, in the majority of cases, that the people
sympathised with Don Carlos, but it was easier and more amusing for the
lazy and the ne'er-do-weels to receive pay and rations for carrying a
gun, and taking pot-shots at any object that presented itself, human or
other, than to work in the fields, the mines, or on the railways. Hence
public enterprise was paralysed; again and again the workmen, with no
desire of their own, were driven off by superior bands of these
wandering shooters, who scarcely deserved even the name of guerillas,
and public works were left deserted and decaying, while the commerce and
industry of the province were wrecked, and apparently destroyed
irrevocably.

In the earlier stages of railway construction and management, French
capital and French labour were employed. England held aloof, partly on
account of the closing of the London Stock Exchange to Spanish
enterprises, in consequence of the vexed question of the celebrated
coupons, but also because the aid afforded by the State did not fall in
with the ideas of English capitalists. They desired a guaranteed rate of
interest, while the Spanish Government would have nothing but a
subvention paid down in one lump sum, arguing that it would be
impossible to tell when a line was making more than the guaranteed
interest, "as the companies would so arrange their accounts as to show
invariably an interest smaller than that guaranteed!" With this view of
the honesty of their own officials, no one else could be expected to
have a better opinion of them; and England allowed France and Belgium
thenceforward to find all the capital and all the materials for Spanish
railways.

The total amount of subventions actually paid by Government up to
December 31, 1882, was L24,529,148. "If," says the author of _Commercial
and Industrial Spain_, "the money that we so candidly lent to the swarm
of defaulting South American Republics had been properly invested in
Spanish railways, a great deal of trouble might probably have been
spared to the unfortunate investors."

All that, however, is altered now: the State schools and universities
are turning out daily well-equipped native engineers, both for railway
and mining works, and Spaniards are finding their own capital for public
works. The phrase "Spain for the Spaniards" is acquiring a new
significance--perhaps the most hopeful of all the signs of progress the
country is making. In 1899, there were working 12,916 kilometros