The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—No European country of late years has
advanced more rapidly than Spain, and no country
seems so little disposed to make the best use of its
progress. The revenue of the Peninsular Kingdom
shows an elasticity rarely met with on the Conti-
nent ; its commerce increases every year ; its rail-
way system, tardily introduced, has been developed
with a rapidity almost great enough to make up for
past delays • but with all this progress there has
been little financial improvement. The income of
the nation increases, but as it increases the expen-
diture is raised in an almost equal degree. The
Minister of Finance finds himself every year in re-
ceipt of more money, but there is always some new
want by which the surplus is absorbed. It matters
not who is at the Treasury—a man of reaction, of
moderation, or of progress—no thought of unful-
filled obligations and unpaid creditors ever visits
him. It would seem as if the long history of forced
conversions and of deferred payments had been
wiped out of the Spanish annals, and that no
clamorous creditor defrauded of his rights had ever
been heard to protest against the injustice he had
suffered. The Financial Minister brings forth his
Budget with a supreme indifference to these noisy
representations, and leaves to some far distant suc-
cessor the task of meeting liabilities which are
constantly increasing. There is something almost
sublime in the way a Spanish Minister ignores the
claims of the unhappy bondholders. The Financial
Minister of no other nation could assume such a
grave indifference. When a French financier has
to deal with a deficiency, he diverts our attention
by the multiplicity of his details and the range of
his accounts ' • an Italian would be indignant
against the maladministration which had occasioned
the difficulty ; and the friends of Turkey gloze
over the fatal trick of borrowing which acts on
the Ottoman Empire like fire-water on the Red
Indians. A Spanish Minister of Finance does
none of these things. He is perfectly well-bred,
forbears to notice what may be wanting, and it
must be allowed that, setting aside this little pecu-
liarity, the Minister has not a very bad tale to tell.
His income is almost always sufficient to meet his
expenditure, and if part of his receipts be derived
from temporary sources it is also true that much of
his expenditure is on objects which will soon be ful-
filled. Last week the Minister of Finance published
his Budget to the Cortes. The ordinary income of
the kingdom for the financial year from the Ist of
July next to the 30th June, 1866, was estimated at
£21,842,000, and the ordinary expenditure during
the same time at £21,397,000. Ten years ago the
income was little over 17 millions, and the increase
has been tolerably steady throughout the interval.
The land tax has produced a greater return every
year, but the Customs and Stamps and the tobacco
monopoly have been the most fruitful sources of the
increase. The ordinary revenue is, moreover, only
a portion of what is raised by the State. Besides it,
the extraordinary income and the provincial and
municipal taxation must be taken into account. The
extraordinary income for the coming year is esti-
mated at £5,537,000. This sum is raised by the
sales of the conventual and national property, and
the proceeds are supposed to be devoted to such
works as railways, roads, and harbours, in making
which extraordinary resources may properly be em-
ployed. The amount thus expended is liable to
great variations, but it has increased, as the Spa-
niards themselves have begun to look upon the sales
of ecclesiastical property as irreversible transactions.
The provincial expenditure has been raised, princi-
pally through the great productiveness of the taxes
devoted to its service, from about a million, in 1854,
to £1,700,000; and the municipal budget, which
was £750,000 ten years since, has been nearly
doubled. The income of the State has been increased
in every department through the growing prosperity
of its inhabitants. In 1848 the first railway was
opened in Spain, its length being under 20 miles,
and it was not till 1851 that 30 miles more were
added. By 1858 the number of miles open was 533,
and in 1861 the number was very nearly 1,500, and
there are now about 2,500 miles in actual working.
But the progress of Spain is most apparent in the
increasing value of its imports and exports. In
1843 the total commerce both ways amounted to
£8,160,000 ; ten years later, in 1853, the im-
ports were £7,340,003, and the exports were
£8,357,000 ; and in 1860, the last year for which
we have an authentic return, the imports- were
£14,833,000, and the exports were £10,982,000.
We know, however, that these last sums have been
considerably increased in the four years which have
since elapsed. The commercial treaty with France,
contrary to the expectation of its authors, has very
much augmented the importation of Spanish wine
into England, the actual quantity brought into this
country having increased nearly 50 per cent. in four
years ; and what is perhaps more remarkable,
France has also become a large importer of Spanish
wines. A creditor of Spain who sees such a flatter-
ing picture of the progress of the nation unrolled
before his eyes may reasonably complain that amid
all the prosperity of the kingdom he alone receives
no benefit from it. The national income increases,
but so does the expenditure ' • meanwhile no step is
taken to diminish the Consolidated Debt, and the
Passive Debt becomes greater every year. The
unpaid interest accumulates, and the difficulty of
making any satisfactory settlement of its arrears of
course increases simultaneously. Even setting aside
these claims which are not pretended to be met, the
annual charge for interest in the Budget of the
Finance Minister is increasing. In 1858 it was
£2,545,900.; on the Ist of January, 1862, it had
grown to £3,018,000. The annual charge for the
Deferred Debt, foreign and domestic, has mounted
in the same interval from £791,800 to £992,000 ;
and the capital of the Passive Debt, which is now
about £11,600,000, is augmented annually. The
explanation of this increase of debt happening
simultaneously with an increase in prosperity is not
difficult to discover. Spain has freed herself from
one incubus, but has voluntarily succumbed to
another. Before the French Revolution the terri-
tory of his Most Catholic Majesty was the Paradise
of monks and priests. No nation harboured a greater
number of idle ecclesiastics, and nowhere were the
foundations which supported Ahem so richly en-
dowed. The income of a Spanish Bishop cast into the
shade the revenues of our own episcopal and archi-
episcopal sees. The number of secular and regular
clergy in 1768 was 209,988, or about one in 43 of
the whole estimated population. Of their total
wealth we can only form a very imperfect estimate,
but Spain has been living on it for many years.
Now everything is changed. The total number of
clergy in Spain at the last Census was 39,885, ex-
clusive of about 13,000 monks, and these are shorn
of their ancient revenues. Spain is even more severe
upon monks and nuns than heretic England, for the
number permitted to reside within the limits of the
kingdom is rigidly fixed. But if one idle company
has been disbanded, another, perhaps more expen-
sive, has been created. Spam was content, thirty
years back; with an army of 65,000, but it is now
raised to 120,000. The actual war Budget last year
was £4,349,000. The passion for military glory has
revived, and notions have been entertained of re- ,
covering the old possessions of the Monarchy. An
increased army has been accompanied, as might be
expected, with anincrease of correlative expenses. It
is not easy to see against what enemy the Peninsula
requires to be guarded, but an ordinance of 1858
authorised the expenditure of £7,8§1,000 on fortifi-
cations, much of which has since been laid out, and
this large sum is independent of forts and batteries
for the defence of Cadiz and of the Isla Gaditana.
In the same way a law of 1859 authorised the ex-
penditure of £4,500,000 on the Spanish navy, to be
spread over eight years, and the complete project of
the Minister of Marine required an outlay of
£8,132,000. The income acquired by the develop-
ment of Spanish resources, which the creditor of
Spain not unnaturally desires may be turned to his
advantage; has been spent in the augmentation of
the warlike force of the kingdom. It is perhaps not
altogether hopeless to ask when this passion for ar-
maments and defences will stop. No enemy threatens
Spain, and the seizure of Cuba, which was at one
time possible, may now be considered altogether out
of the question. On the other hand, the Ministers'
of Spain have shown a remarkable frankness in
receding from untenable positions. When the
Mexican expedition changed its character the .forces
of the Queen of Spain were withdrawn from the
enterprise, and it was only the other day that the

intervention in San Domingo was abandoned on the
discovery that no considerable party in the island
soughtthe Spanish alliance. The Ministers who have
had. the courage to take such an unpopular step
might venture on another not altogether dissimilar.
If they would bring back the army to its old footing
and give up the schemes on which they now waste
the revenues of the kingdom, they would be left
with such a surplus that they could immediately
make terms with their creditors, and remit some of
the taxes which still press on the Spanish people.
The retrenchment is not only possible but easy, the
honour of Spain would be redeemed, and the pro-
gress of her people -would be insured.
POST.--If Gen. Sherman really is, as the Federals
and their partisans pretend, a greater master of the
sword than the Confederate chiefs who are opposed
to him, he certainly is not so great a master of the
pen as Gen. Wade Hampton, with whom he has re-
cently had a literary passage of arms. In this en-
counter, in which the Federal commander was the
assailant and aggressor in a twofold sense, he has
been very roughly handled, and has come off second
best. We gather from the correspondence of these
two officers that the Southerners, whose houses are
being burnt and their country laid waste by the
Federal troops, have very naturally shot some of
the soldiers engaged in this work of wanton destruc-
tion. If a foreign enemy were to invade England,
and burn and destroy all the property on his march,
not forgetting to insult and outrage the women he
might meet with, we can readily imagine what the
owners of that property and the husbands and bro-
thers of those women would do, and English human
nature, or indeed any sort of human nature, has the
same feelings in America, even though transplanted
for generations, as it would have in Europe. The
idea, however, that the brave Federal marauders
should be shot down by the householders they had
made homeless, and the husbands whose wives they
had outraged, does not appear to harmonise at all
with Gen. Sherman's notions of what he was en-
titled to expect. Are not these brave fellows the
benefactors of their country., and indeed of the whole
human race, to which they are striving
.to render
the inestimable service of restoring the Union by
devastating half of its territories and extermi-
nating the inhabitants ? Such deeds as theirs de-
served a far different fate from that which seems to
have overtaken some of them. Accordingly, Gen.
Sherman applies himself to the task of reforming
this sad state of affairs by a very characteristic
method. He writes a note to General Wade Hamp-
ton, in which he sets out with reciting that, it
having been officially reported to him that his forag-
ing parties are " murdered after capture, and labelled
Death to all foragers'"—instances of which he
specifies—he has ordered a similar number of _Con-
federate prisoners in his hands " to be disposed of in
like manner." He adds that he holds 1,000 pri-
soners, captured in various ways, " and can stand
it as long as you," but suggests that Gen. Wade
Hampton should give notice to the people that every
life taken by them will result in the death of one of
the Confederates. Gen. Sherman then enters into an
abstruse disquisition on the rights of belligerents,
which recalls the famous lectures of Captain Wilkes
upon international war. Of course, he writes, the
Confederates cannot question his right of forage—a
right which, as it is practically forbidden in the pre-
sent case, appears to consist in burning houses, de-
stroying property generally, and insulting women.
It is one of the rights of war old as history. The
Goths, we may add, and the Vandals, and the Huns,
no doubt exercised this sort of right most punctili-
ously. No end of precedents could be cited in favour
of it from the very earliest ages. And the beauty of
it is that the further you carry back your researches,
the stronger and more decisive will your precedents
become. By the time the anthropologists are over-
taken we shall have got at precedents in which can-
nibalism will have to be added to mere arson, rape,
and murder. But the manner of exercising this
right—says Gen. Sherman with oracular emphasis,
as if he were announcing some great discovery or
original principle—varies with circumstances; and
then immediately adds, with odd incoherence,
" and if the civil authorities will supply my re-
quisitions I will forbid all foraging." This mo-
dest proposal, however, is nob likely to be com-
plied with—one notable reason being that he can
find no civil authorities to apply to. He seems to
have expected that they should have come out to
welcome him with open arms ; but, as they are not
courteous enough to .do that, he has to levy contri-
bntions directly on the people. He has "no doubt
that this (the foraging) is the occasion of much
misbehaviour on the part of our men." This is a
candid admission ; but no doubt the facts it con-
fesses, without attempting to avoid them, were too
notorious to be traversed or denied. The note ends
with a formal expression of regret for the bitter feel-
ings engendered by the war, and the usual attempt
to throw the blame on the enemy. Gen. Sherman
repeats that he only asserts his right to forage, and
he expresses his resolution to protect his foragers to
the extent of life for life. General Wade Hampton's
reply is crushing and conclusive. He quotes Gen.
Sherman's statement that several of his foraging
parties had been " murdered," and that he had
ordered an equal number of Confederate prisoners
to be " disposed of in the same way," which he
points out can only mean that he has ordered the
" murder" of the latter. " You characterise your
order in proper terms," writes General Hampton,
" for the public voice, even in your own country,
where it seldom dares express itself in vindication
of truth, honour, or justice, will surely agree with
you in pronouncing you guilty of murder, if your
order is carried out." But if it is carried out, the
Confederate General gives his correspondent clearly
to understand that for every Southern prisoner thus
" murdered" he will cause a couple of Federal pri-
soners to be put to death, " giving preference, in all
cases, to any officers he may have in his hands."
General Hampton denies all knowledge of the mur-
der of any foragers whatever. He never gave any
orders for the execution of prisoners. Nor does he
believe that any of Sherman's soldiers have been
killed, " except under circumstances in which it was
perfectly legitimate and proper to kill them." It
is a part of the system of the " thieves," writes
the General, whom Sherman calls " foragers," to
" fire the dwellings of those citizens whom
they have robbed. To check this inhuman
system, which is justly execrated by every civi-
lised nation, I have directed my men to
shoot' down all of your men who are caught
burning houses. General Hampton does not deny
the right to forage, but protests against the particu-
lar mode of.its exercise. " There is a right older than
this, and one more inalienable—the right that every
man has to defend his home and to protect those
who are dependent upon him ; and from my heart
I wish that every old man and boy in my country
who can fire a gun would shoot down, as he would
a wild beast, the men who are desolating their land,
burning their houses, and insulting their women."
General Hampton next proceeds to still graver
charges against the invaders of his country—
" crimes," he says, which are " too black to be men-
tioned." He asserts that the city of Columbia " was
fired into without a word of warning." The dwell-
ing-houses of citizens have been first robbed and
then set on fire. These things have been permitted,
if not expressly ordered, by the invader. And the
indignant writer asks if these are among the rights
of war which General Sherman is so careful to define,
and so eager to insist upon. Not only was Columbia
fired into, but " the whole city was laid in ruins,
thousands of helpless old men, women, and children
being leftto perish of starvationand exposure.. Your
line of march can be traced by the lurid light of
burning houses, and in more than one household
there is an agony far more bitter than that of death.
The Indian scalped his victim regardless of sex or
age, but with all his barbarities he always respected
the persons of his female captives. Your soldiers,
more savage than the Indian, insult those whose
natural protectors are absent." General Hampton
concludes with a request that he may be informed
whenever any of his countrymen are " disposed of"
or " murdered," in order that he may know what
action to take in the matter, and an intimation
that fifty-six Federal prisoners are being held
as hostages for the twenty-seven Southerners
threatened with execution. If the Confederates
should succeed in giving as good an account of
General Sherman, in a military sense, as General
Hampton has already given of him in a literary
one, his career will soon come to an untimely end.
Nothing can be more unfortunate than this sort of
retaliation, which is not a proceeding which can be
restricted to one side. If the Federals have a suffi-
cient number of prisoners, they will probably retort
with a threat that if two of their men are " disposed
of " in the manner indicated, for every single Con-
federate they will immediately " dispose of " three
or four more Confederates in retaliation. If they
have not prisoners enough, then perhaps they may
take out their revenge in an increase of arson and
devastation. More towns will be bombarded and
burnt that would otherwise be left untouched. It is
to be hoped that General Sherman will reconsider
his resolution, and not initiate a war of absolute
extermination merely because some of his foragers
or marauders have been shot.

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RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

DUNDEE AND PERTH.

The half-yearly meeting was held at Dundee on
Saturday ; Sir P. M. Threipland in the chair.

The report stated that the Scottish Central had
paid over £11,620 as the amount of the guaranteed
dividends for the half-year on this company's stock,
being at the rate of 2i per cent. per annum on the
original, and 5 per annum on the preference stock.
The directors recommended the conversion of the
shares into consolidated stock, corresponding to the
different classes of shares.

The CHAIRMAN, in moving the adoption of the
report, stated that after the 31st of July next the
dividend on the ordinary stock would be at the rate
of 3 per cent. per annum, and the company would
also have the right to half of any surplus profits
that might arise on their line. He trusted that
through the amalgamation of the Caledonian and
Scottish Central and the continued improvement of
trade in Dundee the line would before long earn
surplus profits over and above the guarantee.
The motion was seconded by Mr. Kay and unani-
mously adopted.