SPANISH LOANS. 



Reales. 



Thus upon these two descriptions of loans Spain 



stands indebted ....... 4,986,000,000 



For which she has received values real or pretended 



to the amount of .... 1,247,000,000 



Balance against Spain yet to be liquidated on this 



race of public spoliation . . . 3,739,000,000 



Or between forty and fifty millions sterling! 



It is with these circumstances fresh in our recollection, that the 

 Conde Toreno and some of his former associates have recommenced 

 the ruinous business of loan-jobbing. The former Cortes, we have 

 seen, saddled the state with nearly double the amount of loans in 

 thirty-three months that the absolute Ferdinand did in ten years, to 

 say nothing of the differential proceeds so greatly in favour of the 

 latter. The first proposed loan of these worthy gentlemen (who, 

 after their former intimate union, re-entered Spain almost together, 

 one of the contractors following close upon the heels of his ancient 

 confederate) was signed on the 6th of December last, for 701,754,386 

 reales, nominal capital, or at the price of 60 effective money, or 

 about four millions and a quarter sterling. The interest at five per 

 cent., according to former precedents, commences on the 1st of No- 

 vember previous. The usual juggle is played in the delivery to 

 the contractor of 150,000,000 of bonds by anticipation, before an in- 

 stalment is payable. Should the price in the Stock-exchange exceed 

 66, within three months from the date of the contract, the last half 

 of the loan is to be paid at the rate of 66 ; but the danger of that 

 has been avoided, since the period has already elapsed, and the 

 bonds carefully kept below the price until the danger was passed. 

 Then we have again another hocus pocus of a conversion of old 

 stock into new, to be entrusted to the sole " charge of M. Ardoin, 

 under the superintendence of the minister of finance," his old friend 

 Toreno; so that the operation may not deluge the public with bonds 

 to the deterioration of the premiums, but the " state of markets" be 

 consulted. The holders of old bonds are indeed to be permitted, 

 by special " convention" with the contractor, to take all or part of 

 the new loan by "fragments of specie ;" and, finally, we have [the 

 customary mystification about " active " and "passive" debt, with 

 other such like rigmarole to " split the ears of the groundlings." 



We have faith, however, that the project will fail, and that the 

 lessons of the past are not absolutely thrown away upon our country- 

 men, for it is against them the conspiracy is directed. With a civil 

 war raging in the heart of Spain, in which Don Carlos has so far 

 the upper hand that all the queen's generals are shut up, and rarely 

 venture to quit the defences of their fortresses ; with a revenue de- 

 creasing by nearly one-fourth, from the impossibility, as Toreno 

 admits, of receiving any supplies or taxes from Aragon, Biscay, 

 Guipuzcoa, and Navarre, the insurgent districts he might add 

 Valencia and Catalonia also it ,is an insanity without parallel in 

 the annals of St. Luke's to loan further millions to a government al- 

 most irrecoverably bankrupt ; which indeed would reach its coffers 



