The Express.
London, England, 1864-08-23 00:00:00

KIM WATIII AT WIDOW =DIM

SKIS DAY =110iiiii,6E547Z..7.7i0;r7i5ai.64 17m.
To-MOtaow Morning. 6b. Atm .. .Ailasses. Va. 7m.

LONDON, TUESDAY, AUGUST 23.

IT is impossible to contemplate the condition,
the temper, and the aspect of Spain and its people
just now without a very keen regret, and a me-
lancholy reminding of the fluctuating character of
national honour and disgrace. After the ezpul•
sion of the Moors, Spain was for a long while as
great as a country could then be imagined to be.
Territory being then the expression of national
greatness, Spain presented a glorious spectacle to
men's eyes, with her vast and romantic American
dominions and her group of European kingdoms ;
but she had also that other greatness about which
mankind does not change its taste—that great-
ness of soul and intellect which would still,
if she had them, make her as glorious as
ever, after any loss of territory and do-
minion which she has sustained, or ever can
sustain. Among the downfalls of kingdoms there
can be few more mournful in the record than what,
in the case of Spain, we see before our eyes. She
has no invader ; she is menaced by no aggression ;
there are no obstacles from without to her pro-
gress—political, moral, intellectual, and materiaL
She possesses all the means of advancement ; and
all the world desires her to use them. In such
progress a she has made all the world sympathises ;
yet she does not rise in anyone's eatimation, and,
while ambitious to obtain a place as a first-class
nation in Europe, she shows signs of being unable
to sustain the lower rank she holds.

There is political panic at Madrid, and through-
out the country. There is nominally a constitntior,
under which the representatives of the people have
professedly the right and the opportunity to express
their wishes and obtain their reasonable dear ea.
Yet it is the country of all others for mili-
tary risings and rumoured plots, too often real,
and always disastrous in their issue. At present
everybody in Spain expects outbreaks; and panics
succeed each other about the Socialists, or some
dictator, or demagogue, or aspirant to the throne,
or some betrayal to Franre, or to Portugal, or to
the POPE on the one hand, or the revolutionists
on the other. There does not seem to be anybody
who feels much the better for the constitution.
For a long course of years peace gave every
advantage to the national industry, and the
country is much richer than it was; and it might
be, in a reasonable time, as rich as it chose. Yet
what a spectacle of disreputable poverty it pre-
sante ! While bread is dear, and the protective
laws make it likely to be dearer, the people, who
hunger and crave as the populace do under Popish
and prohibitive rule, need expect nothing from the
national treasury. The treasury is empty, there
is no prospect of its filling, and the Go-
vernment has not credit enough to raise
money. Considering what the repute of
Spain once was for loftiness of every kind, there is
something utterly perplexing to foreigners—and it
must be maddening to native Spaniards worthy of
the old name—in the levity with which the ad-
mitted debts and the most solemn pledges of the
Government and country are treated at Madrid,
and in diplomatic correspondence. We need not
tell those shameful and dreary stories over again.
They are too conspicuous and too significant to be
overlooked. It is important both to Spain and
her debtors that everybody should know and
remember that there are Spaniards who think and
feel like the rest of the world about financial
honesty and honour, and the position of their
country before the Exchanges of Europe. It is
important that the world should see that it is not I
only the foreign creditors who cannot get their
money, but the contractors for public works, who
are left unpaid, in the face of the most distinct
promises and pledges of the Government. In
this stage of her history the idea of her
rulers and her people seems to be that the
old dignity is to be recovered by the imitation of
old achievements. They hoped to win glory by
their invasion of Morocco ; and they find, after
their parade of military qualities and force, that
they are less esteemed than before. They are
pursuing the same idea in the Western hemis-
phere, risking a yet deeper disgrace. It would
have been prudent to leave the old associations of
Spain and America untouched in the historical
memory of the world. The romance and the
glory of it would have rather deepened than died
out with time, and amidst the improving liberality
with which future philosophical generations will
read the story of pest ages. The worst thing for
her own dignity, and for her chance of rising to
the position of a first-rate power, is to be envious
of any other power that may be operating in
America ; to take a mean advantage of
the embarrassments of any American power to do
what she would not otherwise venture upon ; to
pick a quarrel with the independent successors of
former Spanish colonies, and to parade menaces
to be afterwards withdrawn in explanations to
European Courts; and, finally, to enter into an-

THE

tagonism again, on any pretence, with the negro
or mixed ruses who had once achieved freedom
and settled down in a peaceable indepeadenoe.
All these things Spain has done, crowding one act
of insolence and folly upon another, as if she
feared that the opportunity for wrong-doing
would pass before it could be turned to the
utmost account. Because Austria and Francs
are busy in America, she must go and do I
something to make a show. Because the
United States are engrossed in a civil war, she',
must make haste and acquire a colony or two,
which she would not otherwise be permitted to
do. For the same reason she must humble
Peru, and through Peru the other States on the
Pacific, and avenge herself for old mortification,
and see what else she can get. For the same
reason she does something worse still, the foe
being of a lower rank and of smaller resources ;
else brings her whole force to bear against the
poor people of St. Domingo, whom she stooped to
bey of a traitor. Potentates who do such things
are apt to be out in their calculations, and St. Do-
mingo, without help from the United States or any
other power, has cost Spain more than she at all an-
ticipated. We saw last week how this war in St.
Domingo was made the pretext of a demand to the
Cortes for money, as well as the expense of keeping
the Guano Islands and of preparing for war in that
region. The natural question is—what business
Spain, and yet more Spanish forces, have in either
place. The question is asked in such a tone in these
modern days as that the Spanish Government,
and the people, unless they are better than
their Government, mast sustain the surprise of
discovering that there is no influence, or character,
or profit of any kind to be got by theft of terri-
tory, subornation of treachery, and empty bravado
such as exhibited in these enterprises in the West.
In regard to Peru, it looks as if Spain would have
to retreat, after offering deprecatory explanations—
which explain nothing—to the European Powers.
As for St. Domingo, what prevents the retirement
of Spain altogether from the scene of so much
loss, and shame, and hopelessness ? From the
time when her soldiers set foot on the island
under the guidance of the traitor SANTANA, calamity
has dogged their steps. Not all the empty boasts
of her newspapers have for a moment deceived the
world about her failures as against the ;nhabi-
tante, and her losses from fever, desertion, and
defeat. There is nothing to be got there with the
price already paid. If all the inhabitants were
under the sod to-morrow, the half-island would not
pay for the occupation of it. Sorely not even the
Spanish Government can imagine that perseverance
in the invasion is required by honour, military
or political. No possible conquest of St. Domingo
could confer any honour ; and therefore no relin-
quishment of the scheme could involve any dis-
grace. All the world saw it to be a mistake, u
well as a cruel wrong, from the beginning ; and
the only credit to be got from St. Domingo at all
is in retiring while there is something like a choice
in the case.

If there are the true and worthy Spaniards in
Spain that we all believe there are, cannot they
save their national repute even yet, as regards
this business T They must know very well that all
the boasts of conquest in St. Domingo have been
followed by the sending of reinforcements till now,
when the Government pleads the cost as reason for
a loan, while it has nothing to show in the way of
results. If greatness is in any way possible now,
it can be only by retracing a false step. Those
who remember what the greatness of Spain once
was will rejoice in any, even the humblest, effort
to get out of the vulgar track, and to follow the
higher road to genuine dignity and influence.
Nobody doubts that the moral force for such an
effort exists in the nation. The painful question
is where the moral force or the national spirit
hides itself while the Government at Madrid is
playing its pranks, and what further instigation it
requires to make it come forth in assertion of all
that renders national existence worth having.