EDITOR'S TABLE. 



123 



suits inspires a contempt for indus- 

 trial pursuits and gives birth to a 

 feeling of superiority over the people 

 engaged in them we see to-day in 

 France and Germany. In those 

 countries it has come to such a pass 

 that civilians are regarded as almost 

 without rights, since an officer im- 

 agining himself insulted may run 

 them through with his sword, and 

 as having no other function in 

 the economy of the world but to 

 work for their masters. In Spain 

 during the years of her greatest mili- 

 tary activity these feelings of a bar- 

 barian reached an intensity that can 

 not now be realized. The only oc- 

 cupation outside of killing and plun- 

 dering enemies either in Europe or 

 America that a gentleman could fol- 

 low was a career as a churchman or 

 as an official in the home or colonial 

 administration. " Public offices," 

 says Henry C. Lea, describing the 

 results of this absurd belief, " were 

 multiplied recklessly, and the steady 

 increase in the ranks of the clergy, 

 regular and secular, was a constant 

 subject of remonstrance. In 1626 

 Navarette tells us that there were 

 thirty-two universities and more than 

 four thousand grammar schools 

 crowded with sons of artisans and 

 peasants striving to fit themselves 

 for public office or holy orders. 

 Most of them failed in this through 

 inaptitude, and drifted into the 

 swarms of tramps and beggars who 

 were a standing curse to the com- 

 munity." Hence the abnormal pro- 

 portions of the ecclesiastical and bu- 

 reaucratic establishments ; hence also 

 the almost total failure to develop 

 the great natural resources of the 

 country; hence, finally, the unpros- 

 perous condition of the industries 

 not crushed out of existence by the 

 regulations of the official parasites. 



To many people the callousness 

 of Spaniards to suffering and their 

 disregard of the rights of others have 



seemed the greatest mystery. "Why 

 is it that they still cling so tenacious- 

 ly to the pleasures of the bull ring ? 

 Why was it that they appeared so 

 indifferent to the miseries of the 

 Cuban reconcentrados ? In the light 

 of the influence of war on the sym- 

 pathies these questions present no 

 difficulty. Clear also does it become 

 why the Spaniards possess as little 

 patriotism as the Chinese. Training 

 for centuries in the belief that the 

 most honorable occupation is the 

 killing and plundering of enemies 

 or the filling of positions in church 

 and state that obviate the necessity 

 of earning a livelihood by honest 

 toil is not fitted to inspire a keen 

 sense of justice or a lively fellow- 

 feeling. When people have been 

 plundered for centuries by a greedy 

 bureaucratic despotism they can not 

 persuade themselves that it is their 

 duty to protect their oppressors from 

 foreign or domestic assailants. What 

 they are most interested in is an op- 

 portunity to get a living. Whether 

 the honor of their country is at stake, 

 or whether there is threatened the 

 loss of the last remnant of a colonial 

 empire that has cost them blood and 

 treasure beyond estimate, they are 

 certain to be as indifferent as the 

 victims of a slave driver to the 

 misfortunes that have overtaken 

 him. 



Some friends of Spain have been 

 inclined to regard the loss of these 

 colonies as the culmination of her 

 misfortunes. We can not but regard 

 it as the beginning of better days. 

 Although Spain has not been en- 

 gaged in war on an extensive scale 

 for a long time, her efforts to retain 

 the control of a people anxious to be 

 delivered from her incapacity and 

 despotism have tended to keep alive 

 the barbarous feelings and traditions 

 of the past. The Cubans and Porto 

 Eicans were not governed for their 

 own benefit like the colonists of 



