The way in which the wire-pulling is done from Madrid, in case of an election, is through the cacique, or chief person in each constituency; hence the name of the process.  This person may be the Civil Governor, the Alcalde, or merely a rich landowner or large employer of labour in touch with the Government:  the pressure brought to bear may be of two sorts, taking the form of bribery or threat.  The voters who hang on to the skirts of the cacique may hope for Government employment, or they may fear a sudden call to pay up arrears of rent or of taxes; the hint is given from headquarters, or a Government candidate is sent down.  It matters little how the thing is done so long as the desired end is accomplished.  Speaking of the general election which took place last June, and in which it was well known beforehand that the Liberals were to be returned in a large majority, one of the Madrid newspapers wrote:  “The people will vote, but assuredly the deputies sent up to the Cortes will not be their representatives, nor their choice.”

We, who have for so many years enjoyed a settled government, forget how different all this is in a country like Spain, which has oftener had to be reproached for enduring bad government than for a readiness to effect violent changes, or to try new experiments; but the progress actually made since the Revolution of 1868 has really been extraordinary, and it has gone steadily forward.  Spain has always been celebrated for the making of convenios—­a word which is scarcely correctly translated by “arrangement.”  During the Carlist wars, the Government, and even generals in command, made convenios with the insurgents to allow convoys to pass without interference, money value sometimes being a factor in the case; but one of the strangest of these out-of-sight agreements, and one which English people never understand, is that which has existed almost ever since the Restoration between the political parties in the Congress, or, at least, between their leaders.  It is an arrangement, loyally carried out, by which each party is allowed in turn to come into power.  The Cortes is elected to suit the party whose turn it is to be in office, and there is little reality in the apparent differences.  Silvela and Sagasta go backwards and forwards with the regularity of a pendulum, and the country goes on its way improving its position daily and hourly, with small thanks to its Government.

Perhaps it is as well!  It gives assurance, at least, that no particularly wild schemes or subversive changes shall be made.  When one administration has almost wrecked the ship, as in the Caserta marriage, the other comes in peacefully, and sets the public mind at rest; both parties wish for peace and quietness, and no more revolutions, and the political seesaw keeps the helm fairly straight in ordinary weather.  To what extent the insane and disastrous policy which led to the war with America by its shilly-shally treatment