The New Zealand TABLET THURSDAY, MAY 15, 1902. A BOY KING.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 20, 15 May 1902, Page 16

The New Zealand TABLET

THURSDAY, MAY 15, 1902. A BOY KING.

' To promote the cause of Religion and Justice by the ways of Truth and Peace. 1 Leo XIII. to the N.Z. TABLET.

sixteen years a^o next Saturday, May 17, a number of expectant royalties, Ministers (including Kaganta), and courtiers were gathered together in one of the splendid halls of the Royal Palace of Madrid—that "Teat quadrangular erection of giey stone that rises by the sloping banks o! the pebbly, squalid, Manzan-

§UST are*. iSuddely a door opens. The court physician bears a draped burden, presents it to the circling assembly, and announces it as a new King born to distracted Spain. His father's eyes ne\er rested on the li tie stranger —consumption had closed them for ever six months before, on November 2.~>, ]ss.~). A puny child was the tiny scrap of pink humanity in while Um^clothcs that drew the first breath of atmospheric air in Madrid on that bright seventeenth of May. But the hopes of the ro}al house hung on the blender thread of his little life, and the day that ushered him into the world saw him proclaimed King of Spain with voice of herald and blare (A trumpet and much pomp and circumstance and aucent ceiemony. Princes and courtiers ki.-sed the ro\;il hand of the unconscious babe and swore fealty to him. His pious mother, Maim a Christlva—called in those times, for contempt, ' the Austrian' — was appointed regent during his minority. She has acquitted hu'self well. People have forgoLten the old nickname, bitter as that of Tedexihi and Shaniai which the Lombards ground out with an oath between closed teeth at the Austrian garrison before the days of Solforino and Magenta. Maria Christina has proved herself a good woman, a careful mother, and, in diilicult circumstances, has shown herself every inch a queen. Her task is all but accomplished. On Saturday her regency is at an end. The Boy-King, Alfonso XIII., is legally of age on Saturday, his sixteenth birthday,and his coronation will take place ' in

Old Madrid.' oung Alfonso's coronation by the side of the Manzanares will be, so to speak, tbe overture to the vaster celebrations which on June 2(i are to take place mar the water of the Thames.

Alfonso XI IT. was a bright little two-year-old when our eyes first alighted upon him in 1888. lie is now a slender, alert, pale, dehWirp-lookin" 1 lad, hiuh-spirited, a bit ovcistrung, perhaps, de\oted to his relig on, as becomes the carefully nurtured sou of a pious mother, and — m good omen for the stability of his reign, be it long or short — popular with the army and with the high-placed generals because of his well-known ardor in the study of military science. Young Alfonso has seen but little of the side of life that appeals to the average boy. If is pupilary stage has been almcst as Spartan in its simplicity and devotion to hard work as that of the scions of the royal house of Prussia. 'He is already,' says a well-informed .Madrid correspondent, writing some few months ago, ' handicapped by his responsibilities. An English lad at 15 years, whatever his position, would not be carrying half the load of knowledge borne by Alfonso XIII. He speaks English, French, and German, as well as Spauish, has had a careful mathematical training, is a student of history, and is devo ed to military matters. For a boy his knowledge of the elements of military science is quite uncommon. A very robust body, free from all tendency to illness, might carry this load ; the slight figure of the young King sugirtsts the need for less strenuous effort. When next May he take- ofliceand becomes at least the nominal head of the State, low will he endure the additional burden ? Apart from the sentiment of sympathy with a lad who is called upon to undeitake a task so onerous as that of Spanish rule, the <|Pestion appeals to Spain from the Pyrenees to Andalusia. The health of the King and the consequent tranquihty of the State are matters of the first importance to the country.'

The Boy-King of Spain has no easy row to hoe. Radicals, Republicans, Carlists constitute an element of dangc G that is neutralised only by the mutual repugnance of it various sections and by the promise of fidelity on the pait of the army. Matters have, however, changed enormously for the better in Spain since the da)s when almost every change of Ministry took place to the theatrical accompaniment of a jnninnininnii nlo. Alioxm) has Lee n adopting a conciliatory attitude tow aids opponents ,md irreconcileables ; the financial condition ol Spain has greatly improv< d during the four jeais that have elapsed since the war with the United States; the oounln's resources are being opened up ; theie has be< n a gre-it expansion of her oversea commerce, 'md an unexampled pmvhase of shipping to fly the flag of Leon and Castile : and th'Me is s-omething like the awakening of a new spirit in ih it strand old Catholic land which, we trust, will undo tin work of a hoary tradition of evil government and biing b ck (o Spain sonic of her departed gloi its.

Spain is ,i bidding ex, in pie of the power of a series of bad (iovernments to work ih" twin of a country. St.TKKKsv thanked (Jon for having b slowed upon her country a rich soil and a glorious climate. She praud(ioi) to add to all this the gift of a good (io\ c nunent. This crowning gift, Providence withheld, and 1 di i* XIV.V cruel Faying was bitterly verified : 'After a cintun of bad (Joxernmenc there was underCiiAULKsll.no at all.' The battered kingdom ovt r which the \onthful Alfonso is to rule has had two periods of deca\, follow i d by two swile but short-lived recoveries. The H\ieenth and seunf< enth centuries witnessed the most woful de* line in her liistoty — a decline which affects her fortune-* to the present hour. Jhe eighteenth century (17.">!)-178s) saw a lukf u\i\al. Il was blighted by the long war.s that i.ned Mid i,m<d and slew at the close of the eighteenth, and the tail) part of the nineteenth, century, which led to the loss of her South Amtrican colonies. This, in turn, was succeeded by a reaction of prosperity, which was broken up by the Carhst wars, the ten years' insurrection in Cuba (lSG<s'-1.578), and the series of crises which led to the brief and decisive struggle with the United States. Spain's first decline of national prosperity arose out of what was and is her proudest glory — the dib-

covery of the New World. Other causes combined therewith to aggravate and prolong a situation which at last reduced Spain from being the richest and most powerful country in !<uropo to her present position as a second-rate power. Briefly stated, these causes were (1) the loss of population brought about by emigration to the newly-dis-covered America, (2) excessive taxation. (;}) long-continued foreign wars, and (4) the partial abandonment of manual labor, cased by social and not, by relimous influences.

It, wouM be manifestly impossible, in the course of a leading aiticl*, to deal, except in the most summary way, with the wide ranges of causes of decay just indicated. The rush to the new El Dorado beyond the Atlantic ruined the mother country. The expulsion of the Moors from (Jrauada also depopulated a portion of the nation. It interfeied with the progress of agriculture, and recalls to mind the driving of the Irish ' to hell or Connaught' under Cromwell, and the deportation of the French colonists from their homes in Nova Scotia by Governor Lawrence a century later. By the time of Philip IV. the population. of the country had fallen to about six millions. The displacement of population resulted in a serious disturbance of economic conditions. The prices of labor and of commodities went up enormously in Spain. The ordinary relations of commerce were unhinged. The statesmen of the day were unable to cope with the economic revolution which a few years had wrought. The flourishing silk and other industries were ruined by the arbitrislas, by high protect.on, by foolish edicts against the export of silk, gold, etc., and by excessive taxation. Agriculture was also ruined by excessive increase of mortmain property and entailed estates {inajoiuh), and by the abandonment of manual occupations by the Porhtio^ of the southern plains, who wished to imitate the ' gentleman's life ' of the old free Hidalgos who had never bowed to Moorish sway. The addle-headed economic system referred to in this paragraph was in force from the days of Charles V. to Philip V. — nearly two hundred years. No nation could have survived such government.

We ha\e referred to war as a determining factor in Spain's decay. , It is sufficient to merely refer to the war policy of Philip 11. and Philip IV. — the wars in the Netherlands ; the wars against the Turks; against Barbary ; the disastrous expedition of the Armada ; the raids of English pmateers, like Sir Francis Drake, on the West Indian possessions of Spain ; and the later struggles against Great Britain and France. These long-drawn struggles — likewise the later Carlist troubles — exhausted the exchequer and impoverished the country. The loss of her magnificent possessions in South America followed fast upon the Peninsular War. Between 1810 and 1825 she lost practically the whole of South America. The loss of such an empire would cause any nation to reel. It is needless to say that religion had nothing to do with creating the situation. The happy and prosperous condition of the intensely Catholic Basque provinces — which were protected by their fueros, or ancient laws, against excessive taxation, and by their mountain fastnesses against the horrors of many a war — is a sullieieat answer to the shallow journalists and callow pulpikers who feel disposed to attribute Spain's decay to some nameless action ol ihe Church. The young Alfonso XIII. recei\t.s Ins ro\al crown at a moment when his hard-tried. country is shullling oIT the evils created by a long series of e\d ci\il (iovernments — many of the worst of which, during the course of the nineteenth century, were intensely and aggressively anti-Catholic We trust that the light of returning prospeiity which is breaking once moie on that beautiful but ill-governed country will grow and broaden, and that the stripling who on Saturday receives the royal crown upon his boyish biow may reign long and happily o\er a peaceful, contented, and thriving people.