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5423969_2_0596.xml
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5423969_2_0596.xml
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<bibl><title>Skandinaven</title>,
<date when="1898-05-28">May 28, 1898</date>.
<title level="a">Spain's Colonial Curse</title><title level="a" type="sub">(Editorial in English)</title></bibl>
</title>
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<publicationStmt>
<publisher>The Newberry Library</publisher>
<pubPlace>Chicago, Illinois</pubPlace>
<address>
<addrLine>60 West Walton</addrLine>
<addrLine>Chicago, IL 60610</addrLine>
<addrLine>USA</addrLine>
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<idno>5423969_2_0596</idno>
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<note>Transcribed from digital images contributed to the Internet
Archive by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.</note>
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<bibl><title>Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey</title>, <date>1936-1941</date>,
<sponsor>Works Projects Administration</sponsor>,
<sponsor>Chicago Public Library Omnibus Project</sponsor></bibl>
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<title>Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey [microform]</title>
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<item>NORWEGIAN</item>
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<bibl><title>Skandinaven (Daily Edition)</title>,
<date when="1898-05-28">May 28, 1898</date>.
<title level="a">SPAIN'S COLONIAL CURSE</title><title level="a" type="sub">(Editorial in English)</title></bibl>
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<body>
<p>The distraction of Spain is indeed pitiable. Any other people would have experienced a new national birth from a life-and-death struggle with a mighty foreign foe, and thus secured compensation for a loss of territory in fresh possibilities for growth from within. But the collapse of the Spanish state seems to be as complete as that of her arms.</p>
<p>The absurd factional strife of her politicians, the narrowness and fanaticism of her parties, and the sullen hopelessness and blind rage of her people present a sight that is even more lamentable than the weakness of her military power.</p>
<p>Unless she has reached the hopeless stage of national consumption, the present war may be a great blessing in disguise to Spain. It should arouse the <pb facs="5423969_2_0597.jpg" n="2"/>national sentiment and unite the people, who for centuries have been unanimous in nothing but absurd pride, bigotry, and love of degrading sports and pronunciamentos. But it seems that instead of fostering union and strength, its only effect will be to make chaos more chaotic and crown the humiliation of defeat in a foreign contest with the horrors of revolution and civil war.</p>
<p>The colonies of Spain, once her pride and a source of untold wealth, have been her greatest bane. If any people have suffered from "the curse of gold" it is the land that fostered Pizarro, Cortez, and the other infamous conquistadores. Spain's colonial acquisitions followed the close of her heroic age. The Moors had established her industries and made her agriculture bloom. But the Spaniards had been content with permitting the infidels to do the work of the land, and when the Moors were driven out, industry and agriculture fell into utter decay. It was easier and more to the Spanish taste and better suited to Spanish laziness to despoil peoples beyond the seas of their fabled wealth of gold and silver. That has been the principle and sole aim of the colonial policy of Spain. The Spaniard learned to look upon the colonies as a means of relieving him of the necessity of work and enabling him to lead a life in lazy happiness.</p>
<pb facs="5423969_2_0598.jpg" n="3"/>
<p>This is the main cause of Spain's wretched poverty. Every fresh shipment of stolen gold and silver received at Cadiz was an additional drain upon her real sources of wealth: the Spaniard was kept busy dreaming of these riches, only the beggar's share of which fell to his lot.</p>
<p>The loss of her colonies would be the greatest blessing to Spain. It would relieve the Spanish mind of the frightful nightmare of a most baneful illusion. It would throw the people on their own resources. It would compel them to go to work again after a period of idleness extending over more than ten centuries. During the Moorish occupation, Spain was a blooming garden and she will bloom again if her people are not so degraded that not even dire necessity will induce them to go to work. Then would the land that has destroyed two civilizations build a civilization of her own, and a new and stronger Spain would arise upon the ruins of her unhappy past--a progressive society resting upon the enduring foundations of honest work, popular education, freedom, and unity of national sentiment.</p>
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