Spain represents the outcome of some centuries devoted mainly to military activity. No one can say that she has been unmilitary or at all deficient in those qualities which we associate with soldiers and soldiering. Yet, if such qualities in any way make for national efficiency, for the conservation of national force, the history of Spain is absolutely inexplicable. In their late contest with America, Spaniards showed no lack of the distinctive military virtues. Spain's inferiority--apart from deficiency of men and money--was precisely in those qualities which industrialism has bred in the unmilitary American. Authentic stories of wretched equipment, inadequate supplies, and bad leadership show to what depths of inefficiency the Spanish service, military and naval, had fallen. We are justified in believing that a much smaller nation than Spain, but one possessing a more industrial and less military training, would have done much better, both as regards resistance to America and the defence of her own colonies. The present position of Holland in Asia seems to prove this. The Dutch, whose traditions are industrial and non-military for the most part, have shown greater power and efficiency as a nation than the Spanish, who are more numerous. Here, as always, it is shown that, in considering national efficiency, even as expressed in military power, the economic problem cannot be divorced from the military, and that it is a fatal mistake to suppose that the power of a nation depends solely upon the power of its public bodies, or that it can be judged simply from the size of its army. A large army may, indeed, be a sign of a national--that is, military--weakness. Warfare in these days is a business like other activities, and no courage, no heroism, no "glorious past," no "immortal traditions," will atone for deficient rations and fraudulent administration. Good civilian qualities are the ones that will in the end win a nation's battles. The Spaniard is the last one in the world to see this. He talks and dreams of Castilian bravery and Spanish honor, and is above shopkeeping details.... A writer on contemporary Spain remarks that any intelligent middle-class Spaniard will admit every charge of incompetence which can be brought against the conduct of public affairs. "Yes, we have a wretched Government. In any other country somebody would be shot." This is the hopeless military creed: killing somebody is the only remedy. Here we see a trace of that intellectual legacy which Spain has left to the New World, and which has stamped itself so indelibly on the history of Spanish America. On a later occasion in this connection I wrote as follows: