628 



SPAIN. 



region in northwestern Africa is retained, about 

 100,000 miles in extent, but Adrar is conceded to 

 France. In the disputed Rio Campo and Muni 

 region opposite the island of Corisco France con- 

 cedes to Spain a territory, populous and fertile, 

 about 8,000 square miles in extent. The delimita- 

 tion of the boundary was carried out in 1901 by 

 a mixed commission. The islands of Fernando 

 Po, Annabon, Corisco, and Elobey and San Juan 

 have a combined area of 850 square miles, with 

 about 30,000 inhabitants. The station of Ifni, 

 near Cape Nun, has an area of 27 square miles, 

 with 6,000 inhabitants. 



Railroads, Posts, and Telegraphs. There 

 were 8,170 miles of railroads in operation on Jan. 

 1, 1900. 



Politics and Legislation. The session of the 

 Cortes which began on Nov. 20, 1900, was ad- 

 journed indefinitely on Jan. 15, 1901. The time 

 was spent mostly in retrospective discourses and 

 the discussion of political incidents, personal ques- 

 tions, and the approaching royal nuptials. The 

 budget of 1901 was not discussed, nor the pro- 

 posed revision of the alcohol duty and of the 

 pension system. The pensions, increasing year by 

 year, amounted in the estimates for 1901 to 70,- 

 000,000 pesetas. The Budget Committee consid- 

 ered a project for the emission of 5-per-cent. re- 

 deemable bonds to realize 150,000,000 pesetas an- 

 nually so as to extinguish in seven years the war 

 loans obtained from the Bank of Spain. The con- 

 vention with foreign bondholders for the conver- 

 sion of 1,043,000,000 pesetas of 4-per-cent. debt 

 was not voted by the Senate. The debate on the 

 military reforms of Gen. Linares was barely be- 

 gun. The annual contingents for the army and 

 navy were fixed. A commercial treaty with 

 Japan was approved; also the treaty with the 

 United States for the cession, in consideration of 

 the payment of $100,000, of certain islands in the 

 South Sea not included in the treaty of peace 

 concluded on Dec. 12, 1898; and a treaty with 

 France which provided for the delimitation of 

 frontiers in equatorial Africa on the Numi river 

 and in the Gold Coast. To arrive at the paltry 

 results of the session the Azcarraga Government 

 had to appeal to the aid of Senor Silvela at times 

 or to the benevolence of Senor Sagasta, even to 

 the support of the dissentient Liberals who follow 

 Seiior Gamazo or to the Duke of Tetuan's dissi- 

 dent Conservatives, when the majority threatened 

 to revolt against the Ministers of the Interior, 

 of Public Works, and of Education. A law au- 

 thorizing the Minister of Marine to arm as coast- 

 guards 4 old vessels discarded from the effective 

 fleet was passed with the help of Opposition votes. 

 The parties were split up into a great number of 

 shifting groups and factions the Conservatives 

 into Silvelists, Catholics of the school of Azcar- 

 raga and Sanchez Toca, Ultramontanes of the 

 Pidal shade, modern Conservatives of the Dato 

 kind, dissident Conservatives of the following of 

 the Duke of Tetuan and Navarro Reverter; the 

 Liberals were Sagastinos, Constitutional Liberals, 

 Democrats of the shade of Moret and Aguilara, 

 Advanced Liberals, Young Liberals like Canale- 

 jas, Old Liberals of the shade of Montero Rios, 

 Dissentient Liberals led by Gamazo and Maura; 

 the Carlists were divided into moderate and im- 

 patient sections; the Republicans were Progress- 

 ists, Federalists, Socialists, Catalanists, Moder- 

 ates, or Opportunists. Outside of the purely po- 

 litical parties were the elements seeking to shake 

 off the control of politicians and the ruling 

 classes, such as the revolutionary Socialists. 

 Since no budget had been voted, that of 1901 by 

 the decree of Dec. 31, 1900, became the provisional 



budget for 1902. The convention with foreign 

 bondholders fixed Dec. 31, 1900, as the date for 

 the ratification of the arrangement for the con- 

 version of the 4-per-cent. stamped external debt 

 into 3i-per-cent. amortizable debt; failing ratifi- 

 cation by the Cortes, both parties from that date 

 would regain their liberty of action. The con- 

 vention was opposed on the ground that it did 

 not obtain enough and that it tied the hands of 

 the Spanish Government for sixty years. The 

 failure of the Senate to give its approval restored 

 the right of the bondholders to 4 per cent, interest 

 in gold exempt from taxation. Military reforms, 

 including universal service, reform of the civil 

 service, and a revision of the concordat, were, in 

 addition to an overhauling of the pension system, 

 the tasks which the Conservative ministry prom- 

 ised to fulfil. 



In February anticlerical demonstrations took 

 place, evoked by the drama Electra, by Galdos, 

 and by a lawsuit over the enforced detention of 

 a wealthy heiress in a convent. The demonstra- 

 tions were directed also against the marriage of 

 the Princess of the Asturias, the heiress to the 

 throne, to Prince Carlos of Bourbon-Canerta, son 

 of the former chief of staff in the army of Don 

 Carlos. Blood flowed in several cities. In Gra- 

 nada gendarmes shot into a mob from a cloister 

 and killed several persons. In Madrid riotous 

 demonstrations by students and others took place 

 in front of Jesuit establishments when the parents 

 of the Senorita Ubao applied for the custody of 

 their daughter, who had entered a convent before 

 she was twenty-five years old. The disturbance 

 spread to Saragossa, Valencia, Santander, Ali- 

 cante, Barcelona, and Malaga. On Feb. 14 a state 

 of siege was proclaimed in Madrid. The Jesuits 

 in the capital and in other cities fled to rural 

 convents when their buildings were .smashed in. 

 The trades association of Madrid appealed to the 

 Government to forbid industrial labor in cloisters 

 and thus put an end to the disastrous competi- 

 tion with free labor of the religious orders, which 

 pay no taxes. The marriage of the Princess of 

 the Asturias was celebrated on Feb. 14. 



At a Cabinet council on Feb. 25 the ministers 

 decided to resign so as to enable a new Cabinet 

 to frame the budget of 1902, and on the day fol- 

 lowing Gen. Azcarraga presented their resigna- 

 tions, which the Queen-Regent accepted. A coali- 

 tion Cabinet of all the parties under Gen. Azcar- 

 raga could not be formed because Senor Silvela, 

 the Conservative leader, refused to give it his 

 support. Senor Sagasta undertook to form a 

 Liberal Cabinet, which was constituted on March 

 6 as follows: Premier, P. M. Sagasta; Minister 

 of the Interior, Senor Moret; Minister of War, 

 Gen. Weyler; Minister of Foreign Affairs, the 

 Duke of Almodovar; Minister of Finance, Angel 

 Urzaiz; Minister of Marine, the Duke of Vera- 

 gua; Minister of Justice, the Marquis Teverga; 

 Minister of Public Instruction, Count Romanones; 

 Minister of Public Works, Miguel Villanueva. 

 Strike riots in Catalonia broke out a few days 

 after the Cabinet was formed. Some of the work-' 

 men having struck work as a protest against the 

 introduction of new textile machinery, the mas- 

 ters closed their factories. In the Ter valley 

 textile workers were wounded by the gendarmes. 

 In Madrid occurred disorderly demonstrations 

 against the octroi duties. Gen. Weyler, as Gov- 

 ernor of Madrid, had administered martial law 

 with vigor while the state of siege lasted, but the 

 new ministry, on taking office, restored the ordi- 

 nary law. The accession of a Liberal Cabinet 

 necessitated the dissolution of the Cortes, which 

 was decreed on March 18. Anticlerical demon- 



