New-York tribune., 1874-07-30
GERMANY AND SPAIN.


become intolerable, and it seems as if the Car
list insurrectiOn in Spain were nearing that
point. 1t is doubtless an excellent principle
which counsels nOn-intervention in the do
nestle feuds of Independent nations. But the
world at large has some interest in peace and
quiet, and after reasonable number of years
of mutual throat-cutting, If there appears no
prospect that the end of the quarrel will ever
arrive except by the extermnatl IN OF the peo-
ple a movement for intervention, if it is prac-
ticable, may then be justtable in the interest
of the general welfare.
If such case ever happens it would be
hard to deny its existence in Spain to-day.
The Carlist insurrectiOn cannot be said to
have lost or gained anything in five years.
1t is not properly speaking military move
ment, though it sometimes takes fortified
places and wins battles. 1t has no regular
forces. What is an army to-day melts back
into population of disaffected peasantry to-
morrow, ready the day after to start OH
new march with the Pretender or with some
of his chiefs. The forces are of that quality
that success does not materially advance their
cause, and defeat does not essentially injure
it. The taking of Cuenca did nothing for
them. Their defeat at Bilbao merely drove
them to Estela, and the accidental
death of Concha gave them an OPP
pOrtunity which they did not improve.
They are prompt and energetic only in murder
and pillage. They are strong enough, aided by
the weakness confusion, and poverty of the
administration at Madrid to make the Pyre-
mean border, the Biscayan coast, and the hills
of Navarro uninhabitable for peaceful citizens
and impossible to the traffic of the world. They
do not endanger Marshal Serrano's tenure OF
the Presidency, but they make 1T extremely haz-
ardous for quiet tourist to travel from Bay
onne to BurgOs. They have recently taken it
into their heads to embellish their campaigning
with wholesale murder. We naturally distrust
the sanguinary charges of the Government at
Madrid, and for the credit of human nature we
would hope that the dispatch we printed yes
terday saying that the Carlists had shot 20
prisoners of Nouvillass command might prove
to be exaggerated. But the story of the decima-
ton of the prisoners taken at Cuenca seems to
be confirmed, and, in fact, several of the Car
list leaders, in authentic prOclamatiOns, have
announced and defended the policy of murder
ing all the Republicans they can catch.
All this might afford basis for foreign in
teryenton even without the additional induce
meDt of the occasional murder or robbery Of
foreigners. 1t Is not likely that the shooting
of Mr.. Schmidt would have been enough of
itself to induce the German Empire to order
a fleet into Spanish waters, and to endeayOr
To bring about Joint intervention among the
great European powers. The precedent of
the Eliot Convention during the former Carl
ist war is enough to justify an effort on the
part of civilized nations to put stop to the
frightful atrocities which are taking place
daily in Biscay, Navarro, and Catalonia. But
it is perhaps giving too much credit to the
humanity of the German Court to suppose
that mere philanthropy has dictated the meas
ures it is announced to be taking in this direc-
ton. At time when the Spanish Cabinet ia
deeply irritated against the French on account
of the tacit aid and comfort extended on the
frontier to the Carlist raiders, when strongly
worded diplomatic notes are sent on the sub
iect from Madrid to Versailles, and the Spanish
press is giving expression to bitter popular
feeling, nothing would be more natural than
for sagaciOus statesman like Prince
Bismarck to seize the occasion afforded
by the murder of a German-Outlaw though
he might be-to take such an attitude in re-
laton TO the Carlists, as to gain for Germany
the gratitude of tho Government and the
kindly feeling of the masses.
No one % aQqpslQped " he Ass been to