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XXII. SPAIN 



HISTORY AND PRESENT POSITION 



A ROYAL decree, dated August n, 1884, made telephonic ex- 

 change communication a Government monopoly ; but the experi- 

 ence gained during the next two years was so little to the taste of 

 the officials that in June 1886 another decree entirely reversed 

 the first one and provided that the exploitation of telephones in 

 Spain should henceforth be left to private enterprise. In explana- 

 tion of this change of front the decree said, ' So long as the tele- 

 phonic service is administered by the State it can never develop 

 and attain the proportions demanded by the necessities of modern 

 life. Private enterprise, on the other hand, while adapting itself 

 to public requirements, will find in this novel means of communi- 

 cation a vast field for activity in which apt initiative will be repaid 

 by satisfactory development.' 



While it is undoubtedly rather amusing to find the Spanish 

 Government naively confessing itself so much behind the age as to 

 be impotent to deal with the exigencies of modern life, there was 

 certainly a strain of good sense in its argument. Government de- 

 partments are generally very inelastic affairs, averse to innovation 

 and desirous of running on in the grooves to which they have been 

 accustomed. Such exceptions as may be cited are explainable by 

 the unquestionable fact that good and energetic men wishful to 

 earn laurels for themselves and their country, and of force of 

 character sufficient to overcome the inertia which pertains to 

 Governments must now and then come to the surface, even in a 

 Government department and in defiance of its humdrum traditions 

 and training. But such a good man, after having animated the 



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