But we advance at very low water, inert and without strength; if we advance it is with the current, and not by our own energy, while other people stronger than we swim and swim, advancing at every stroke.

How have we contributed to this progress?
Where are our manifestations of modern life?
The railways, few and bad, are the work of foreigners, and are their property; the grass grows between the rails, which shows that we still follow the holy calm of carts and wagons.

The most important industries, metallurgy and mines, are all in the hands of foreigners or of Spaniards who are subject to them, living under their bountiful protection.

Commerce languishes under an old-fashioned protection which enhances the price of all commodities, and so there is no capital forthcoming; money remains hidden in earthen jars in the fields as treasure, or in the towns is devoted to usury as in past times; the most daring venture to invest in public stock; Government continues the mismanagement, certain of always finding someone to lend, and pointing to this credit as a proof of the country's prosperity.

There are in Spain two million hectares of uncultivated land, twenty-six millions of unirrigated arable land, and only one million irrigated.