The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-21 00:00:00

SPAIN.

About ten days must elapse before the official report of
the recent elections can be made known, but in the mean-
time estimates have been published
,which seem to
approximate to the truth. According to these the
Monarchists have decidedly the preponderance, but
the Republicans have gained a respectable minority.
The whole number of deputies is 352, and of these the
Republicans, according to a Renter's telegram, number
68—a calculation which coincides with that given in the
Paris journals. Considering that the Republican party
scarcely existed at the time of the Revolution, this is by
no means a meagre, nor is it likely that it will be an unin-
fluential return. The Republican leaders, however, had
calculated on winning about a hundred seats. According
to a French telegram, the Bourbon party had returned
from fifteen to eighteen representatives, the remaining
deputies belonging to various shades of the Monarchist
tarty.

The first day of the elections was devoted to a pre-
liminary operation, the appointment of the Mesas, or
electoral boards. These consist of a president and four
councillors, to whom is confided the management of the
elections, the receiving and counting of votes. A certain
number of electors meet at each of the polling places, of
which there are 17,000 in Spain, and choose these impor-
tant functionaries. Their nomination would be of conse-
quence even if they were strictly impartial, but under
existing circumstances it is all important ; " for," says
the Times correspondent, "the general opinion is that the
boards are boundless in their influence over the issues of
an election, and that they are equally unsparing in the
use of it.

So far as the result of the first trial of universal suffrage
in Spain can be known, it has worked on pretty much the
same principle as in England. Tiic immense army of
voters has not attempted any electoral revolution, and at
the same time it has not shewn itself wholly indifferent to
politics, as is evident from the growth of a party which a
few months ago was not in existence. Still, it is
desirable that the free and independent electors
should have known what they were doing, but
this primary condition was by no means fulfilled
in all cases. In Madrid there were three separate
lists of candidates—the Monarchists, headed by Prim ; the
Republicans, headed by Orense ; and the Moderates, by
the still suffering Marquis de Novaliches. These lists
were printed and distributed to every elector—that is, to
every passer by ; and as some of them got a multiplicity
of lists, and were unable to distinguish one from the other,
the question of political principle was in many instances
reduced to a lottery decision. The vote was given by
written or printed papers. The Spaniards arc far in
advance of the English in this respect. Their voting
places were very numerous ; so numerous that no one need
walk more than a hundred yards to record his decision.
but in no case was any of the booths in or near a drinking
establishment.

The correspondent of the Star says that a fusion of the
Progressists and the Republicans was seriously contem-
plated a few clays back. As Prim is head of the Progres-
sist party, such a union would have been irresistible, but
the Republicans declined it.

The Times correspondent mentions a rumour of a pro-
jected Monarchist expedition organised in Spain to sail
from Gibraltar in favour of Count Girgenti.