CONVERSATIONS WITH A SPANISH LIBERAL. 241 



impracticable as the re-conquest of the American mines, and who 

 loudly clamour, as in Portugal, for the confiscation of the church 

 property, to satisfy their demands. Now a nation sunk so low 

 in the scale of political degradation as Spain, you will allow, it is 

 utterly impracticable to regenerate otherwise than by the operation 

 of slow and gradual means (if always they will attain a result, of 

 which the page of history offers no example) ; but, if the process be 

 forced, it will inevitably lead to anarchy and bloodshed ; and an at- 

 tempt to confiscate the church property at this moment, when Spain 

 resembles a smothered volcano., would to a certainty produce that re- 

 sult. Recollect, for an instant, that it was their intemperate zeal, 

 their fierce crusade against the property of the church, which proved 

 so fatal to the Constitution of 1820. On the suppression of the con- 

 vents, no purchasers were to be found, so that those very resources, 

 which the Cortes imagined would be the most ready at hand, became 

 an actual incumbrance. But the experience of the past, it is to be 

 hoped, will enlighten the future ; and measures only will be now at- 

 tempted, warranted by the necessity of the times. Thus, the suppres- 

 sion of the conventual, then the property of the military commanderies, 

 &c. a will take place gradually, as the present incumbents die off; 

 the state receiving a portion of their revenues, as their numbers di- 

 minish, till, at length, they are finally extinguished, and the whole 

 revolves to the state. Thus will be achieved this salutary measure, 

 by the operation of a slow but sure process.* 



" In fact it is only by the exercise of consummate skill, and of pa- 

 tient endurance, that Spain can be regenerated. Look at her, de- 

 graded as she is, by ages of political misrule and monkish supersti- 

 tion ; her people in that diversified state of society, arising from their 

 long political discentralization, to which it is so difficult to adopt any 

 general system of new legislation and mode of government ; and 

 frankly tell me if the obloquy with which this measure of Torreno has 

 been assailed, is merited. He has acknowledged one-half the debt 

 in the shape of an active stock (more, by-the-by, than ever reached 

 the Spanish coffers of the loan), the remainder is constituted a de- 

 ferred stock. The payment of which will, of course, depend upon 

 the development of those resources which have so long slumbered 

 beneath the shade of Spanish misrule, and the consolidation upon a 

 firm basis of the constitutional system." 



" But, without the aid of foreign loans, how," said I, " are the 

 great works of internal improvement to be effected ?" 



e( By dint of the strictest economy, and an improved system of 

 fiscalization. To develop our resources but by the aid of foreign 

 loans, would be to develop them to the sole profit of the foreign 

 money-lender. Not, should loans be necessary, that there will be 

 the difficulty you suppose in raising them, unless it can be proved 

 that the destinies of nations in the 19th century depend upon the 



* The value of the church property in Spain has been estimated at 51,000,000 

 dollars per annum. By a report made by Arguelles, the Minister of Finance, to 

 the Cortes, in 1821, the annual revenues of the church were estimated at one- 

 third more than those of the state domains. 



