HOW FREEDOM GROWS IN SPAIN AND IN BELGIUM.
Spain expelled the industrious portion of her population, and almost
at the same time acquired colonies of vast extent, to which she looked
for revenue. Centralization here was almost perfect--and here, as
everywhere, it has been accompanied by poverty and weakness. With
difficulty she has been enabled to defend her rights on her own soil,
and she has found it quite impossible to maintain her power abroad,
and for the reason that her system tended to the impoverishment of her
people and the destruction of the value of labour and land. Her
history tends throughout to show that nations which desire respect for
their own rights, _must_ learn to respect those of others.
The policy of Spain has been unfavourable to commerce, internal and
external. Exchanges at home were burdened with heavy taxes, and the
raw materials of manufacture, even those produced at home, were so
heavily taxed on their passage from the place of production to that of
consumption, that manufactures could not prosper. The great middle
class of artisans could therefore scarcely be found, and the scattered
agriculturists were thus deprived of their aid in the effort to
establish or maintain their freedom. Towns and cities decayed, and
land, became more and more consolidated in the hands of great noblemen
on one side and the church on the other, and talent found no field for
its exercise, except in the service of the church or the state.
While thus destroying internal trade by taxation, efforts were made to
build it up by aid of restrictions on external trade; but the very
fact that the former was destroyed made it necessary for thousands and
tens of thousands of persons to endeavour to earn wages in the
smuggling of foreign merchandise, and the country was filled with men
ever ready to violate the law, because of the cheapness of labour. The
laws restraining the import of foreign merchandise were easily
violated, because its bulk was small and its value great; whereas
those interfering with the transit of raw materials were easily
enforced, because the bulk was great and their value small; and
therefore the whole system tended effectually to prevent the artisan
from taking his place by the side of the grower of food and wool; and
hence the depopulation, poverty, and weakness of this once rich and
powerful country.
Fortunately for her, however, the day arrived when she was to lose her
colonies, and find herself compelled to follow the advice of Adam
Smith, and look to home for revenue; and almost from that date to the
present, notwithstanding foreign invasions, civil wars, and
revolutions, her course has been onward, and with each succeeding year
there has been a greater tendency toward diversification of
employment, the growth of towns and other places of local exchange,
the improvement of agriculture, the strengthening of the people in
their relations with the government, and the strengthening of the
nation as regards the other nations of the earth.
Among the earliest measures tending toward the emancipation of the
people of Germany, Russia, and Denmark, was, as has been seen, the
removal of restrictions upon the trade in land, the great machine of
production. So, too, was it in Spain. According to a return made to
the Cortes of Cadiz, out of sixty millions of acres then in
cultivation, only twenty millions were held by the men who cultivated
them, while thirty were in the hands of great nobles, and ten were
held by the church. Under a decree of secularization, a large portion
of the latter has been sold, and the result is seen in the fact that
the number of owners cultivating their own properties has risen from
273,760 to 546,100; and the number of farms from 403,408 to
1,095,200.[192]
A further step toward freedom and the establishment of equal rights,
is found in the abolition of a great variety of small and vexatious
taxes, substituting therefor a land-tax, payable alike by the small
and the great proprietor; and in the abolition of internal duties on
the exchange of the raw materials of manufacture. With each of these
we find increasing tendency toward the establishment of that division
of employment which gives value to labour and land. From 1841 to 1846,
the number of spindles in Catalonia has grown from 62,000 to 121,000,
and that of looms from 30,000 to 45,000, while cotton factories had
been put in operation in various other parts of the kingdom.[193]
Still later, numerous others have been started, and a traveller of the
past year informs us that the province of Granada now bids fair to
rival Catalonia in her manufactures.[194] In 1841, the total value of
the products of the cotton manufacture was estimated at about four
millions of dollars, but in 1846 it had risen to more than six and a
half millions. The woollen manufacture had also rapidly increased, and
this furnishes employment at numerous places throughout the kingdom,
one of which, Alcoy, is specially referred to by M. Block,[195] as
situated among the mountains which separate the ancient kingdom of
Valencia and Murcia, and as having no less than 24,000 spindles, and
12,000 men, in addition to a great number of women and children,
engaged in this branch of manufacture.
In regard to the progress of manufactures generally, the following
statement, furnished by a recent American traveller to whom we are
indebted for an excellent work on Spain, furnishes much information,
and cannot be read without interest by all those who derive pleasure
from witnessing advance in civilization.[196]
"Of late years there has been a considerable effort to extend and
improve the production and manufacture of silk, and the result has
been very favourable. The silkworm, formerly confined, in a great
degree, to Valencia and Murcia, is now an article of material
importance in the wealth of the two Castiles, Rioja, and Aragon. The
silk fabrics of Talavera, Valencia, and Barcelona are many of them
admirably wrought, and are sold at rates which appear very moderate.
I had particular occasion to note the cheapness of the damasks which
are sold in Madrid from the native looms. It is not easy to imagine
any thing more magnificent, of their kind. The woollen cloths, too,
of home manufacture, are, some of them, very admirable, and the
coarser kinds supply, I believe, a considerable part of the national
demand. In cheapness I have never seen them surpassed. The finer
qualities do not bear so favourable a comparison with the foreign
article; but those who were familiar with the subject informed me
that their recent improvement had been very decided. Many laudable
efforts have been made to render the supply of wool more abundant,
and to improve its quality, and there has been a considerable
importation of foreign sheep, with a view to crossing on the native
breeds. The sheep-rearing interest is so very large in Spain, that
any material improvement in the quality of the wool must add greatly
to the national wealth, as well as to the importance of the woollen
manufacture and its ability to encounter foreign competition.
"In the general movement toward an increased and more valuable
production of the raw material for manufacture, the flax of Leon and
Galicia and the hemp of Granada have not been forgotten. But the
article in which the most decided and important progress has been
made, is the great staple, iron. In 1832; the iron-manufacture of
Spain was at so low an ebb, that it was necessary to import from
England the large lamp-posts of cast metal, which adorn the Plaza de
Armas of the Palace. They bear the London mark, and tell their own
story. A luxury for the indoors enjoyment or personal ostentation of
the monarch, would of course have been imported from any quarter,
without regard to appearances. But a monument of national dependence
upon foreign industry would hardly have been erected upon such a
spot, had there been a possibility of avoiding it by any domestic
recourse. In 1850 the state of things had so far changed, that there
were in the kingdom twenty-five founderies, eight furnaces of the
first class, with founderies attached, and twenty-five
iron-factories, all prosperously and constantly occupied. The
specimens of work from these establishments, which are to be seen in
the capital and the chief cities of the provinces, are such as to
render the independence and prospective success of the nation in this
particular no longer matters of question. In the beginning of 1850,
the Marquis of Molins, then Minister of Marine Affairs, upon the
petition of the iron-manufacturers, directed inquiries to be made, by
a competent board, into the quality of the native iron, and the
extent to which the home manufacture might be relied on for the
purposes of naval construction. The result was so satisfactory, that
in March of the same year a royal order was issued from the
department, directing all future contracts to be made with the
domestic establishments. This, indeed, has been the case since 1845,
at the arsenal of Ferrol, which has been supplied altogether from the
iron-works of Biscay. The government, however, had determined for the
future to be chiefly its own purveyor, and national founderies at
Ferrol and Trubia, constructed without regard to expense, were about
to go into operation when the royal order was published."
A necessary consequence of all these steps toward freedom and
association has been great agricultural improvement. "The impoverished
industry and neglected agriculture of the land," says Mr. Wallis--
"Have received an accession of vigorous labour, no longer tempted
into sloth by the seductions of a privileged and sensual life. In the
cities and larger towns the convent buildings have been displaced, to
make room for private dwellings of more or less convenience and
elegance, or have been appropriated as public offices or repositories
of works of art. The extensive grounds which were monopolized by some
of the orders, in the crowded midst of populous quarters, have been
converted into walks or squares, dedicated to the public health and
recreation. In a word, what was intended in the beginning as the
object of monastic endowments, has been to some extent realized. What
was meant for the good of all, though intrusted to a few, has been
taken from the few who used it as their own, and distributed, rudely
it may be, but yet effectually, among the many who were entitled to
and needed it."--P. 276.
At the close of the last century, the value of agricultural products
was officially returned at 5143 millions of reals, or about 260
millions of dollars. In 1829, a similar return made it somewhat less,
or about 232 millions, but since that time the increase has been so
rapid, that it is now returned at nearly 450 millions of dollars.[197]
Twenty years since, the means of transporting produce throughout the
country were so bad that famine might prevail in Andalusia, and men
might perish there in thousands, while grain wasted on the fields of
Castile, because the _silos_ of the latter no longer afforded room to
store it. Even now, "in some districts, it is a familiar fact,
"That the wine of one vintage has to be emptied, in waste, in order
to furnish skins for the wine of the next--the difficulty and cost of
transportation to market being such as utterly to preclude the
producer from attempting a more profitable disposition of it. Staples
of the most absolute and uniform necessity--wheat, for instance--are
at prices absurdly different in different parts of the kingdom; the
proximity to market being such as to give them their current value in
one quarter, while in another they are perhaps rotting in their
places of deposite, without the hope of a demand. Until such a state
of things shall have been cured, it will be useless to improve the
soil, or stimulate production in the secluded districts; and of
course every circumstance which wears the promise of such cure must
enter into the calculations of the future, and avail in them
according to its probabilities."--_Wallis_, P. 328.
We see thus that here, as everywhere, the power to make roads is least
where the necessity for them is greatest. Had the farmers of Castile a
near market in which their wheat could be combined with the wool that
is shorn in their immediate neighbourhood, they could export cloth,
and _that_ could travel even on bad roads. As it is, they have to
export both wheat and wool, and on such roads, whereas if the artisan
could, in accordance, with the doctrines of Adam Smith, everywhere
take his place by the side of the ploughman and the shepherd; and if
women and children could thus everywhere be enabled to find other
employment than in field labour, towns would grow up, and men would
become rich and strong, and roads could be made without difficulty.
Even now, however, there is a rapidly increasing tendency toward the
construction of railroads, and the completion and enlargement of
canals, and not a doubt can be entertained that in a few years the
modes of intercourse will be so improved as to put an end to the
enormous differences in prices here observed.[198]
Those differences are, however, precisely similar to those now
regarded as desirable by English writers who find compensation for the
loss of men, "in the great stimulus that our extensive emigration will
give to every branch of the shipping interest."[199] The nearer the
place of exchange the fewer ships and seamen are needed, and the
richer _must_ grow the producer and the consumer, because the number
of persons among whom the total product is to be divided is then the
least.
With increased power of association there is a steady improvement in
the provision for education. Half a century since, the whole number of
students at all the educational establishments in the kingdom was but
30,000,[200] and it had not materially varied in 1835; whereas the
number now in the public schools alone, for the support of which there
is an annual appropriation of $750,000, is above 700,000, or one to 17
of the population. The primary and other schools reach the number of
16,000; and besides these and the universities, there are numerous
other institutions devoted to particular branches of education, some
of which are provided for by government, and others by public bodies
or private subscription. "No impediment," says Mr. Wallis--
"Is thrown by law in the way of private teachers--except that they
are required to produce certain certificates of good character and
conduct, and of having gone through a prescribed course, which is
more or less extensive, in proportion to the rank of the institution
they may desire to open."
As a necessary consequence of these changes there has been a great
increase in the value of land, and of real estate generally. Mr.
Wallis states that the church property has "commanded an average of
nearly double the price at which it was officially assessed according
to the standard of value at the time of its seizure," and we need
desire no better evidence that man is tending gradually toward freedom
than is to be found in this single fact.
It might be supposed, that with the increased tendency to convert at
home the raw products of the earth, there would be a diminution of
foreign commerce; but directly the reverse is the case. In the three
years, from 1846 to 1849, the import of raw cotton rose from
16,000,000 to 27,000,000 of pounds; that of yarn from 5,200,000 to
6,800,000 pounds; and that of bar-iron from 5,400,000 to more than
8,000,000; and the general movements of exports and imports for the
last twenty-four years, as given by M. Block, (p. 18,) has been, as
follows:--
Imports, in francs. Exports, in francs.
------------------- -------------------
1827......... 95,235,000......... 71,912,000
1843......... 114,325,000......... 82,279,000
1846......... 157,513,000......... 129,106,000
And to this may be added, as since published by the
government, the account for
1851......... 171,912,000......... 124,377,000
With each step in the direction of bringing the consumer and the
producer to take their places by the side of each other, the people
acquire power to protect themselves, as is seen in the freedom of
debate in the Chamber of Deputies, and in the extent to which those
debates, with their comments thereon, are made known throughout the
kingdom by the writers of a newspaper press that, although restricted,
has been well characterized as, "fearless and plain speaking." In
1826, Madrid had but two daily newspapers, both of them most
contemptible in character. In February, 1850, there were thirteen,
with an aggregate circulation of 35,000 copies; and yet Madrid has no
commerce, and can furnish little advertising for their support. [201]
With the increase of production and of wealth, and with the growth of
the power of association, and of intelligence among the people, the
government gradually acquires strength in the community of nations,
and power to enforce its laws, as is here shown in the large decline
that has taken place in the English exports to Portugal and Gibraltar,
heretofore the great smuggling depots for English manufactures,[202]
as compared with those to Spain direct:
Portugal. Gibraltar. Spain.
--------- ---------- ------
In 1839..... £1,217,082..... £1,433,932...... £262,231
1852..... 1,048,356..... 481,286...... 1,015,493
The system that looks to consolidation of the land tends toward
inequality, and that such has been, and is, the tendency of that of
England, wherever fully carried out, has been shown. Those of Germany,
Russia, and Denmark tend in the opposite direction, and under them men
are becoming daily more independent in their action, and consequently
more and more kindly and respectful in their treatment of each other.
Such, likewise, is the case in Spain. "The Spaniard," says Mr.
Wallis--
"Has a sense of equality, which blesses him who gives as well as him
who takes. If he requires the concession from others, he demands it
chiefly and emphatically through the concessions which he makes to
them. There is so much self-respect involved in his respect to
others, and in his manifestation of it, that reciprocity is
unavoidable. To this, and this mainly, is attributable the high,
courteous bearing, which is conspicuous in all the people, and which
renders the personal intercourse of the respective classes and
conditions less marked by strong and invidious distinctions, than in
any other nation with whose manners and customs I am familiar. It is
this, perhaps, more than any other circumstance, which has tempered
and made sufferable the oppression of unequal and despotic
institutions, illustrating 'the advantage to which,' in the words of
a philosophic writer, 'the manners of a people may turn the most
unfavourable position and the worst laws.'"--P. 383.
Again, he says--
"If in the midst of the very kindness which made him at home upon the
briefest acquaintance, he should perceive an attentive politeness,
approaching so near to formality as now and then to embarrass him, he
would soon be brought to understand and admire it as the expression
of habitual consideration for the feelings of others. He would value
it the more when he learned from its universality, that what was
elsewhere chiefly a thing of manners and education, was there a
genial instinct developed into a social charity."--P. 207.
The "popular element is fully at work," and it requires, says the same
author, but a comparison of the present with the past, "to remove all
doubts of the present, and to justify the happiest augury." "The lotos
of freedom has," he continues--
"Been tasted, and it cannot readily be stricken from their lips. So
long as the more important guaranties are not altogether violated--so
long as the government substantially, dedicates itself to the public
good, by originating and fostering schemes of public usefulness, it
may take almost any liberties with forms and non-essentials. Much
further it will not be permitted to go, and every day diminishes the
facility with which it may go even thus far. Every work of internal
improvement, which brings men closer together, enabling them to
compare opinions with readiness and concentrate strength for their
maintenance; every new interest that is built up; every heavy and
permanent investment of capital or industry; every movement that
develops and diffuses the public intelligence and energy, is a
bulwark more or less formidable against reaction. Nay, every
circumstance that makes the public wiser, richer, or better, must
shorten the career of arbitrary rule. The compulsion, which was and
still is a necessary evil for the preservation of peace, must be
withdrawn when peace becomes an instinct as well as a necessity. The
existence of a stringent system will no longer be acquiesced in when
the people shall have grown less in need of government, and better
able to direct it for themselves. Thus, in their season, the very
interests which shall be consolidated and made vigorous by forced
tranquillity will rise, themselves, into the mastery. The stream of
power as it rolls peacefully along, is daily strengthening the banks,
which every day, though imperceptibly, encroach on it." --P. 381.
* * * * *
BELGIUM.
Belgium is a country with four and a half millions of inhabitants, or
about one-half more than the State of New York. It is burdened with a
heavy debt assumed at the period of its separation from Holland, and
it finds itself compelled to maintain an army that is large in
proportion to its population, because in the vicinity of neighbours
who have at all times shown themselves ready to make it the
battle-ground of Europe. In no country of Europe has there been so
great a destruction, of property and life, and yet in none has there
been so great a tendency toward freedom; and for the reason that in
none has there been manifested so little disposition to interfere with
the affairs of other nations. It is burdened now with a taxation
amounting to about twenty-three millions of dollars, or five dollars
and a half per head; and yet, amid all the revolutions and attempts at
revolution by which the peace of Europe is disturbed, we hear nothing
of the Belgians, whose course is as tranquil as it was before the days
of 1848--and this is a consequence of following in the path indicated
by Adam Smith.
The policy of Belgium looks more homeward than that of any nation of
Europe. She has no colonies, and she seeks none. To a greater extent
than almost any other nation, she has sought to enable her farmers to
have local places of exchange, giving value to her labour and her
land. Where these exist, men are certain to become free; and equally
certain is it that where they do not exist, freedom must be a plant of
exceedingly slow growth, even where it does not absolutely perish for
want of nourishment. If evidence be desired of the freedom of the
Belgians, it is to be found in the fact that there is nowhere to be
seen, as we are on all hands assured, a more contented, virtuous, and
generally comfortable population than that engaged in the cultivation
of her fields. The following sketch is from a report published by
order of Parliament, and cannot fail to be read with interest by those
who desire to understand how it is that the dense population of this
little country is enabled to draw from a soil naturally indifferent
such large returns, while the Hindoo, with all his advantages of early
civilization, wealth, and population, perishes of famine or flies from
pestilence, leaving behind him, uncultivated, the richest soils, and
sells himself to slavery in Cuba:--
"The farms in Belgium rarely exceed one hundred acres. The number
containing fifty acres is not great; those of thirty or twenty are
more numerous, but the number of holdings of from five to ten and
twenty acres is very considerable.
"The small farms of from five to ten acres, which abound in many
parts of Belgium, closely resemble the small holdings in Ireland; but
the small Irish cultivator exists in a state of miserable privation
of the common comforts and conveniences of civilized life, while the
Belgian peasant farmer enjoys a large share of those comforts. The
houses of the small cultivators of Belgium are generally
substantially built, and in good repair; they have commonly a
sleeping room in the attic, and closets for beds connected with the
lower apartment, which is convenient in size; a small cellarage for
the dairy, and store for the grain, as well as an oven, and an
outhouse for the potatoes, with a roomy cattle-stall, piggery, and
poultry loft. The house generally contains decent furniture, the
bedding sufficient in quantity, and an air of comfort, pervades the
establishment. In the cow-house the cattle are supplied with straw
for bedding; the dung and moisture are carefully collected in the
tank; the ditches had been secured to collect materials for manure;
the dry leaves, potato-tops, &c. had been collected in a moist ditch
to undergo the process of fermentation, and heaps of compost were in
course of preparation. The premises were kept in neat and compact
order, and a scrupulous attention to a most rigid economy was
everywhere apparent. The family were decently clad; none of them were
ragged or slovenly, even when their dress consisted of the coarsest
material.
"In the greater part of the flat country of Belgium the soil is light
and sandy, and easily worked; but its productive powers are certainly
inferior to the general soil of Ireland, and the climate does not
appear to be superior. To the soil and climate therefore, the Belgian
does not owe his superiority. The difference is to be found in the
system, of cultivation, and the forethought of the people. The
cultivation of small farms in Belgium differs from the Irish: 1. In
the quantity of stall-fed stock which is kept, and by which a supply
of manure is regularly secured; 2. In the strict attention paid to
the collection of manure, which is skilfully husbanded; 3. By the
adoption of rotations of crop. We found no plough, horse, or
cart--only a spade, fork, wheelbarrow, and handbarrow. The farmer had
no assistance besides that of his family. The whole land is trenched
very deep with the spade. The stock consisted of a couple of cows, a
calf or two, one or two pigs; sometimes a goat or two, and some
poultry. The cows are altogether stall-fed, on straw, turnips,
clover, rye, vetches, carrots, potatoes, and a kind of soup made by
boiling up the potatoes, peas, beans, bran, cut-hay, &e., which,
given warm, is said to be very wholesome, and promotive of the
secretion of milk. Near distilleries and breweries grains are given.
"Some small farmers agree to find stall-room and straw for sheep, and
furnish fodder at the market price, for the dung. The dung and
moisture are collected in a fosse in the stable. Lime is mingled with
the scouring of the ditches, vegetable garbage, leaves, &c. On
six-acre farms, plots are appropriated to potatoes, wheat, barley,
clover, flax, rye, carrots, turnips, or parsnips, vetches, and rye,
as green food for cattle. The flax is heckled and spun by the wife in
winter; and three weeks at the loom in spring weaves up all the
thread. In some districts every size, from a quarter acre to six
acres, is found. The former holders devoted their time to weaving. As
far as I could learn, there was no tendency to subdivision of the
small holdings. I heard of none under five acres held by the class of
peasant farmers; and six, seven, or eight acres is the more common
size. The average rent is 20s. an acre. Wages, 10d. a day.
"A small occupier, whose farm we examined near Ghent, paid £9 7s. 6d.
for six acres, with a comfortable house, stabling, and other offices
attached, all very good of their kind--being 20s. an acre for the
land, and £3 7s. 6d. for house and offices. This farmer had a wife
and five children, and appeared to live in much comfort. He owed
little or nothing."--_Nicholls's Report_.
These people have employment for every hour in the year, and they find
a market close at hand for every thing they can raise. They are not
forced to confine themselves to cotton or sugar, tobacco or wheat; nor
are they forced to waste their labour in carrying their products to a
distance so great that no manure can be returned. From this country
there is no export of men, women, and children, such as we see from
Ireland. The "crowbar brigade" is here unknown, and it may be doubted
if any term conveying the meaning of the word "eviction" is to be
found in their vocabulary. With a surface only one-third as great as
that of Ireland, and with a soil naturally far inferior, Belgium
supports a population almost half as great as Ireland has ever
possessed; and yet we never hear of the cheap Belgian labour
inundating the neighbouring countries, to the great advantage of those
who desire to build up "great works" like those of Britain. The policy
of Belgium looks to increasing the value of both labour and land,
whereas that of England looks to diminishing the value of both.
With every advantage of soil and climate, the population of Portugal
declines, and her people become more enslaved from day to day, while
her government, is driven to repudiation of her debts. Belgium, on the
contrary, grows in wealth and population, and her people become more
free; and the cause of difference is, that the policy of the former
has always looked to repelling the artisan, and thus preventing the
growth of towns and of the habit of association; while that of the
latter has always looked to bringing the artisan to the raw material,
and thus enabling her people to combine their efforts for their
improvement in material, moral, and intellectual condition, without
which there can be no increase of freedom.
Russia and Spain seek to raise the value of labour and land, and they
are now attracting population. The English system, based on cheap
labour, destroys the value of both labour and land, and therefore it
is that there is so large an export of men from the countries subject
to it--Africa, India, Ireland, Scotland, England, Virginia, and
Carolina.