The Republican., 1898-04-07
NATIONAL DOOM.
Thoughts About Spain.
BY MEMO"
Copyrighted by pawe & Tabor l

The demon that has been steadily
and relentlessly forcing Spain toward
its final national plunge, is preparing
to close the compact, wherein Spain
as a nation four centuries ago chose
wealth rather than wisdom, and pride
rather than progress. Even leaving
out of consideration for moment
the present conflict in Cuba, the evil
dences of certain national doom can
easily be read.
To orender the thought more definite
will make three groups of weak
nesses, any one of which will be fatal
to nation in the long run.
COLONIAL GREED:-If we look
back at the conquests of a few CEN
turies ago, when frequent tidings of
new continents and boundless wealth
fired the souls of adventurous men,
the skirts of no nation will be found
tentirely free from innocent blood.
But gentler times have brought gent
Ter methods, and the value of having
populous colonies instead of ravaged
miles to rule over is found to be ulti-
mately of the greatest advantage to
the home country. This is only an
other evidence that the world prog
resses. But while the scales of inhu-
manity have fallen from the eyes of
England, and other nations that at
tempt to vie with her in colonizing
policies, Spain is as cruel as in the
days of Pizarro in Peru, and Cortez in
Mexico. With an absolute lust for
wealth the new territories were
then regarded as fair prey to be merci-
lessly stripped of everything valuable
and portable. The spirit of the men
who carved her vast empire out of a
new world has remained unchanged
through the centuries. Whatever
colonial positions were open have
been filled by Spanish nobility; in
many cases without regard to fitness
of the person or the advantage of the
colony. Indirect gain from the devel-
opment of colony has never been
regarded with such favor as the direct
results to be attained by squeezing
out taxes and farming out lucrative
offices. In progressive age, this is
ci 4 c,Ni,.if Of calf 1ofi
The inevitable has been the loss one
by one, of the very jewels of her dia-
dem of empire, until now out of a
territory once unequaled either in
natural wealth or extent, there re-
main the very minor possessions of
Porto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippine
Islands.
AGRICULTURAL UNPRO GRES-
SIVENESS:-About the beginning of
the 10th century, Spain, possessed of
religious fury adriotly mingled with
greed, expelled the Jews and the
Moors and confiscated their property
1t thus inflicted as severe national
injury to itself as France did later
when it drove out the Huguenots;
for it stripped itself of its best farmers
and mechanics. In 1909, believe, it
gave agriculture further fatal blow
by expelling the Christianized Moors
AS consequence the very basis of
national prosperity is remarkably un-
developed in Spain. The crudest i'm
plements are still in use, and great
regions that the Moors had rendered
productive fell back to wilderness.
Similar short-sightedness character
lied her abroad. When Pizarro land
ed in Peru, the strip of land fifty or
more miles wide, stretching from the
ocean front to the foothills of the An
des, supported prosperous popula-
ton of many hundreds of thousands.
The patient Peruvians had, by vast
irrigation works, made this sandy
desert blossom like the rose. In some
cases they had constructed aqueducts
hundreds of miles long, and even
pierced mountains in order that this
region might be watered. The desert
is once more triumphant. The con-