Heavy as the public debt of Spain undoubtedly is, and serious as are the charges imposed upon her by the still unsettled political condition of the country and of its principal colony--Cuba, she might more than pay the interest of her debts at the present rate of interest, and balance the expenditure, but for the administrative corruption and utter want of political morality, the fruit of long years of financial abuses, and which has become almost a fixed habit amongst all classes of the inhabitants. The Government seems to be a mark for fraud to every class, from millionaire bankers and the largest landed proprietors down to the ill-paid _employe_ who ekes out his scanty salary by accepting petty bribes, and the labourer or fisherman on the frontier who never misses the occasion of smuggling. It is easy to prove the truth of these assertions. In 1877, in an official report, Mr. Phipps writes: "A few English, French, and Spanish bankers advance money to Spain, with safe security, on conditions as disastrous to the treasury as they are discreditable to themselves." The territorial tax, which forms one-fourth of the whole internal revenue is notoriously levied on only 54 per cent, of the whole area of the country. In some provinces not two-thirds of the whole is returned at all, and much land that is productive is returned as uncultivated. From the extent of the contraband trade and the corruption of the custom-house officers, the amount levied on imports and exports can hardly be above two-thirds of their proper value. In fact, what Spain needs above everything at present is an honest and impartial administration. The causes of her poverty lie not so much in bad laws or a faulty constitution, but in a corrupt and negligent administration. The system of empleomania, whereby nearly every ill-paid _employe_ is almost forced to pillage, the preference of this ill-paid idleness and of professional poverty to honest toil in trade or agriculture--these are the true foes to the prosperity of Spain. For party and political purposes, taxes are relaxed for those who should bear their equal share of the burden, only to fall with crushing weight on the honest workers, unconnected with, or who refuse to bribe the administration. CHAPTER VII. EDUCATION AND RELIGION.