CHILL AND SPAIN.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 250, 2 May 1866, Page 3

CHILL AND SPAIN.

(From Jkacmillan's Magazine for February.) The form of government in Chile is republican — under a President, Senate, and Congress. The president is aided by a Council of State, and the administrative department is under the direction of four Cabinet Ministers. The suffrage is limited to such as can read and write, and possess a small amount of property, or follow some employment yielding about £30 per annum. Nearly all the laboring population can earn more than this in the form of wages, and so, if they possess the higher qualifications, can be enrolled as electors. Notwithstanding the encouragement thus given, the constituencies are not nearly so numerous in proportion to the population as in our towns with the £10 franchise — want of education being the great barrier. Chili exports annually to foreign countries more or less to the following extent : — Uopper, 40,000 tons, pure, at £80 per ton... £3,600,000 Silver., 800,000 Agricultural produce, &c, about 1,100,000 Total £5,500,000 These exports fully meet the value of her imports, : There is some faultiness in the department of her financial economics. The present Minister of .Finance, Senor Eeyes, is a ft young lawyer, clever, yet selfvvilled, conservative in his system of taxation, adopting and defending the most exploded ways of extracting money for the wants of the Treasury. H\s defence of the export duty on copper, the backbone of the country's wealth, argues little for his educatiou in the principles of political enconomy. Senor Covarrubias, the Foreign Secretary, is an able man ; 'and in his correspondence with Admiral Pareja and the Foreign Ministers on the subject of the Spanish aggression on his country, he has shown himself to ibe fully equal to the emergency. The President, Don Jose Joaquin Perez, is not understood to be of more than ordinary capacity, but is fulfiling his now most responsible duties to the satisfaction of men of all parties. ■ ' It is barely hall" a century yet Bince Chili throw off the yoke of Spain, and achieved her national independence. With Lord Cochrane as her High Admiral and with San Martin and others as her generals, not only did she accomplish her

own deliverance, but she carried the war to the enemy's strongholds beyond her own borders. 'The cutting out of the Spanish frigate Esmeralda, by Lord Dundonald, from under the guns of the Castle of Callao, was a deed of daring unparalleled in modern times. Happily and with steady progress has Chili ever since pursued the path of improvement. She emerged from a servitude galling as Egyptian bondage. The people, with few' exceptions, were ignorant and uneducated;the resources pf the country entirely, undeveloped. Inheriting as she did many of the vices of her former masters, and; too much of their fanaticism, it is not to be wondered at that of several other new : countries, has been slow. But we have, said enough to prove that steady progress has been made, and that on all hands abound the evidences of material wealth, and of a large measure of prosperity. "We may add that, in the last session of Congress, a declaratory act interpreted the Constitution of the country, as guaranteeing the rights of conscience, and the sacred principle of religious liberty, which it had been supposed to contravene. In Chili the liberty of the press and the right of association for lawful purposes, are secured under the Constitution. At, this moment Chili is enduring a, cruel wrong from.. the bands of her former masters. Spain has thought fit, on the mosfc paltry grounds, to trample on. the gallant little republic, no doubt; having anticipated ere this time a very different result than she has so far experienced. Chili has been for some time past a thorn in the side of Spain; She is ready to throw herself into the. gap between Spain and her almost undisguised designs upon' the neighboring State. Our own impression is that Spain has, been cherishing, and still cherishes, designs against the treasury, if not against the sovereignty, of Peru. She has been acting the part of an unprincipled buccaneer. Conduct like hers ought to be reprobated by the family of nations. To occcpy herself abroad with visionary schemes of plunder or of conquest, while her own house is on fire, appears to us like the procedure of a maniac, or of a self- deceiver . The master spirit in these unlawful enterprises is undoubtedly O'Donnell, who, to support a tottering cause at home, seeks to build up and re-establish his popularity by deeds of war abroad. ' i ■ i