there is one.  There is an air of good-natured raillery which takes off the edge of political rancour, and keeps up the amenities and the dignity of the Spanish Press.  Only the other day one of the leading English journals pointed out what a dignified part the Press of Madrid, of every shade of politics, had played in the recent effort made by some foreign newspapers—­of a class which so far does not exist in Spain—­to make mischief and awaken national jealousy between England and Spain on the subject of the works now being carried out by the English Government at Gibraltar.  The Spanish newspapers, of all shades of opinion, have made it abundantly evident that their country entertains no unworthy suspicion of England’s good faith, and has not the smallest intention of being led into strained or otherwise than perfectly friendly relations with their old allies of the Peninsular War, to gratify the rabid enmity of a section of a Press foreign to both countries.  This is, perhaps, the more remarkable because a certain amount of misunderstanding of England exists among some elements of the Spanish Press.

The Liberal party in Spain is, in fact, the party of progress, and the nation has at last awakened from its condition of slavery under unworthy rulers, and is practically united in its determination to return to its place among the nations of Europe.

There are many shades of Liberalism, and even Republicanism, but, as will be seen in another place, the real welfare of the people, and not the success of a mere political party, is the underlying motive of all, however wild and unpractical may be some of the dreams for the carrying out of these ideas of universal progress.  It is impossible for a Spaniard to conceive of maligning or belittling his own country for merely party purposes; and, therefore, when he finds an English newspaper calling itself “Liberal” he imagines the word to have the same signification it has in his own country.  So it has come to pass that many of the worst misrepresentations—­to use a very mild term—­of a portion of the English Press have been reproduced in Spanish newspapers, and believed by their readers.

Among the principal newspapers, in a crowd of less important ones, La Epoca, Conservative and dynastic ranks first; this is the journal of the aristocrats, of the “upper ten thousand,” or those who aspire to be so, and it ranks as the doyen of the whole Press.  Its circulation is not so large as that of some of the other papers, but its clientele is supposed to be of the best. El Nacional is also Conservative, but belonging to the party of Romero Robledo.  What the exact politics of that variation of Conservatism might be, it is difficult, I might almost say impossible, for a stranger to say.  If you were told nothing about it, and took it up accidentally to read of current events, you would certainly suppose it to be independent, with a decidedly Liberal tendency.  Still it calls itself Conservative.