The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-03-14
THE SPANISH BASQUE LAND
MOST ANCIENT AND MOST MOD
ERN PEoPLE-QUAINT, INDUS
TRIoUs, HoME-LoVING. PROS
PERoUs-MosT CATHOLIC PART
OF SPAIN-LEADERS IN MATE
RIAL AND INTELLECTUAL PROG
RESS.

RIAL AND INTELLECTUAL PROG
REss.
Every school-boy knows, writes Rev.
w. T. Kane, S. j., in America" that
the Basques are one of the most dis
tinctive peoples in Europe. At all
times a mere handful compared with
the nations-even now, in their four
provinces in Spain, they number rather
less than million-yet they are
handful who have kept their race,
their speech, and their fixed abode
practically intact for twenty-five cen
turtles or more. Spain, and the oldest
people in Spain-there is the glamour
of romance in the very words! Well,
the history of the Basques is romantic
enough beyond doubt; but the living
Basques are great deal too busy to
go in much for romances, except it
be the modern romance of business
success.
Their dress is not in the least spec
tacular; they do not even wear bells,
except in their dances. One must go
to Aragon, Andalusia, or Leon, for
picturesque costumes. There are
only two distinguishing things in the
garb of the Basque: the boina, sort
of golfng cap without visor, and
cleanliness. And the chief of their
quaint customs are purity of life and
respect for their parents. For the
most part, they are simple farmers,
more interested in plough-oxen than
in bull fights. They are not sprightly
or gay, as the Andalusians, much less
proudly reserved and severe as the
Castilians. They are the Irish of the
South, with the Irish humor and
warmheartedness and loyalty-but
without the Irish wit; sturdy, frank,
free people, clean-built and muscular,
with the swing of the mountaineer in
their stride, and the breeziness of the
mountains in their speech, and in
their hearts a love of liberty almost
savage in it's intensity.
Beaten But Not Conquered.
They have been beaten hundreds of
they have never been conquered. To-
day, though they occupy provinces of
Spain situated in little pocket in
the North, between the Pyrenees, the
Cantabrians, and the Bay of Biscay,
they enjoy a greater share of indie
pendence than any other part of the
peninsula. There was only one way
| to keep them quiet, and that was to
| give them their ancient laws and the
almost complete control of their do
nestle affairs-a sort of Home Rule
Each province levies and collects it's
own taxes, and after paying the Gov
eminent of Madrid stipulated per-
centage, disburses the revenue so
gained in works for the benefit Of
the taxpayers. That is one of the
reasons why the Basque provinces,
Navarro, Alaba, GuipuZcoa and Bis
caya, are head and shoulders above
the rest of Spain in material pros
perity.
A stranger coming from CASTLE into
the Basque country knows at once
that he has passed frontier, for he
has come from a desert to garden.
The Basque land is much the poorer
of the two, in fact, one Of the poorest
soils in Spain; but the Basques know
| how to use phosphates, to rotate"
crops, and SO on, and they reap ex-
cellent harvests. Their fields are a
delight to look upon, clean, perfectly
drained, tended with intelligent care.
They have the best roads in Spain;
| indeed, there are no better in Eu-
rope. They have utilized their noun
tain streams with remarkable en-
cheering skill to generate an astound-
ing amount of electric power. They
have twice as many miles of railroads,
relatively, as the rest of the country.
They have electric lights everywhere,
even in villages of fifty houses. They
have the only provincial telephone in
Spain, with splendid service. In Gui-
puzcoa there is hardly a farmhouse
without it's telephone, and from any
where in the province one may call
up San Sebastian, the capital, for the
price of five cents. They have we'll
established savings banks, and an ef-
fective system of agricultural syndi-
calism. They have the best worked
mines in Spain, and in manufactures
they are second only to Catalina.
Their percentage of literacy is the
highest, and of criminalism the low
est in the entire country. In word,
the Basques are not merely the most
ancient, they are also the most mod
ern people in Spain.
Most Catholic Part of Spain.
Yet in one sense they refuse to be
modernized. Just as they have fought
off the attempts of Spain to rob them
of their ancient language and force
Castilian upon them instead. so they
have thus far at least, fought off the
thousand evils that modern progress
brings in it's train. They have taken
profit of every advance in civilization;