The Express.
London, England, 1852-01-02 00:00:00

SPAIN.

MADRID, Dsc. 25.
The government goes on unhesitatingly with its
system of ex-parliamentary law making. The Ga-
zette of yesterday contained a decree authorising
officers of the army to demand their being put on the
retired list. This measure, which apparently indi-
cates a desire to promote retrenchment, is really
meant to facilitate the entry in the army of persons
of the upper classes, with whom the service is be-
coming popular, the army and the priesthood at
the present time bidding fair to be the principal
stepping-stones to power. There is another decree,
enacting a measure that has been loudly called fur
by commercial men. It does away with one of the
most onerous burdens to which inland commerce has
hitherto been subjected. It is no longer necessary
for merchandise that is carried into the inland parts
of tho country to have the excise seals, nor to be
escorted by a custom-house guide.
Tho Gazette of to-day publishes a decree of some
interest to ship-owners. The bill presented to the
Chamber of Deputies enacting that the duties paid
by native and foreign bottoms in Spanish ports be
divided into two classes, viz., mooring duties, and
loading and unloading duties, is to have the force of
law.

Spanish vessels are to pay one real per ton anchor.
age duty, and the eighth of a real per quintal for
loading or unloading, and foreign vessels double.
To understand the exorbitance of these duties, let
us examine what a vessel of 000 tone would have to
pay, viz.:—
Anchorage duty lOOO rcals
Loading
Unloading

£5O
Besides this, there will be the usual little expenses,
such as quarantine duty, the light-house tax, and
others. Vessels of more than 20 tons and less than
80, will pay half the anchorage duty. These duties
are paid but in one port. Steamers that bring pas-
sengers will pay every voyage. The receipts of these
imposts arc for the defraying of the cleansing and
repairing of the ports. 'lke government proposes tol
levy these contributions, and use them by way of
loan for the defraying of the most urgent expenses
of the porta. The Gazette also publishes the amor-
tisation of the debt by debits and conversions during
the years 1849 and 1830, and the first quarter of
18451. According to this statement, the debt has
diminished, by the amortisation of debits, 1,442 mil-
lions capital and 237 millions in interest.

Dec. 27.
Tho Gazette of to-day contains a royal decree,
countersigned by Don Mariano Miguel de Iteinoso,
Minister of Fomento, directing that the railways
from Aranjuez to Almansa, and from Alar to San-
tander, shall be begun within a delay of six months
at furthest. The railway from Aranjuez to Almansa
shall be undertaken according to the following con-
ditions:

The construction of the works is to bo contracted
for. Tenders will bo admitted during the space of
six months. The government will issue the shares,
which are to bear interest at 6 per cent. and one per
cent. amortisation. Tho government will issue the
shares as fast as they become necessary for the pay-
meat of the works that will bd making. The go-
vernment will lay before the Chambers an account of
the issue of the shares. The government will make
a free grant of the public land which the railway and
its dependencies will occupy. The workmen on the
railroad are to enjoy the privileges of citizenship as
regards the availing themselves of timber, pasture,
die., in the villages near which they will work. The
contractors will have the faculty of opening quarries,
collecting atones, building lime-kiln4and brick-kilns,
depositing materials, and establishing workshops
in public lands, cutting timber in the forests
belonging to the state, on paying the value of
the same. The contractors will not have to pay
custom-house, turnpike, or harbour dues for the
materials, carriages, cattle, or persons belonging
to the railway. The guarantees for the shares
will be the country, the railway itself, the products
of the same, the voluntary subscription of the
provinces by means of their deputations, and a sub-
scription under the form of an increase of their con-
tributions. The corporations of localities can sub-
scribe for shares, and pay them with the product of
communal property. The government can, if
it be judged expedient, prolong the time in
which the works contracted for are to be con-
cluded. In the preamble to the decree
the minister says that there reigns throughout the
country an obstinate drought, which threatens to
cause a great diminution of labour, and it is there-
fore necessary to provide as much work as possible
for the poor, especially in undertakings of great na-
tional importance. The government confirms the
company in the definitive concession of the Alar and
Santander Railway, and giants a subsidy of sixty
millions of teals, payable in railway shares, and 6
per cent, on the capital invested by private persons
in the undertaking. The government will issue
railway shares for the amount of the subsidy, in
proportion as the works are forwarded.
From the Ist of January no letters will be received
in any of the ministerial offices unless prepaid.
The mode of governing the country by decrees,
though it ham not yet been clamoured against in pub-
lic, is beginning to excite alarm amongst the depu-
ties of the country. Don Jose Xifre has published
the letter by which he renounces the charge of
deputy. The letter, which is powerfully written,
states that as the ministry seem determined to modify
laws that the legislature have passed, change the
tariff at their will, augment the pension of a princess
from 500,000 reels to 2,000,000, and raise loans
without consulting the two Chambers, he considers
that the legislature has no real existence, and
resigns his seat for the town of Arenys de Mar
To-day the members of the opposition hold a meet-
ing to form a committee for the purpose of drawing
up a manifesto to the nation, protesting against the
very unconstitutional mode of governing the country.
The greater dart of therm, however, only go pro
fornel, every ono being firmly convinced that in the
present state of apathy, the ministry might annuli
the constitution in form aa it has already. in reality,
without a finger being stirred. The diminishing the
pensions of the weave classes has of course excited
much animosity 'against the cabinet here in Madrid,
where half the educated classes almost depend
upon the state for subsistence ; and it is angrily
remarked that the army, which has always been
accustomed to go threadbare and insufficiently clad,
is now remarkably well dressed, each infantry soldier
having lately received, besides his new regimentals,
a handsome capote with its capuoha, and is better
fed and paid than he has ever been ; while the civil
pensioners' claims are continually staved off at the
pay alma