A FORECAST FOR SPAIN. T HE effect of defeat on a
Continental State is always nearly incalculable. So many factors enter into the problem—national character, military tone, the hold of the dynasty on public regard, besides a host of circumstances connected with geographical position—that speculation is baffled by bewildering detail. The precedents, too, are all contradictory. The terrible defeats of Austria in 1860 and 1866 never shook the dynasty, had, in fact, no effect upon it except to make it wiser, more cautious, and more lenient. The Russian autocracy survived the defeat of 1855, the blow falling on the social system, which was revolutionised by the emancipation of the serfs, instead of on the throne, which in the new conscription found a strong rock on which to build. The Army could put down even a general insurrection in Russia if the people made one. The throne of the Napoleons, on the other hand, fell in a moment under the shock of Sedan, and it is doubtful if the Republic which succeeded them would sur- vive for a week the wound caused by a second great defeat. It is conceivable, therefore, that Spain, after her great defeat in the Pacific, which is, so far as we can perceive, beyond repair, may, as Americans fancy she will, make a sudden peace, exchanging Cuba for the Philippines ; but it seems to us most improbable. Such a termination of the short struggle is wholly opposed to the national character, to the ideas of the military chiefs, who have had no chance yet, and to that Southern feeling of the necessity for revenge which has been stirred by all the events of the past three months, by what the Spaniards think a shower of insults, by excessive pecuniary losses, which have been felt in every respectable Spanish house and are driving Barcelona frantic, and by the con- dition of the conscripts wasting away in Cuba. Spaniards will want to fight all the more because their fighting has brought them only wounds. The analogy of the duello, of which so much is made, is all nonsense, for though in Continental duelling a wound stops fighting, the wounded man does not agree to pay his adversary to leave off. The statesmen of Spain may be ready to stop, as, knowing the hopeless conditions which environ them, they have been from the first ; but the Army will certainly not stop until it has fought a battle; and the people, who, we repeat, know nothing of the enormous resources possessed by the "North-Americans," and do not realise the exceptional energy of their characters, will attribute their misfortune, as they always have done, to imbecility or corruption in Madrid. Vulgar Spaniards do not think, like Frenchmen, that they are betrayed, but that they are governed, as in good sooth they often have been, by incompetent and lazy jobbers in politics. They have a sentiment for the only child who ever was born a Ring; but the Queen-Regent is a foreigner, who will not go to bull-fights, and the Ministry has in it no overawing or commanding personality. We should anticipate, there- fore, that the Army and the people will await with sullen impatience the result of a naval battle in the Atlantic, to- wards which the best fleet of Spain is now supposed to be steaming, and that when that fleet has been destroyed by the Americans, who are as irresistible at sea as the English, they will declare for the continuance of the war and a mffitary dictatorship of some kind,—probably a Regency in a soldier's hands. The feeling for Don Carlos is not deep except in a section of the North and the more fanatic Churchmen, and he is not the kind of man of whom a nation makes a popular hero. The Republic, again, is not popular with the Army, nd would so impair the unity of the nation that it will be avoided, at least for the time being, and while the concentration of power seems to offer the best chance either of success or of a resistance to peace like that of a besieged city. In spite of the invigoration of the French Army, the Continent disbelieves in Republics as fighting Powers. The election of the Braganzas to the throne of a united Iberia is a dream of many Spanish thinkers, and was once formally proposed in writing by a.rshal Prim, who was statesman as well as soldier; but it is too sensible for the average Spaniard, and too °Pposeel to his traditions for the average Portuguese, and the child- King will therefore be suffered to remain on the throne, his mother, the Archduchess, who is reSpected for her high personal character and her MIN- I:nous birth, retiring into the ordinary position of the Queen-Mother. Whether the Regency will be presided over by General Weyler, or Marshal Campos, or another General no outsider can guess ; but that a despotic Regency of some kind will be established to rule at least for the duration of the war is, we think, a tolerably safe prediction. This will suit Austria, which is deeply con- cerned for the dynasty ; it will suit the Kings everywhere, who would prefer anything to another overturn of Royalty ; and it will suit France, which dreads beyond all things anarchy in Spain.
For there is real danger of what the world would con- sider anarchy in Spain. Her cohesion, to begin with, is imperfect. The North and South are entirely different in tone, the North being industrial, the South agricultural, the North modern, the South medireval, the North full of Gothic blood, the South with a touch of the Arab strain, the North overtaxed and crippled in its commerce because the South can or will pay so little. Get a manufacturer of Barcelona to give you his opinion of the Cordovan or Murcian. The provinces, separated by. high mountains, differing in economic characteristics, and divided by. historical and social walls, have never been subjected to the steam-roller of the Revolution, and if the Army lost its hold, would almost infallibly either separate or reorganise themselves upon the federal principle. The tenure is wretchedly bad, the great estates being worked by bailiffs, and the people, who live in villages rather than isolated farms, being overworked and deprived of any- thing like ladders for rising in the social scale. The peasantry are rather labourers than true peasants, and their aversion in most provinces to the owners of the soil and their bailiffs is as keen as it ever was in Ireland, and has repeatedly produced formidable revolts. The city populations are rarely tranquil, and owing to their poverty never contented, and in both city and village there is a brooding feeling that everything is wrong, and that the cause of evil is not the miserliness of Nature, or any want of industry, or even the malignity of all who are outside Spain, though that counts for much in a Spaniard's judgment, but mismanagement in high places, whether provincial or central, within Spain itself. The mischief is aggravated by the courage of the people, who are ready to " rise " and fight in a degree not displayed by any other civilised community, and by the influence of the priesthood, who have never for- given the great pillage of the Church sanctioned in Queen Isabella's reign, and are always hoping for some regime which would restore their old ascendency and position. Spanish statesmen, who are thoroughly aware of the dis- content which exists, dread the Revolution acutely, and would rather, we believe, submit to a strong military tyranny, even if it were cruel, than allow the foundations of the great deep to be broken up. It is this feeling which, we imagine, has induced them to tolerate so many military pronunciamientos, and to replace the Monarchy so often after it has been overthrown. They find the Monarchy difficult to manage, and do not heartily believe in it ; but they fear that but for the Monarchy, and the sort of pivot it affords, "there might be no more Spain." We think that under this fear, which is shared by the military chiefs, they will keep up the Throne; but they will be compelled, we doubt not, to make the Executive stronger, and to place it in military hands. Observe that within twelve hours of the fall of Manilla, while the news was yet uncertain, a Liberal Administration felt compelled to place Madrid in "a state of siege," that is, under military rule. And remember that Spain, the proudest of nations, with her wonderful past history, is waging a. war in which, from the very nature of things, she can hope only for honourable defeat.
Previous page
