to pay these debts. But more than this-1 pledge myself,
if necessary, to show,
ter; and that the nominal debt and fraudulent claims, do not and ought not to
so eat millions per annum. But then comes the question, Cannot the revenues of the country be augmented ? 0. P. Q. replies- No—not to meet such an amount and such claims as these. For, in the first place, the mere interest on the loans alone, without paying any attention to the other debts of Spain, would amount to 8 millions of pounds sterling per annuni : and how could this sum be raised by any mode of taxation ? Secondly, the people demand the reduction of the taxes ; the landed proprietors and the middling classes the suppression of the tithes ; the national or Spanish creditors require the payment of the old debts before 1823; and the bankers, capitalists, and contractors; solicit the sale of the national property and the estates of the clergy, refusing one and all to pay in any shape or way a farthing more of taxes. Thirdly, add to this, that the expenses of the Government are unavoidably greater, instead of less; that for 1834 alone there is a deficit of 84 millions of francs, nearly 31 millions of pounds sterling ; and that the Government is compelled to ask for a loan in order to cover this deficiency, since, whilst the civil war in the Northern Provinces shall last, the expeuses will not only be greater, but, through the non-payment of all taxes in those provinces, the receipts of the Treasury will be much less. It is clear, then, that out of the REVENUES of Spain NOTHING CAN BE PAID to the foreign claimants.
[But cannot something be done with the National property of Spain towards paying the usurers 636 millions in return for the 67 millions actually lent ? This Letter concludes with a promise to examine this question in the next.]
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