THE STATE OF SPAIN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6132, 19 March 1898, Page 6

THE STATE OF SPAIN.

(National Review.) Wages around the mining districts of Biscay Province are now so low compared with the high cost of living (the staple food being bread, partly made with imported wheat, and driad codfish — bacalao — imported entirely) that a miner, with a wife and family to support, hardly lives — he merely exists. Increased taxation on the mine-owners, and freight rated on the gold basis, render it impracticable to pay higher wages, hence there have been several strikes requiring military aid to quell them. These are some of the causes why we now see the towns crowded with able-bodied men appealing to public charity. And a vast deal is really done, in a private way, to alleviate their sufferings, for the Spaniard is a generous ahnsgiver. Cruel and vindictive toward a personal enemy, the Spaniard is remarkably compassionate and condoning toward society's foes. As a recent instance, a great Court lady commissioned Father Coloma (the celebrated author of the popular novel " Pequeneces ") to travel from Madrid to Barcelona and back solely to distribute material relief among the widows and children of the executed anarchists. If there is the faintest chance of saving a condemned man's life, there is never wanting a few to solicit it. Respectable citizens in the provinces have a perfect horror of a public execution, and, if they do not succeed in having it take place elsewhere, they leave the town for several days. There is no police regulation against begging. In all the years I have known Spain I never saw a beggaT harshly treated or reproved by a Spaniard for following his calling. If the passer-by cannot, or is not disposed to give, he dismisses the Bolicitant with "Dios la ampare hermano" (God help you, brother). And th&expression has often to be used. In Cadiz, ior example, last month there were hundreds of casual beggars famished and in the last stage of privation. Some were-artisans fmdlabourers-mllingtowork. Ninety of them wereOubana banished from their isJaad,.»nd thrown on to the streets of Cadiz. In the town of Arcoe de la Prontera (Cadiz Province) municipal employes, whose pay-was five months in arrear, were asking for alms in the streets. Nor-are matters improved by the recent calamities in Seville, Malaga and Valencia, which have been grievously inundated.