July, every place had its junta, legislating as it thought fit, taking off taxes, admitting foreign goods free of duty, sapping the foundations of the revenue. The effects of this on the revenue for the month of July was a diminution of a quarter of a million sterling, or fully one-fifth. Although, early in August, the juntas were prohibited from passing laws and altering the established system of the country, whilst since then many of them have altogether dissolved themselves, fears are entertained that for some months the revenue will continue below what it is in ordinary times. The period of revolution was a jubilee for the smuggler. At some points of the frontier he was suddenly converted into a fair trader by the abolition, decreed by juntas, of all import duties. But, amidst the confusion consequent on the revolution, he nowhere had any difficulty in carrying on his commerce. From Gibraltar, from Portugal, from France, foreign goods poured in, to the exhaustion of the smuggling depôts in those three countries. Those large illicit importations must for some time to come have a serious effect on the custom-house revenue. It is predicted that the falling-off in the whole revenue for August will be even greater than in that for July. This appears to me doubtful, although nearly certain in the item of custom duties; and on the other hand, we may hope the expenditure will be less under an honest and economical governmentwhose economy, however, has not, in every instance, been as rigorous as itself, I fully believe, earnestly desired. The difficulties environing a government that is borne into power in Spain on the billows of a revolution like that of 1854, are not to be imagined by any who have not witnessed them. To form some faint idea of them, one must be acquainted with the ramifications and extent of the empleomania-mania for place which is the great curse of Spain, and which, when one beholds the extent to which it is carried, makes him almost despair of the improvement of the nation. It were reasonable to suppose that when Espartero and his colleagues took office, under as difficult circumstances, certainly, as any set of men that ever accepted it, even

here, they would be allowed to give their whole time and undivided attention to the necessities of the country, to the getting rid of abuses, to the introduction of proper economics, to the adoption of measures calculated to improve the wretched financial situation. Not so: the idea of their supporters evidently was that their first duty was the portioning out of places, not only to old friends, but to many new ones-libéraux du lendemain. From the day they took office down to the present date, ministers have been besieged, pestered, overwhelmed, by a stream of applicants eager to live upon the budget. Espartero, from his popularity and influence, was the chief victim of these cormorants. For a very long time his anterooms were thronged from early morning till late at night, by persons who could not go away, who would see the general, although perhaps the request they had to make had no possible connection with his department, and should have been addressed to some other minister, to the intendant of the palace, the captain-general of the province, or the civil governor of Madrid. Sometimes, when there were thirty or forty persons waiting at the door of his cabinet, all deaf to the remonstrances of weary aides-de-camp, he would come out himself, as if in despair at ever obtaining repose, despatch them all, one after the other, as quickly as might be, and then retreat with his secretary into his private room, giving orders that nobody should be admitted, to try to get two or three hours' uninterrupted work before the usual hour for the sitting of the council arrived. And then the host of letters-nearly all prayers and petitions, setting forth the services and sufferings of the writers, and their strong claims to place or patronage! The supplicants were of all kinds and classes; from the colonel who thought his merits would not be over-rewarded by a brigadier's embroideries, from the aspirant to some fat berth of many thousand reals a-year, down to the suitor for a porter's place or a sergeant's stripes, and even to individuals desirous of being appointed quitamanchas, grease-spot extractors (fact) to the palace, and who could think of no more fitting

person to apply to than the primeminister. All this greedy mob pestered, and still pester, the president of the council, and in a less degree the other ministers, with their daily applications. The craving after place is disgusting to behold, and extends, with a few honourable exceptions, through all classes. As to patriotism in Spain, I have the utmost difficulty, after witnessing what has followed upon this revolution, in crediting its existence, except in the breasts of a small minority of the population. Patriotism here appears to consist in turning out one party in order that another may step into the enjoyment of the good things it possessed. It is truly sickening to hear the selfish cuckoo-song of the seekers after places, to hear them vaunt their past services, and tell of their sufferings for the liberal cause during the eleven long years that succeeded 1843-sufferings consisting, for the most part, when they come to be inquired into, simply in exclusion from those loaves and fishes for a share of which they now hungrily plead. With a certain and too-numerous class of Spaniards, a man is a patriot and a martyr by the mere fact of his drawing nothing from the treasury. There were many persons who really had done great service to the triumphant cause; men who had risked their lives, laboured hard, and been forward and most useful in the hour of danger. These men, on account both of their merits and of their abilities, had not to solicit, but were at once placed in high and responsible situations. For each one appointed, how many malcontents were made! Of these malcontents some must be conciliated; others had claims which deserved attention, and which they had not sufficient self-denial and love for their country altogether to withdraw. Under these circumstances, how was it possible for the government to economise as it should and might have done? The pressure brought to bear upon it, the influences exerted, were more than it could resist, and many a place was given that ought to have been suppressed in the interest of Spain's exhausted treasury. It gives small hope for the future of a country when one sees even the best of her sons doing nothing with

out hope of reward, nothing for the pure and disinterested love of their native land. And to this rule, in Spain, I fear there are but few exceptions.

A careful investigation and calm review of the present state of the finances of Spain, leave upon the mind a strong doubt as to whether a national bankruptcy can possibly be avoided. I have exposed the misery of the treasury, as left by the ministry of Sartorius. -seven millions sterling deficiency, and not as many pence in the coffers of the State for the pressing necessities of the new government. With some difficulty, and by the aid of the signature of the San Fernando Bank, the finance minister has obtained about fifty thousand pounds sterling, secured on colonial revenues. Of course, a very short time will see the last of that small sum; and what is then to be done, in presence of a revenue which it is expected, with good show of reason, will, for some time to come, be below an average? Economise, it may be said; but economy is not to be effected, on an important scale, at a few days' notice. It is probably in the army that reform and reduction, if made, would most rapidly be felt. It is said to be the intention of the minister of war greatly to reduce it; and no opportunity can be better than the present, for when all the men who, in virtue of the boon of two years' remission of service lately granted to the whole army, have completed their time, shall have received their discharge, the military forces of Spain will probably be smaller than they ever have been since the beginning of the Carlist war. The expense of the Spanish army is about three millions sterling-an enormous burthen on the scanty revenue. There are other burthens more difficult to diminish. The system pursued in this country of turning out numbers of public officers and employés when a new government comes in, to make room for its friends and supporters, has loaded Spain with pensions, half-pay, and retired allowances. These amount to a million and a half sterling. How is this load to be lightened? very gradually, it is evident ;-by filling up vacant places with pensioned men, whose pensions thereupon cease.

But

To abolish all those pensions not due to long service or ill-health would be to condemn thousands of families to starvation, and to raise a storm that no government could withstand. Such a sweeping measure would not be just, nor is it practicable. A reform of the tariff is an obvious and most effectual means of improving the financial position. Let the government reduce the duties on foreign manufactured cottons to twenty per cent ad valorem. The importations (chiefly contraband) of that class of merchandise at present amounts, as I am informed, to about three millions sterling. A twenty-per-cent duty would demolish the smuggler, and yield the revenue six hundred thousand pounds a-year. Would it not then be possible for Spain to get a small loan on reasonable terms, the coupons being ac- cepted, as soon as due, in payment of custom-house duties, and an arrangement, or the promise of an early one, being at the same time made with respect to the amount of coupons which Bravo Murillo laid upon the shelf? It is, however, unnecessary to answer this question until we have reduced the duty. Here, again, great difficulties present themselves, and jealous interests bar the way. Catalonia and the smugglers would be in arms the very moment such a measure was promulgated. Catalonia, which produces (I speak from experience of its goods) wretched wares at exorbitant prices, has long been the great impediment to Spain's prosperity, or at least improvement. That one province pretends to make the whole country buy its inferior merchandise in preference to that of England and France; and this pretension it enforces, to the great profit and contentment of the contraband trader. Time and a strong government are needed to bring about that reduction of duties on foreign manufactures which would prove so great a benefit to Spain, and to its revenue. And at present, time is wanting. Something must be done quickly. As things now stand, it is hard to tell whence is to come the money for the next dividend on the home and foreign

debt. At this date but a small portion of the last dividend due on the home debt has been paid. It has been suggested that much will depend on the composition of the constituent Cortes. If the country elects representatives who will support the present government, and so give confidence in its duration and strength, it is thought that capitalists will perhaps be found to come to its aid. But if the good sense of Spanish electors prove unequal to the emergency-if they return a Chamber composed of a mixture of demagogues and of partisans of reaction, and not containing a good working majority in favour of the policy of moderate progress, which is that of the Espartero-O'Donnell cabinet-there is nothing but fresh trouble in store for Spain, and the question of finance will then appear almost hopeless.

Whilst contemplating the gloomy, or at least uncertain, prospects of the Spanish treasury, I am forcibly reminded of Cuba and of American proposals for its purchase. I have not heard a statement of the exact amount the States are disposed to give; but I have been assured, on no mean authority, that it would suffice to pay off the whole of the debt, home and foreign, and that a handsome surplus would still remain for roads and railways. Besides these advantages, Cuba, once sold, Spain might safely reduce her fleet and army, for she would then have no reason to apprehend war with the United States, as she at present has none to anticipate aggression or interference on the part of any European power. Relieved of her heaviest burthens, and blessed with an honest government (if indeed it be possible that such endure in a country upon which the curse of misgovernment seems to rest), Spain might soon and easily forget the loss of that cherished colony, whose retention, under present circumstances, is more a question of pride than of profit, and to whose loss without compensation, she must, I fear, by the force of events, be prepared sooner or later to submit.

VEDETTE.

In spite of all that has been said by ourselves and others concerning the Eastern Question and the condition of Turkey, we have still something to say which has not yet been uttered with sufficient emphasis. We would fain persuade our readers to look beyond the passing political events of the present hour, and examine only those features of the Othoman Empire that blend with the general history of the civilisation of the human race. Our minds have lately been so much occupied with the relations of the Othoman government to Russia, and with our interests in defending the Sultan's territories, that we have overlooked the position of the great mass of the Mohammedan population in the Turkish dominions. Yet we cannot understand all the difficulties of the struggle in which we are engaged, unless we know what are the social and financial problems that now disturb the old frame of society among

the Turkish population in Asia, as well as among the Christian subjects of the Sultan in Europe. The East is quite as much in a state of social revolution as the West; the Mohammedan world in Western Asia is on the eve of a great transition, which must end either in its regeneration or its subjugation. Now, as the majority of the inhabitants of Asia Minor are engaged in the cultivation of the soil, we propose devoting this article to discussing the influence, the position, and the interests of the agricultural population of the Turkish Empire, in so far as its condition and feelings must affect the ultimate fate of the Eastern Question. This subject has not hitherto met with due attention from those who have discussed the state of Turkey, either in Parliament or in the press. The existence of the twenty millions of the Sultan's subjects who are engaged in agricultural pursuits, who are bound together by

his " 16mo.

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common interests, and moved to action by fiscal oppression affecting them all alike, whether they be Christians or Mohammedans, has not been sufficiently attended to. Neverthe

less, a moment's reflection must convince every statesman that the definitive settlement of the Eastern Question cannot be obtained even by a series of victories over Russia, until the agricultural population of the Turkish Empire be placed in a position to better its condition, and to increase in numbers and wealth.

We must entreat our readers to pardon us if we assume that they are less conversant with the subject than they are with the plans of the Emperor Nicholas, or the policy of the Sultan's Divan. The public has received, and is daily receiving, such ample information concerning the obstinacy of the Russian government, the energy of the Turkish, and the fatuity of the Greek, that it may be supposed to be almost as familiar with the general aspect of our political relations with the Eastern potentates, as of those with Count Nesselrode, Reschid Pasha, or King Otho. But as no echo has yet reached us of the voices of the Turkish agas who superintend the cultivation of their estates in Asia Minor, or of the Christian proprietors who till their fields in the plains of Thrace, we may assume that little is known concerning their wants, sufferings, and wishes. We must no longer trust to old habits, and to the supposed immutability of society in the East, for maintaining the agricultural population of the Turkish Empire in its actual condition. The hour has arrived when a great change is inevitable; and it depends on the central government at Constantinople whether that change tend to strengthen the Othoman power, or break up the Sultan's dominions in Asia into several Mohammedan principalities. The condition of agriculture has, for about four centuries, resembled in its stationary or declining position the condition it held in Western Europe during the medieval period: the land is cultivated by a determinate number of yokes of oxen, and a village contains a fixed number of huts; no increase can take place in the adult male population employed in tilling

the soil, and no capital can be profitably invested in its improvement. It is almost unnecessary to say that the consequence is a complete estrangement of the popular feelings from the government, with which the people have little connection except as taxpayers. Hence the succession of rebellions and civil wars which characterises the history of the Othoman domination in Asia Minor and Syria. Things, however, have now reached such a pitch, by the destruction of all capital invested in plantations and buildings during some happier period of Turkish society, that great masses of the Mohammedan population in Western Asia are on the eve of deciding whether they will adopt a nomade life under the Sultan's government, or attempt a revolution, as the only means of preserving their individual property. A social war, in which the proprietor and the labourer will be found fighting side by side against the central authority at Constantinople, is more imminent in Asia Minor than in European Turkey. Now, as about ten millions of Mohammedans in the great peninsula of Asia are Turks of the Seljouk race, who retain some traditions of their old empire, and a lively memory of the feudal authority they enjoyed before they were subjected to the hated domination of the Othomans, and before the power of the janissaries had curtailed their privileges and consumed their wealth, and this mass of population is united by speaking the Turkish language, and by being entirely dependent on agricultural industry for its subsistence, it is evident that the integrity of the Othoman Empire cannot be secured, until the feelings of the Mohammedan landed interest in Asia Minor are engaged in the same career of policy and improvement as that pursued by the Sultan.

The importance of being well acquainted with the exact position of the agricultural population in the East, is further increased by the fact that the feelings and interests of the Christian landed proprietors and cultivators of the soil in European Turkey are identical with those of the Mohammedans in Asia Minor, as far as they depend on their