Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/326

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304 SPAIN [HISTORY. and a chamber of deputies. The senate is composed of members of three classes: (1) members by right of birth or office princes, the wealthier nobles holding the rank of grandee (grandc), a dignity conferred by the king either for life or as an hereditary honour, and the highest state "officials ; (2) members nominated by the king for life ; and (3) members elected by the state corporations and by the most highly taxed subjects of the state for a period of five years. The members belonging to the first two classes must not exceed 180 in number, and there may be the same number of members of the third class. The chamber of deputies consists of members elected for five years, in the proportion of one deputy for every 50,000 of the population. The electors must be twenty-five years of age and must have paid land-tax of twenty-five pesetas (1) for one year, or an industrial tax of fifty pesetas for two years. The executive administration is entrusted to a responsible minis- try (consejo de ministros), in which the presidency belongs either to one of the ministers or to a president without portfolio. There are eight ministerial departments the first secretaryship of state, to which belongs the management of foreign affairs, the secretary- ships of grace and justice, finance, and the interior, the department for the promotion of material and intellectual interests (secrctaria defomcnto), and the secretaryships of war, marine, and the colonies. The civil administration is under the secretary for the interior. In each province is a civil governor nominated by the crown, and the governor presides over a council, the members of which are elected by the representatives of each commune (ayuntamiento). Justice. Law and Justice. Spanish law is founded on the Roman law, the Gothic common law, and the national code proclaimed at the meeting of the cortes at Toro in 1501 (the leyes de Toro). There is a court of first instance in each of the 501 partidos judicialcs into which the kingdom is divided ; and a court of second instance in each of 15 audicndas territorialcs into which the partidos judicialcs are grouped ; and there sits at Madrid a supreme court modelled on the French cour de cassation. The administration of justice is public. Except in commercial cases the parties to a suit must always be represented by sworn counsel (abogados fiscales). Finance. Finance. The following statement (Table XI.) shows the equi- valent in English money of the budget estimates for the years noted ; it should be explained, however, that these estimates have only a limited value, inasmuch as the public accounts of Spain have not been audited since 1870, and have not been passed by the cortes since 1867 : Years. Revenue. Expenditure. Years. Revenue. Expenditure. 1860-61 1870-71 1874-75 1877-78 1880-81 18,923,440 27,901,746 21,792,000 29,433,000 31,666,031 18,773,693 32,819,424 20,821,000 29,430,000 33,466,047 1881-82 1882-83 1883-84 ' 1884-85 1885-86 31,492,920 31,259,769 32,095,075 31,444,682 34,900,575 32,584,598 31,573,083 32,053,999 31,003,969 35,885,869 The chief heads of revenue, according to the budget estimates of 1885-86, were excise (including stamp duties and government monopolies), 10,534,480; direct taxes on land, trade, mines, &c., 10,393,920; taxes on Government salaries, registration, &c., 5,362,000 ; customs, 5,360,000. The chief items of expenditure were the charges of the public debt, 10,966,937 ; the charges of the ministry of war, 6,050,944 ; those connected with the adminis- tration of state property, 5,748,593 ; the charges belonging to the ministerio de fomento, 4,177,983; those of grace and justice, 2,237,844; those of marine, 1,756,022. The expenses of quelling the insurrection in Cuba of 1868-78, and those subsequently arising out of a civil war in the Peninsula, raised the total amount of the Spanish debt on the 1st of January 1881 to about 512,000,000 ; but, as it was by that time manifest that Spain was unable to meet the obligations thus incurred, an arrangement was come to by which the capital and interest of the debt were reduced. The bulk of the debt now bears interest at the rate of 4 per cent., and on the 1st of October 1884 the capital stood at 6356 million pesetas, or 254,250,000, and the total annual charge was 238 million pesetas, or 9,522,857. The principal items are the perpetual foreign debt, amounting in October 1884 to 78,840,000, a perpetual internal debt, amounting in October 1884 to 77,840,000, and a redeemable debt (internal and external) amounting to 70,480,000. Currency, Weights, and Measures. The French monetary system and the metric system of weights and measures have been intro- duced the latter in 1859, the former in 1871. In the case of the weights and measures the French names also have been adopted, with only the necessary linguistic changes. In the case of the currency the old Spanish name of peseta was retained for the unit (the franc), and the peseta is divided into 100 centimes. According to the present value of the peseta, therefore, 25 pesetas may be taken as about equal to 1. Previously to the introduction of the Frenph monetary system the peseta was the fifth part of a peso duro, which was equal to 20 rcalcs de vcllon, or rather more than a five-franc piece. The only paper money in Spain consists of the notes of the Banco de Espana. Bibliography. The most comprehensive work on the geography of Spain is the Diccionario Geograjico-historico e Statistico de las Provincias de Espana of Madoz, 16 vols., 1846-50. A more summary account is contained in the Rcsenas Geografica, Geologica, y Agricola de Espana, by D. Fr. Coello, &c., Madrid, 1S59 ; and in Die J'yrenaische Halbinsel, by Dr Moritz Willkomm, Leipsic, 3 vols. , 1S84-86. Numerous notices regarding the geography of Spain are to be found in the Boletin de la SocieJad Geografka de Madrid. See also F. Garrido, La Espana Contemporanea, Barcelona, 2 vols., 1865-67 (the French edition, Brussels, 1862, is comparatively meagre) ; Davillier, L'Efpagne, Paris, 1873; A. J. C. Hare, Wanderings in Spain A. Gallenga, Iberian Keminiscencet, London, 1883; Webster, Spain, London, 1882; Harrison, Spain, Boston, 1882; Higgin, Commercial and Industrial Spain, London, 1886 ; together with the guide-books of Ford (Murray) and O'Shea (Black). The botany of Spain is very fully treated in various works by Willkomm. Besides the Prodromus Flora; Hispanicx, Stuttgart, 3 vols. 4to, 1861-80, the most important are lllustrationes Florin llispanix, Stuttgart, 1881, c., fol., and Die Strand- -and Steppengeliiete der ibcr. Halbinsel, ^Levpsic, 1852, 8vo. Of another flora by Don M. Cohneiro, entitled Enumeration de las Plantas de la Peninsula Hispano-Lusitana e Islas Baleares, one volume has been published (Madrid, 1885). It is expected to be completed in 4 vols. There is no recent general work on the zoology of Spain. The geology of the Iberian Peninsula is treated in a series of articles, illustrated by several maps, by D. Federico de Botella, in the above-mentioned Boletin, vol. ii., 1877. See alsoMacpherson. Succession Estratirjrafica de los Ttrrenos Arcaicos de Espana; W. K. Sullivan, Fates on the Geology and Mineralogy of the Spanish Provinces of Santander and Madrid. The geological maps of Spain already com- pleted are those of De Verneuil and Collomb, Paris, 1864, 2d ed. (now out of print) 1868, and De Botella y de Hornos, Madrid, 1879. A geological survey of the provinces of Spain is nov in progress, and on the conclusion of the survey a map will be published in sixteen sheets on the scale of 1: 400,000. Among the more important annual or periodical official statistical publications are the Estadistica Genera! del Comercio Exterior de Espana; Boletin Mensual de Estadistica Demografico-Sanitaria ; Situacion de los Ferrocarriles ; and Esta- distica Minera de Espana. The best topographical map of Spain is that of C. Vogel, in four sheets, in Sticler's Hand Atlas, on the scale of 1 : 1,500,000. Among other maps that may be referred to are that of D. Fr. Coello, scale 1 : 1,000,000, Madrid, 1861, and the Mapa Itinerario Militar de Espana Formadopor el Cuerpo de Estado Mayor del Ejercito en 1SG5, scale 1: 500,000. An excellent map, on the scale of 1: 50,000, indicating the elevations by means of contour lines at intervals of 20 metres, and by figures for particular spots (the elevations reduced to the mean level of the Mediterranean at the port of Alicante), and distinguishing cultivated and un- cultivated ground, and in the former distinguishing huertas, gardens, oliveyards, vineyards, orangeries, &c., where they exceed an area of 10 hectares, is now being published by the Institute Geografico y Estadistico de Madrid. Of this map, however, only about 20 out of 1080 sheets have as yet been issued. Among those which have already appeared is that containing Madrid. (G. G. C.) PART II. HISTORY. SECTION I. ANCIENT HISTORY. Plate VII. Hispania was the name by which the Romans called the great peninsula made up of Spain and Portugal, but we know nothing certain as to the origin of the name, or whether it was in general use among the ancient inhabit- ants of the country. 1 To the Greeks Spain, or rather its coast-line on the Mediterranean, was known vaguely as Iberia, a name we meet with in Herodotus (i. 163) in connexion with the Phoenician Tartessus, which is generally understood to have been the country about the mouth of the Guadal- quivir and to be the Tarshish of Scripture. It was the Phocseans, a branch of the Ionian Greeks settled in Asia Minor, who according to Herodotus first opened up to the 1 Humboldt derives it from the Basque espana (border), as signifying the part of Europe bordering on the ocean, but his conjecture seems strained and fanciful. Greek world this remote region of the extreme West, which had hitherto been a land of mystery and enchantment, imagined to be the home of the setting sun, and known only by the reports of adventurous Phoenician mariners. The hero-god Hercules, it was fabled, had left traces of his presence and mighty working here, and the twin rocks at the entrance of the Mediterranean were called by his name, "the Pillars of Hercules," the "world's end "to the Greeks, nothing but the all-encircling ocean-river lying beyond. The Greeks seem to have planted no colonies in Spain, with the exception of Emporium, on the coast just under the eastern spur of the Pyrenees, founded probably from Massilia (Marseilles) by the Phocseans, and perhaps of Saguntum. In fact they had but very hazy notions about the country, and Iberia, as they called it, was to them little more than a name for an indefinite extent of territory in the Far West, in the occupation of