The Express.
London, England, 1868-10-21 00:00:00

IS PrBLISEND

EVERY EVENING.

LONDON. WEDNESDAY, OCT. 21.

TILE REOENERATION.

ONE of the principal objects of the new rulers
of Spain must be, we take it, to restore the credit
of the state and to fertilise the country with
foreign capital. Under the successive finan-
cial administrations of the fallen monarchy
the credit of the state had fallen so low that
Spanish securities bad become a byword on every
Bourse, and the ptrpetual disappointments of
Londholders, who found themselves the victims
of ingenious devices of repudiation, were not
calculated to remove the interdict which every
considerable money market in Europe had placed
on the 1.:-re mention of a loan. Yet the
Oovi rtanent of (luer•n I,,ALELL.t persevere 1
in its l.rofiee reckless expenditure.
]'rr•m thr Palace throughout every branch
of tl.a admini-tration the lavish waste of the
puh:ic fortune never ceased. Favourites, inten-
dants, priests. police spies, revelled in the pillage.
Vast MITItS wrung from public indigence were
squandered in maintaining an overgrown army,
which was destined to explode in the hands
that abused it for the maintenance of a shameful
sysn In of misrule. All the moral and all -the
material wants of the country were systematically
neglected. The commonest necessities of com-
merce and industry, public roads, facilities of
intercommunication among the provinces of the
monarchy, were never thought of, while the
ministers of the QUEEN were making a puree.
The railways which the enterprise of foreign spe-
culators had constructed languished in the midst
of a country endowed with all the riches
of nature and inhabited by a hardy and
energetic race. A dominant church pandered to
the flagrant immoralities which protected it, and
fostered laziness and superstition as the guarantees
of its power. In short, Spain, so nobly gifted—
so proud of old traditions of greatness—wee
a wasted force in European civilisation. The
nun who have now come back from exile to
establish the principle of national sovereignty
have learned, from Litter experience, perhaps from
their meditations and observations in happier
countries, that nothing less than " a emu-
" plot() system of liberties," as the manifesto
of the Provisional Government expresses it, is
needed to begin and to complete the work of
the national regeneration. And of these hler-
ties religions liberty is ammiredly sot the least

urgent. Tho telegraphic summary of AO dipl4-
midi° circular informs us that it amine
"at length the question of freedom of
" public worship, and expresses hopes for the
" free exercise of every religion." When

the whole document is before us, wo trust wo
AO find that it not only " examines the ques-
t tion," but solves it in the only way that can
restore the confidence and conciliate the respect
and sympathy of liberal Europe. The Provisional
Government has indeed given an earnest of its in-
telligent appreciation of the exigencies of the
time by its dealing with those aggressive reli-
gious corporations which have so long bold cap-
tive the soul of the nation ; and by those decrees
which liberate the soil from mortmain and the
intellect of the young generation from a withering
intolerance. Free education, free faith, free
land, free trade, will work wonders, and
while the new rulers are occupied in getting rid
of inveterate &bums, it can ne►er be too soon
for them to occupy themsdves in laying the
foundation of a new order of things,
and in training up a new generation
worthy to enjoy and able to preserve it. It is
idle to talk to enlightened Spaniards of the present
day of the past glories of a Catholic monarchy, and
its " unity of faith," or to sentimentalise on the
beauty and beneficence of religions corporations
in dark are. Lot the dead bury their dead. The
men of to-day know what Catholic unity has cost
them and their country. They know what the
altered circumstances of civilisation demand of a

country which aspires to greatnesa and prosperity
in the nineteenth century.
But it would be unjust to expect the Pro-
visional Government at Madrid to reconstruct
a new Spain on the ruins of the old in a
week or a month. Some allowance must be made
for inveterate national habits and prejudices.
No doubt it is the misfortune of all revolutionary
governments to consume precious moments in
doing much that might well be left undone : in
distributing rewards, in Ending places for ad-
herents, in assisting at public festivals. Wo
should be glad to see SZURANO, PRIM, and
their colleagues signalising their brief tenure
of supreme power by decisive acts of
policy in the sense of public economy and
retrenchment; setting an example to Europe by
reducing an overgrown military service aad
thinning the ranks of useless functionaries. Ou
the other hand they are well advised in avoid-
ing as much as possible the appearance of
usurping by anticipation the prerogatives of a
constituent assembly. Precipitation in the acts of
a provisional government is apt to create reaction.
Enough for them to sustain the civil power, and
to pay &constant homage to public liberty. The
choice of a monarch is a secondary consi-
deration, and can well afford to wait. Above all,
as they would deserve the respect of Europe, let
them shun every semblance of conducting the
universal suffrage to which they appeal after the
manner of French Imperialism. Of all forms of
government, let them abjure a democratic des-
potism as the vilest and moat debasing. It would
be pitiable to And the system which is already
perishing in France deliberately accepted on the
other side of the Pyrenees. They declare their wile
to be to "place themselves on a level with the
" most advanced nations," not with Russia, or
Turkey, or the Second Napoleonic Empire.
Let them leave to the Emperor of the Fastscu
the honour of entertaining Queen IsABELLA, of
guarding the temporal power of the Papacy, of
making universal suffrage the basis of arbitrary
power. On these conditions " the governments
" which march at the head of civilisation "—that
is, the Governments of free nations—will be proud
to welcome the restoration of Spain to her proper
rank as a great European Power.