The Sun.
London, England, 1850-04-26 00:00:00

SPAIN.

The following is the project of law which the
Finance Minister has prepared for the settlement of
the national debt :

" PROJECT OF LAW.

" Art. I. All the credits against the State contained
in any of the existing categories of the public debt shall
be converted into Three per Cent. Annuities, issuing
new documents for the purpose, in bonds payable to the
bearer, or in transferable inscriptions-at the choice of
the parties interested.
" The debt proceeding from treaties with foreign
powers, which shall not be subject to the dispositions of
this law, is excepted.
" The home sad foreign Three per Cent. Debt created,
or which may be creates under existing laws, the which
shall preserve its present situation without change, is also
excepted.

" Art. 2. The conversion shall be realised at the type
of 33 1-3 per cent., i. e., with the reduction of two-third
parts of the capital of the Convertible Debt, the capital
of each class of debt being taken or reduced in order to
effect that reduction in the following manner:—
." The capital of the Active Foreign Debt, and that of
the Interior 5 per Cent., shall be taken for the whole of
their nominal value.

That of the Four per Cent. and Cosolidated Vales
comprised in it, shall be taken at four-fifth parts, or 80
per cent., according to the relation of their interest with
that of the Five per Cents.
" The capital of the Coupons, due and not paid, nor
capitalized; of the Active Debt; and of the Five and
Four per Cent. Internal Debt; the Deuda Corriente of
Five per Cent, with interest in paper; the Non-Conso-
lidated Vales; the Passive Foreign Debt and the Debt
without interest, shall be taken for as much as corre-
sponds, according to the respective and proportionate
value of the same effects, with that of the Five per Cent.
Internal Debt, which results from the average price
which the one and the others have been quoted at in the
year 1849.

- The Deuda Provisional shall be taken divided into
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convert itself, as Deuda Cortiente, con interes a papel,
increasing or lowering the type of conversion of this
latter in proportion as the said interest exceeds or
falls below that of the Five per Cents. Of the
second, that proceeding from securities given, deposits,
salt and tobacco taken possession of, capitals coming
from America, or others of which the Government
of the reslective epoch took possession without title,
shall be converted as the Non-Consolidated Vales. The
rest shall be converted as Debt without interest; and
the same shall be done with the unliquidated interest of
the Deuda Corrieute, of the Life Annuities, and of the
Deuda Provisional proceeding from capitals with interest.
The Life Annuities shall be capitalized at three per cent.,
and the capital which may result shall be taken and con-
verted as that of the Five per Cents.; but in place of in-
scriptions or bonds of perpetual annuities, certificates
sessors.
shalt be issued, payable during the life of their pos-

" Art. 3. The credits against the State still pending
liquidation, shall continue belonging to the correspon(l-
- classes if debt, according to the dispositions in
willvigour, f
their holdersarsdtherewv inalu theshillNew u
hoe convertiblefireper Cent.
Annuities, at the
Annuiths, according to their class, under the rules es-
tablished in the preceding article.
Art. 4. The certificates of the Old Ds bt, denomintatsd
Deferred, issued at Paris in 1831, shall have the option
of corning into the new conversion, their capital being
taken as that of the Passive Debt.
" Art. 5. The documents of the Old Foreign Debt of
Five per Cents., which were not converted in virtue of
the law of 1834, in consequence of not having been pre-
sented within the periods assigned, shall also have option
for the conversion.
" These credits shall be recognised now, and be taken
with respect to two-third parts of their representative
value in Active Debt, and one-third part in Passive
Debt.
"Art. 6. For an equal reason the capitals of the Old
Foreign Three per Cent. Debt, which were not pre-

mated at the epoch referred to, shall I,e acimiq.6 for
conversion, being taktn as Active Debt on two-third
parts and as Passive Debt on the othe'r third, a'ter
deducting true-tifth parts, corresponding to the
difference between the Five and Three per Cents.
" Art. 7. The Coupons duo up to NoTanber, 1533, and
the cedulss of premium which were not presented for
conversion at the proper time, shall also be admitted for
conversion, taking them as Active Debt for two-thirds,
and Passive for one-third.

" Art. 8. The conversion shall be voluntary on the
part of the creditors.
" Art. 9. The interest of the New Three per Cents.
shall be paid half-yearly, on the 30th of June and 31:4
December of each year, and its payment shall be effected
in Spain.

" :Art. 10. The conversion shall begin from the Ist
January, 1851. The new interest shall begin to date
from that day for those who present themselves for con-
version before the Ist of July of that year. Those who
may present themselves subsequently shall only have
right to interest from the half-year following that in
which they effected it.
" Art. 11. The Government is authorised to create,
besides the New Three per Cents. necessary for the
conversion, those strictly rt quired for meeting the legal
obligations emanating from tho conversion of 1834, and
those which may have been unpaid, giving account to the
Cortes of the use they might make of this authorization.

„
"Art. 12. The Goveinment is equally authorized,
under the same obligatior, to give account to the Cortes
to arrange and compromise the accounts of the old I( ems
which should be still pending, in the terms which it nay
consider most equitable and advantageous to the State.
” Art. 13. The result of the conversion and the nuuibur
of the new documents which may be issued, and their
amount, shall be published periodically in the Madrid
Gazette for the it atisfaction of the creditors.

" Art. 14. Beyond the amount actually destined for the
debt which in reality enjoys interest, and the increase
which that sum must have in fulfilment of the disposi-
tions in vigour, there shall be consigned in the general
estimates of the State the sum of,Bo millions of reals for
the payment of the interest and redemption of the New
Three per Cent. Annuities, applying especially to the
second object the surplus which, after paying the inte-
rest, may result in each year' out of the said eighty
millions.

" Art. 15. The faculty which the purchasers of na-
tional property now enjoy of giving money in certain
cases equivalent to the stock in payment of the price, is
extended to all cases, permitting them to pay what they
owe for the instalments now due, or which become due,
in stock or money.

"In the first case they may realise it in the values
actually signalised, or in the New Three per Cent. Stock,
admitting it with the increase proportionate to the reduc-
tion which those values should have suffered through the
conversion.

" In the second case they shall deliver in money the
sum corresponding to the effective value of the stock,
according to the quotations of epoch in which the pay-
ment takes place, or that which may result from the
average price of the same stock for the five years from
1845 to 1849, at their option.
" Art. 16. In future, all the sales of national property
which may be alienated under the dispositions in vi-
gour, shall be made for money. The price shall be paid
in twenty yearly instalments-6 per cent. in each of
the first ten years, and 4 per cent. in each of the re-
mainder.

" Art.l7. The products in cash of the sales of estates
effected in consequence of the two preceding articles, as
well as the amount of the promissory notes payable in
cash, given by the purchasers of the estates of the secular
clergy, and which has not been disposed of up to this
day, saving the responsibility to which they are affected,
shall have special application to the payment of the in-
terest and redemption of the New Three per Cents.,
forming part of eighty millions which has to be assigned
in the budget for that object, with reference to what is
disposed in Article 14.
" Art. 18. All the surplus which may result for the
future, after covering the obligations of the budget of the
respective year, shall be applied to the redemption of
the debt.

" Art. 19 The Colonial Debt, the credits of the pos-
sessors if of alienated, those of capitalizations, and
others whose recognition and payment are now pending,
shall be the object of a special law, which the Govern-
ment will submit opportunely to the Corts.
" JUAN BRAVO MURILLO.
" Madrid, &c." (sic.)