day, calculated the territorial revenue of Spain at 8,572,220,592 reals, say, in sterling, L.85,722,200; whilst he asserts, with better cultivation, population the same, the soil is capable of returning ten times the value.  As a considerable proportion of the revenue of Spain is derived from the taxation of land, the prejudice resulting to the treasury is alone a subject of most important consideration.  For the proprietary, and, in the national point of view, as affecting the well-being of the masses, it is of far deeper import still.  And what is the financial condition of Spain, that her vast resources should be apparently so idle, sported with, or cramped?  Take the estimates, the budget, presented by the minister De ca Hacienda, for the past year of 1842:—­

Revenue 1842, 879,193,400 reals
Id. expenditure, 1,541,639,800 id.
                     -------------
Deficit on the year, 662,446,400

Thus, with a revenue of L.8,791,934, an expenditure of L.15,416,398, and a deficit of L.6,624,460, the debt of Spain, foreign and domestic, is almost an unfathomable mystery as to its real amount.  Even at this present moment, it cannot be said to be determined; for that amount varies with every successive minister who ventures to approach the question.  Multifarious have been the attempts to arrive at a clear liquidation—­that is, classification and ascertainment of claims; but hitherto with no better success than to find the sum swelling under the labour, notwithstanding national and church properties confiscated, appropriated, and exchanged away against titulos of debt by millions.  It is variously estimated at from 120 to 200 millions sterling, but say 150 millions, under the different heads of debt active, passive, and deferred; debt bearing interest, debt without interest, and debt exchangeable in part—­that is, payable in certain fixed proportions, for the purchase of national and church properties.  For a partial approximation to relative quantities, we must refer the reader, for want of better authority, to Fenn’s “Compendium of the English and Foreign Funds”—­a work containing much valuable information, although not altogether drawn from the best sources.

In the revenues of Spain, the customs enter for about 70,000,000 of reals, say L.700,000 only, including duties on exports as well as imports.  Now, assuming the contraband imports to amount only to the value of L.6,000,000, a moderate estimate, seeing that some writers, Mr Henderson among the number, rashly calculate the contraband imports alone at eight, and even as high as ten, millions sterling, it should follow that, at an average rate of duty of twenty per cent, the customs should yield additionally L.1,200,000, or nearly double the amount now received under that head.  As, through the cessation of the civil war, a considerable portion of the war expenditure will be, and is being reduced, the additional L.1,200,000 gained, by an equitable