ntaining 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 adjustment
of the tariff, on imports alone, perhaps we should be justified in
saying one million and a half, or not far short of two millions
sterling, import and export duties combined, would go far to remedy the
desperation of Spanish financial embarrassments--the perfect solution
and clearance of which, however, must be, under the most favourable
circumstances, an affair of many years. It is not readily or speedily
that the prodigalities of Toreno, or the unscrupulous, but more
patriotic financial impostures of Mendizabal, can be retrieved, and the
national faith redeemed. The case is, to appearance, one past relief;
but, with honest and incorruptible ministers of finance like Ramon
Calatrava, hope still lingers in the long perspective. With an
enlightened commercial policy on the one hand, with the retrenchment of
a war expenditure on the other, the balance between receipts and
expenditure may come to be struck, an excess of revenue perhaps created;
whilst the sales of national domains against _titulos_ of debt, if
managed with integrity, should make way towards its gradual diminution.

As there is much misapprehension, and many exaggerations, afloat
respecting the special participation of Great Britain in the contraband
trade of Spain, its extraordinary amount, and the interest assumed
therefrom which would result exclusively from, and therefore induces the
urgency for, an equitable reform of the tariff of Spain, we shall
briefly take occasion to show the real extent of the British share in
that illicit trade, so far as under the principal heads charged; and
having exhibited that part of