The Express.
London, England, 1856-08-14 00:00:00

terminology would love to classify as ',abnormal."
When we look upon this people as hard-working,
strictly frugal, and scrupulously honest—thus
'tending in the broadest contradistinction with
their neighbours—we are hardly able to credit
the fact that the history of the last twenty
years places them among the most blood-
thirsty of the republicans of Spain. During the
recent civil wars they probably produced more manu-
factured goods and murdered more prisoners of war
than all the other territories of Queen Isabella.
As it will be conceded—whatever may be the future
disturbances of Spain—that the question of the sue.
cession to the throne is now virtually settled, so far at
least as the Carlists are concerned, it may be interest-
ing to cast a glance over the commercial politics of
Catalonia. Cotton and calico are the chief manufactures
of the province; and Barcelona, the head-quarters of
its industry, bears about the same relation to Liver-
pool or Manchester that Spain itself, in point of
national wealth, hears to England. Its manufac-
tured goods are of a very rude kind : the whole people
exhibit that idiosyncrasy which may be classified ell
a state of " commercial barbarism " rather than com-
mercial civilisation. In Catalonia the people, though
divided into manufacturers, agriculturists, and twenty
other vocations, have this common characteristic--
that they are all smugglers. Nobody disdains, or so
much as denies, the imputation. You might as well
ask a Greek if he were not a thief, as ask a Catalo-
nian if he were not • smuggler. Such an or-
ganised violation of political morality and public
law never probably existed in any commonwealth of
Europe. The vast manufactories of Barcelona are so
many engines for the maintenance of this openly
illicit trade.

The cause of all this evil—at once to the com-
merce and morality of the people, and to the
uee of the state—rests, of course, in the pro-
tective system which has been so long maintained ;
and which seems to have entailed a spirit of centre-
bandism upon the people which I believe no
reform in the commercial policy of Spain will
immediately eradicate. The Pyrenean frontier
affords the greatest facilities for the maintenance of
this system with France, and with France, accord-
ingly, a large share of the commercial relations of
Catalonia are maintained. Nothing is more common
in Spain, or even in this country, than to hear that
the English have been kicked out of Barcelona, and
that French commerce now reigns supreme where
English commerce was once almost exclusive. But
this is simply the immorality of Protection. British
goods are both cheaper and better than those
of France; but the difference in economy is
not equal to the differences of exorbitant com-
mercial imposts. The result very naturally is that
Francis, with every physical facility for the mainte-
nance of contrabandism, can introduce her goods by
smuggling more cheaply than England through the
legitimate ports of Spain.
If we contrast the character of this province with
that of Valencia, we shall find the difference very
striking. The Valencians, though equally laborious,
are essentially men of the South." While the
Catalans are openly cruel in war, and honest in
their ready avowal of coutrabandism, the Valencians
have all the cunning and treachery of the
Greek, joined to the sullenness and vindic-
tive character of the Italian. Their daily life in
not lees distinct. Their labour and sorrow are alto.
gether agricultural. Ri.e forme the chief produce
of this district, and its cultivators are so devoured by
swarms of the southern murquitoes that it would
appear by the laws of nature in Valencia that rice
was made for man, and man was made for the mite•
quitoes. The labour of the people and the produce
of the soil are, however, amazing. Irrigation was
alone wanting to the natural fertility of Valencia;
sad this deficiency his been in great measure me.
' plied by canals artificially constructed in communt-
cation more often with one of the chief rivers of the
province. I should be disposed to regard these two
bordering populations, thus widely differing from
each other in many characteristics, as among the
suet hopeful of Spain.
The people of Arragon and Navarre are widely dia.
tinot from the Catalina and the Valencians. They
are altogether an indolent and warlike race, Weeps.
btu of effecting much, under any system of govern-
men; towards the material developmen t of Spain. They
are strikingly suggestive of the truth, that the Spa-
nish provinces were designed by nature to constitutes
great federative state. For while the attempts to effect
their complete consolidation are essentially ineffective,
they are bound together by this fundamental necessity
of nature, that each mote or less c,ntribntes to the
wants of the other. Thus the interposition of a mar-
tial people, like those of Navarre and Arragon, be-
tween France and the central provinces of Spain,
seems to indicate an especial provision for the Inds-
psodenos of the rest, while the labour and resources
of other provinces appear designed to requite
the service of military protection. In the moun-
taineers of these districts there is just what
intrepid Spartanism, living among rocks and stones,
with eavious neighbours around, is always likely
to create. In Navarre, the custom which re.
gaited the whole male population to congregate
with arms to the frontier on the signal
of danger being given is still recognised. The tradi-
tionary bravery of the mountaineers has been main-
tained through every Peninsular struggle, from the
age of the Romans to our own. There le much in
their character which corresponds to the qualities
from which such mighty results accrued of olel:
Hans Aim veers% 'Ram colliers Sabiai ;
Hans Ramos et trater ; sic fortis Etruria erev:t ;
Scilicet et terms (seta est puleberrima Roma;
Septemque ass sibi sure eireamdedit seem.
Is the course of the present sketch I have attempted
to demoutrate the importance of these four provinces,
and their several relations to the general system of
Spain. In other communications I shall attempt to
apply the same mode of treatment to the Central and
to the North-Western Provinces; and shall thus
endeavour to point out the elements of harmonious
action which exist beneath a superficies of the grossest
prejudices of nationality and the most vicious system
of government.