Philip and his minister, indeed, had plenty of other things of greater moment to occupy them than this. From the first we have seen that Olivares recognised the absolute need for fiscal unity and equality of sacrifice from all Spain if the old dream of supremacy was to be enforced and France humiliated. Portugal, Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, naturally jealous of ancient rights which each successive ruler had sworn to respect, were determined to resist any attack by the favourite upon their autonomy. I have on many occasions pointed out that the main explanation of the past, and problem of the future, of Spanish history is the intensely local and regional character of the patriotism of the people. In our times the rapid means of intercommunication between the parts, and the existence of a unified administrative system for two centuries, have in some directions rendered this feeling less conspicuous than it was; though in others, and particularly in Catalonia and the {332} Basque Provinces, it is still strong and clamant. But in the time of Olivares the sentiment was absolutely unimpaired. Philip II., even after the rising against him in Aragon, had done little really to injure the ancient _fueros_, whilst in Portugal he had gone to the very extreme of prudence in recognising the separate national rights of his new subjects. Any attack, or even threat, therefore, on the part of a new and much hated minister like Olivares upon this, the strongest racial and traditional sentiment of the most active and enterprising communities in the Peninsula, was certain to lead to conflict. The need for money, nevertheless, was pressing, and however statesmanlike the aim of the minister may have been if its execution had been gentle and cautious extending over many years, it became the height of rashness when forced to an immediate issue. Olivares was very far from being foolish or naturally rash, and when his policy was first explained to Philip, soon after his accession, he did not disguise that his object was difficult to attain, and must be a work of time.[19] But when once he had embraced the policy which forced upon Spain {333} costly wars abroad, defeat and ruin for himself was the only alternative to the dangerous plan of making the autonomous realms pay their share of the cost of wars undertaken by the King, and of the rampant waste amongst the decadent crowd in Madrid that had already bled Castile to exhaustion. [Sidenote: Portuguese autonomy]