Last, but not least, the conduct of elections must be reformed, so that the working classes may have an effectual, instead of, as now, a merely nominal vote. With a few notable exceptions they distrust their rulers, of whatever party; it should be made possible for them to return to the local councils and to the Cortes men in whom they have confidence, who know what they want, and who will devote themselves with singleness of mind to getting it. The hope for the future of Spain lies in the democracy. The peasantry, from whose ranks the whole of the working classes are more or less directly recruited, are sober, honest, and industrious. They work long hours for low wages without complaint, and employers--English, American, and so on--who come into contact with large numbers of them in the numerous industries established by foreign enterprise in the Peninsula, all speak in the highest terms of them as labourers. In America, too, they are highly valued, and it is said that the men who in the long run prove the most satisfactory and the best able to bear the trying conditions of work on the Panama Canal are the Spanish emigrants, of whom thousands cross the Atlantic every year. As yet practically no member of this class, no matter what his natural gifts may have been, has ever risen to a position in which he could make his voice heard in the counsels of his nation. Many Spanish peasants have, no doubt, succeeded in Spanish South America, and some of them have come home again to spend their money and their declining years in their native land. I am not aware that such men have been encouraged to play a part in the politics of Spain, although their experience of the outside world would be of the greatest value. But the frequent instances of Spanish peasants rising to affluence abroad show that it is not their own incapacity, but the crushing burdens imposed on them by those in power, which are the cause of the miserable condition of the peasantry at home. When a Spanish peasant gets a chance, he is well able to profit by it. Spain always seems to me like a great tree which for centuries has been allowed to go unpruned. It is half smothered with branches which bear no fruit, and the top is a mass of decay. Yet the trunk and the roots are sound and strong, so that once the barren wood which saps the life of the tree is cut away, a new and healthy growth will soon replace it. But the longer the difficult and painful process of pruning away the dead wood is delayed, the greater must grow the danger of a storm which will tear up the tree, roots and all.