Queen Christina, though at first intensely un- popular—not, as is alleged, because she is a stranger, for the Hapsburgs were Spanish once, and are still by blood, as well as by written treaty, heirs of the Throne, failing the Bourbon line, but from a misreading of her character—has succeeded in maintaining order, has riveted the loyalty of the Army, and if not paralysed by the increasing financial difficulties, will, as all Spaniards believe, reign securely until the people have learned what manner of Sovereign their child-King promises to be. If he is a man of average ability and conduct, he may be a successful King of Spain for half-a-century. The papers attribute this tranquillity to some exceptional ability in Queen Christina ; but it may be doubted if, though her courage and her patience are worthy of her House, she has any exceptional capacity for rule. She does her duty as hundreds of women in Europe do theirs, and without particularly liking the work, which tires her to exhaustion, exasperating a constitutional liability to neuralgia, she keeps her son's grand estate together with admirable perseverance and nerve. If they would let her govern the Treasury, she would keep that straight too ; but Elizabeth of England was the last woman in Europe who has ever acted success- fully as Treasurer to a nation. Queen Christina's position is a most creditable one, and she deserves much of the adulation recently flung at her feet ; but still, she is helped by her people, who intend to wait for their " natural King," and who are not, we repeat once more, difficult to govern. It is, we believe, beyond any one, certainly it is quite beyond us, to state satis- factorily where the root of weakness in Spain is, but that there is one is beyond all doubt, or the country would by this time contain thirty millions of prosperous people, possess the strongest fighting fleet in the Mediterranean, and be accepted by all Europe as the inevitable heir to the reversion of Morocco,—that is, of a second Kingdom nearer to her than Ireland is to Britain, as large as her- self, and potentially as fertile.
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