SPANISH PROSPECTS.

Press, Volume XI, Issue 1386, 17 April 1867, Page 2

SPANISH PROSPECTS.

[From the " Examiner," January 12] What is happening in Spain may have a salutary effect, however extravagant the unjust punishment that has fallen upon so many men of the highest station in the country. Recent events have shown the perfect likeness between a pretended constitutional system controlled by the army and one controlled by the mob. Both lead to infinitely greater miseriesthan frank and acknowledged despotism. We do not think it a fair judgment or appreciation of things in Spain to say that the people are indifferent, and , that, as they allow this evil to be, they deserve it. It is not so easy for civilians, however indignant, to fling off a yoke kept on by 300,000 soldiers. The people of Spain are not indifferent. The frequent emeutes and insurrections prove that they are not so. But all these insurrections succumb before the fire of artillery and musketry. The great majority of Spaniards are liberal and constitutional. But being such, and enjoying public freedom as .such, they have shown themselves certainly very exacting and often disorderly. Instead of having patience with them and governing by the Liberals, the Queen and Queen Mother had recourse to the Moderados, who have governed Spain for a long series of years, not by genuine patriotic support, nor yet by Spanish Conservative support, but by extraneous and military means. At first it was France that upheld the Moderados. Their reign in Spain was inaugurated by Louis Philippe. French aid failed them in 1848 and 1850. And since then the Moderados have governed by means of the army, officered and manipulated to suit them. The hand of the soldier was the ruling hand, but still a man like O'Dounell succeeded in covering his naked sword with the laurels or the manners of peace. Narvaez has flung these away, and his regime is simply and avowedly the old one of the Tartar tribe who worshipped a Sabre. But how is this to be attended with beneficial effects ? Simply ■'by the military regime having reached its political qiiod ahsurdum. For years the Moderados supported it, because it enabled them to triumph over their more popular adversaries. But now that on which they leaned has pierced their own hand. Had the Spanish Moderado party rested on its national and rightful basis, the conservative principle and clas3 in Spain, they would have had their vicissitudes, their fallings and their risings. But they aimed at dominating the people and the elections, and reigniug by violence. They could not do this without an instrument, and that instrument has now treated them in the fashion which the Moderados themselves sanctioned when applied to their adversaries. Olozaga~was, it seems, right after ail when he advised tho Liberals to secede. Let us leave the political arena completely to the Moderados and the military chiefs, and we shall find them in a year or two cutting each other's throats. It has turned out as the old Progresista prophesied. Unfortunately the leading Moderados deserve what they have got. It

was they who passed tho K«.» • • all power to tho Oovernj t f peml public liberties aiuKt ? n r s: ,, 'Th^id'irr ,^ indeed, that a milu it Queen aga.net delving the Cor would count as insurrection \l, when men vote power to a m \\\tX Government they must take tho conY quencea ot seeing that power u^d against themselves in military fashjl Of tho two Presidents of tho S>n and Lower Chamber, the one' Spanish prison, the other is on hi a w * to Porto Rico. So much for tho Cortes, and ho an end of constitutional government as long as Narvaez rule and tho Queen frequents the oontVs Bional. There is, however, in Spain no class of politicians save ProTosistaq or Modorados, with tho exception of the old Carliats and Legitimists. One or other of the three must gain tho upper hand some of these days And if so, where is Isabella? Not one of the three can forgive her. Narvaez had better look to himself. For him to rule otherwise than sword in hand is quite impossible.