To return, however, to Spanish industries.  In late years large smelting-works have been opened in Spain, with Spanish capital and management, while at Bilbao are large iron-works for the manufacture of steel rails.  There are splendid deposits of iron in the country, and as the duty on foreign rails entering Spain is L3 4s. per ton, it is probable that the near future will see the country free from the necessity of importing manufactured iron, or, in fact, metal of any kind.  A Catalan company has established important works for reducing the sulphur of the rich mines near Lorca, and confidently expects to produce some thirty thousand tons of sulphur per annum.  The rich silver mines of the Sierra Almagrera are almost wholly in native hands, and have already yielded large fortunes to the owners.  With the present improved transport and shipping facilities in every part of the country, it is probable that the valuable mines scattered all over the Peninsula will be thoroughly worked, to the advance of commercial and industrial interests over the entire country.

While the seaboard provinces are rich in fisheries, as well as in mines, in the south the country is able to grow rice, sugar-cane, maize, raisins, as well as wheat, olives, oranges, grapes, dates, bananas, pine-apples, and almost all kinds of tropical fruits.  The cultivation of all varieties of fruit and vegetables, and their careful gathering and packing have become the object of many large companies and private individuals.  Dates, bananas, grapes, plums, tomatoes, melons, as well as asparagus and other early vegetables, are now being shipped to foreign markets as regular articles of trade, in a condition which insures a rapid and increasing sale.  The exportation of fruit has doubled within the last few years.  The production of cane sugar in 1899 was thirty-one thousand tons, or exactly three times the amount of that produced in 1889.  The exportation of wine, which in 1894 was two millions of milelitros, was in 1898 nearly five millions, and it is daily increasing (one gallon English measure equals about four and one half litros).

Spain has always had excellent wines unknown to other countries, besides that which is manufactured into what we know as “sherry”; but many of them were so carelessly made as to be unfit for transit abroad.  The attention of wine-growers has, however, been steadily turned to this subject during the last twenty years; greater care has been taken in the production; the best methods have been ascertained and followed, and it is possible now to obtain undoctored Spanish wines which perfectly bear the carriage in cask without injury; and, to meet a direct sale to the customer, small barrels containing about twelve gallons are shipped from Tarragona and other ports to England.

One of the most hopeful signs of the economic awakening of the country is the establishment of the Boletin de la Camara de Comercio de Espana en la Gran Bretana, published each month in London.