Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-06-03
NO PEACE FOR SPAIN.
Internal Complications That Are Ger
tain to Follow.
From the London Spectator

Internal Complications That Are Ger
tain to Follow.
From the London Spectator
The worst part of the whole affair for
Srain is that. as we have said, the Spanish
government cannot rely upon its own peo-
pie. Already greatly, irritated by the fall
ure to defend the Philippines, they will
we should fear, consider the impotence of
| the Atlantic fleet final proof of the in
competence of their government. Nations
are never satisfied to wait YEARLY till a
waiting policy succeeds particularly if
waiting involves taxation to the bone.
There Will be risings I'm every corner of
Spain. gravely increased in seriousness nv
the bitterness Of the hundred thousand
families which will coneider. quite natural
ly. though unfairly, that their children the
soldiers now in Cuba. have been deserted
by the mother country. 1t will he neces-
sary to strengthen the executive IF onJv
for the restoration of order which. when a
Latin people is excited, goes so RAPIDLY 70
pieces, and we may, we think rely on II
snat the army. now the only organism in
upon military dictatorship Already. in
deed, committee or junta of generals has
been formed in Madrid, ostensibly to pro
tect military interests, but really to take
care that when the hour arrives the reei-
nents should not fire upon one another
but that TIE army shall act as a whole.
About the direction in which il will act
there is much uncertainty, but it seems
clear that any military dictatorship must
maintain order. that it must have some
foothold other than its own will-even
Prfm did not venture to proclaim himself
King of Spain-and that it must continue
the war, the bad management of which
will be the excuse for the pronuncia-
miento.
We still incline, therefore, to the belief
that tie queen regent will retire, that the
new regent will be soldier-possibly a
man at present little known out of Spain
and that he will issue his DEGREES in the
name of the child king. There will, how
ever, be no peace, and we are bound to
add that the symptoms of discomfort
which may produce a more radical convul-
sion begin to multiply. In Spain, as in
Italy. there are evidences of almost mex
plicable economic trouble. To use an in
accurate but Ineligible simile, a wave of
paupcrism is passing over the land. Such
a trouble is natural in Barcelona, which
was maintained by its monopoly of Cuban
trade, and has lost it; but there Is bitter
suffering, actual want of the means of
healthy existence in many other cities and
at least some of the agricultural provinces.
No man except the Osmanli bears hunger
patiently; and the man of the Mediterra
mean states, conscious of fertile land and
of certain richness in the nature round
him, grows furious under the pain which
he attributes either to the neglect or the
malice of his suDeriors. Under this i'm
pulse the people when they rise fight hard,
they direct their attacks against the we'll
to-do, and they are hardly to be appeased
till they have shed blood. In fact. though
we suppose the army can and will main
tain order, the social revolution in Spain,
the demand, that is, that property be in
some measure at least redstrbuted, may
have commenced We shall see but of this
mitch we feel almost assured, that a much
more despotc regime of some kind will be
introduced, that it will continue the war,
and that its watchwords, even If it is re-
publican, will be "stubbornness" and fresh
alliances Those who expect the over
throw of the government are doubtless
right: those VINO look for the downfall of
the dynasty as we'll as of the government
may be right: but those who look for
peace as a result of either event reckon,
we believe. without the Spanish people and
its second executive agent, the Spanish
army.