, 1875-08-11
The "a I s"
S p [ N.
From the Times
IS PUBLISHED
RVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.

KING ALFoNso's friends are to try what can
be done for Spain by means of another Consti.
tuition. About the time when his military
prospects began to brighten a Committee had
nearly finished the task of preparing a new
form of Government, and we now know its
chief proposals There are, of course, to be
twOC Chambers. The members of the Senate
are to be of three classes, one to sit in virtue
of hereditary right, a second to be elected by
popular corporate bodies, and the third to be
chosen by the CROWN. All Spanish grandees
who have an income of $4,000 a year are also
to be Senators. We are likewise told that for
every $4,000 persons there will be a Deputy
IN the LoW House, and that the KING will
appoint the Ministers and dissolve Parliament.
We fear that thes5 details will call forth a
smile from these who know Spain. She has
had so many Constitutions Her statesmen
have been manufacturing them for the last
sixty years, and She has now the best assort-
ment in the world. Democratic, rigidlv Mon
archical, tolerant and intolerant, brand.new
and patched " Constitutions, have by turns
been tried and cast off. Whenever anv radi-
sal Party has got. the upper hand, whenever
3 military.revolt has given the supreme power
to any soldier, or whenever the Court has won
back any lost authority, the vietors have
usually tried to. transform the Constitutional
mac. me-. They have been forced 10 do SO.
indeed, b ythe attempts of their predecessors TO
EG2cGH such a Legislature as would be the
servant of a Party rather than the representa-.
tive Of the nation. Nothing less would con.
tent the CorteS Of Cadiz in 1912 than to frame
a Constitution IN accordance with the princi-
pies Of the French Revolution. Itmattered not
that most of the people were still devout
Catholics, that they were too ignorant to un-
derStand the Democratic creed, aud that the
S~oeplical and Radical Deputies spoke in the
name Of only a few cities. Having the su-
preme power for the moment, the Cortes felt
bound to use it, lest such q chance should not
come again. In exactly the same spirit
FERDINAND VII..cast aside the Constitution
a couple Of years afterwards, restored the
1nquisition, and ruled like a despOt. These
two cases are examples of the way in which
the rival Parties have tripped each other up
and undone each others work down to the pre-
sent time. Nothing can be more bewildering
or disheartening than the Strifes of MARTINEZ
DE LA Rosa, M~BNDIZABAL, OLozAGA, NARvAEz,
and O'DONNELL, or than the wretcbed Court
i~ntrigues and the military revolutions by which
their Ministries were formed and overthrown,
or than the setting up and the pulling down
"a thO OOH0'AVUtAoh"A UOtlCSS ny WH1Cu GdCH VIC
tOrious Party strove to defend itself against the
peris Of the morrow. Thus, King ALFoNso's
friends are making a sadly familiar addition
to the history CT modern Spain. They would
not be madrid politicians if they did not
desire to put the young KING on the same
level as FERDINAND VII, Queen CHRISTINA,
Queen ISABELLA, and the Federal Republic,
by giving him a Constitution Of his own. But,
even if it should become law, it will, of course,
be flung aside in a few years, to be replaced
by another, which will be deemed as essential
as this one to the security of the nation, and
which will in turn swell the melancholy heap
of Constitutional failures.
Meanwhile the authors of the scheme wish
as to believe that it is a great improvement on
the system left by Queen ISABELLA; but, in
truth, everything will depend on the conduct
OF the nation itself. The chief fault of the dis
carded ConstituIen was that, in spite of theo-
fetical checks, it practically left the SOVEREIGN
free to do what she liked. As her devoted
servant GONZALEZ Bravo said, it was neither
frank Constitutionalism nor frank Despotism.
II was q ltreaeherous mixture of both, The
neT. plans parade restrictions on the power of
thes4ANG, and therefore of the victorious Cen
erals by whom he may be led but Spanish
Graf. will indeed fail if it should not be able to
.Act as if these checks were so MANY cobwebs.
The authors of the plan unconsciously satirize
their handiworkl when they say, with a strange
ifack of Spanish humour, that the nublie debt il