Note 13 — SPAIN UNDER NARVAEZ AND CHRISTINA.

At the first hint of a project of reform in the tariff, the cry in Spain, and especially in Catalonia, has invariably been,—"Protection for our manufactures!" So loud was the clamour, that it might have been imagined millions of mouths were dependent for bread on the fabrication of Spanish calicoes. Now, the Revue des Deux Mondes estimates the total number of hands employed in these much-vaunted cotton manufactures at thirty-one thousand; and even this number we are induced to believe considerably over-estimated, from minute and interesting information on the subject we have recently obtained from an intelligent Spaniard, long resident in Catalonia. And amongst the manufacturers are a number of Frenchmen, and other foreigners; for, in fact, Spaniards have little taste for mechanical occupations, and have too fine a climate not to love the open air. So the "protection," so violently insisted upon, is for this handful of operatives, who make bad calicoes at exorbitant prices; or rather, if the truth be told, it is for the master-manufacturers, most of whom are also master-smugglers.