dy
the strife of parties, and his correspondence gives us lively pictures
of the eloquent Castelar, the champion of a visionary Republic, the
harsh, domineering Romero y Robledo, at once the mainstay and the terror
of his Conservative colleagues, and the cold, egotistic Liberal leader
Sagasta, whose shrewdness in the manipulation of votes had always to be
reckoned with. The constitution given in 1876 had entirely failed to
establish Parliament on a democratic basis. For this the bureaucracy was
responsible. The Home Office abused its powers shamelessly, and by the
votes of its functionaries, and of those who hoped to receive its
favours, it could always secure a big majority for the Government of
the moment. For the three years which Morier spent at Madrid, he
recounts surprising instances of the reversal of electoral verdicts
within a short space of time.

The King was popular and deserved to be so, for his personal qualities
of courage, intelligence, and public spirit; but his position was never
secure. There was a bad tradition by which at intervals the army
asserted its power and upset the constitution. Some intriguing general
issued a _pronunciamiento_, the troops revolted, and the Central
Government at Madrid, having no effective force and no moral ascendancy,
gave way. Parliament had little stability. Cabinets rose and vanished
again; the same eloquent but empty speeches were made, and the same
abuses remained unchanged.

But before now a spark from Spain had set the Continent ablaze. The past
had bequeathed some questions which, awkwardly handled, might cause
explosions elsewhere, and it was well to know the character of those who
had the key to the powder magazine. More than once Morier was approached
on the delicate question of the admission of Spain to the council of the
Great Powers. In Egypt, where so many foreign interests were involved,
and where Great Britain suffered, in the 'eighties, from so many
diplomatic intrigues, Spain might easily find an opening for her
ambitions. She might advance the plea that the Suez Canal was the direct
route to her colonies in the Philippines. Germany, for ulterior ends,
was encouraging Spanish pretensions; but, to the British, Spain with its
illiberal spirit scarcely seemed likely to prove a helpful
fellow-worker. Morier had to try to convince Spanish ministers that
Great Britain was their truer friend while refusing them what they asked
for; and in such interviews he