In one district the Liberals boasted that for years they had never bought a vote. “Partly,” as my informant ingenuously said, “because we have always had a safe majority, but partly also because we prefer to be honest. But,” he continued, “we learnt this time that a party of Conservatives intended to interfere with us, so we prepared a party of the same kind to receive them. ‘Do not begin to fight,’ said my father, ‘but if they begin, hit hard.’ They did begin, and our leader obeyed orders. He hit the leader of the other side so hard that he knocked out four of his front teeth, and that was the end of the fighting in our district.” * * * * * All these incidents are said to have occurred in the municipal elections of 1909. One more is worth mentioning. In a town of some twenty thousand inhabitants, where for many years past an Ultramontane _Cacique_ has been supreme, that gentleman rose early on the polling-day and personally roused the dwellers in the gipsy quarters--mostly the biggest ruffians in the place--out of their beds. “Get up, my sons,” he said, “and go and vote, and there will be a dollar apiece for you when you leave the polling-booth.” “They said they would go and vote,” said my informant, “and they got their dollars. But the Republicans came out at the head of the poll, and the Liberals next, and the _Cacique_ and his Conservatives were nowhere.” * * * * * I happen to be aware that the _Cacique_ in this instance is a man of great wealth and high social position, whose clericalist leanings are well known. If, indeed, it be the fact that the working classes have gained courage to defy men like him, the rising in Cataluña, the Maura regime of repression, and the campaign led against Spain by Ultramontanes and Socialists abroad will have borne fruit. There is, however, one political leader in Spain who stands for purity of election and is the lifelong foe of the “caciquism” and corruption which paralyse any and every effort at political regeneration. Don Segismundo Moret has thrice been Premier of Spain. Each time he could have retained office had he consented to purchase the favour of the place-hunters by giving posts in the Ministry, not to those best qualified for the work, but to those who could command the largest following among the “Liberal mercenaries” who, as long as the system of “caciquism” continues, can make or mar electoral majorities. This he has never consented to do. So it has happened that each time that he has been in office he has had to sacrifice place and power rather than pander to an evil system. The story of his late short tenure of the Premiership, and of the intrigues by which he was ousted is worth telling at some little length, because it throws light on the workings of the political machine, and on some of the difficulties with which a reformer has to contend in Spain.