SPAIN—RECOGNITION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF MARSHAL SERRANO AND KING ALFONSO.

§ EARL GRANVILLE

My Lords, in rising to ask the noble Earl opposite whether he has any objection to lay upon the Table the Papers connected with the recognition of the Government in Spain under Marshal Serrano, and that of King Alfonso, I wish to say that I shall not press for their production if any such objection exists. If not, I think it desirable that the country should be informed, and that it should also be known abroad, on what principles Her Majesty's Government have acted, and the reasons, if there are any, for taking any exceptional course. After the abdication of the last King of Spain, the several Governments of Europe and the late Government at home were anxious to find an opportunity of recognizing in that country a Government which was either legally or constitutionally established, or which, at all events, seemed to be generally accepted by the people. There was no Government which fulfilled these conditions when we left office, and we did not think, therefore, the time had come when we could recognize any; the same course being wisely followed, in my opinion, by Her Majesty's present advisers. There was a paragraph in the Queen's Speech at the end of last Session, which indicated their reasons for not recognizing the Government of Marshal Serrano; but in the autumn that Government was recognized by Her Majesty's Ministers;—and I may in 1383 passing, perhaps, refer to what was said by the present Prime Minister when a Government of which I was a Member recognized that which was set up in Trance under General Cavaignac. The right hon. Gentleman said,—"The Government recognized the Government of General Cavaignac, and immediately they did so, it fell." Now, that appears to me to be a remark which may be equally applicable to the Government of Marshal Serrano. But I think, nevertheless, Her Majesty's Government took a wise course. Since that time the Government have recognized the Government of King Alfonso, who, although he has received no legal or constitutional sanction on the part of the people of Spain, appears to have been accepted by the Army and I believe in Spain generally, as the person most likely to bring about a favourable solution of the difficulties of that country. Although no doubt any nation has a right to recognize the Government of another, yet it is not our practice—and the remark applies to both Parties in the State—to give that recognition except, as I said before, in those cases in which a Government is legally or constitutionally established, or meets with general acceptance from the people; though the recognition of the Government of one country by those of other States is to some extent a solution of the difficulty. I may also observe that the recognition of that of King Alfonso by Her Majesty's Government was a little later than that by other Governments of Europe, and I think that the public should be made aware of the facts, and be enabled to judge whether there were any sufficient causes in this particular case. My object, then, in asking for these Papers is that the public should be informed on the matter. Before I sit down I should like to make a remark on a subject with respect to which, I may say, I have no personal knowledge—I allude to some violent attacks which are said to have been made on Mr. Layard, the Minister of this country in Spain, in some of the Spanish journals. With regard to Mr. Layard, I can say from my own knowledge while I held the Seals of the Foreign Office that it was impossible for a Minister to have acted more completely according to the instructions he had received or to have kept his own Government at home more fully acquainted 1384 with the state of affairs in the country to which he was accredited than Mr. Layard did; and, I may add that I believe no person could more honestly desire the welfare of Spain than he did. I have the satisfaction of feeling sure that the noble Earl opposite will be able to confirm what I could not help saying with respect to Mr. Layard.

§ THE EARL OF DERBY

I have not the slightest difficulty in answering the Question put to me by my noble Friend (Earl Granville). In the matter to which my noble Friend has referred, as in all other transactions in which Mr. Layard and I have been jointly concerned, the action and language of Mr. Layard have had the entire approval of Her Majesty's Government. It is perfectly true, as the noble Earl intimated, that various attacks—some of them I believe of an extremely virulent and personal kind—have been made in certain of the newspapers of Madrid and circulated among some portion of society in Madrid against the representative of this country in that capital. I believe that those personal attacks have not emanated from any important or influential section of society. But in Spain, as elsewhere, there is a violent Ultramontane section, to which the representative of a Protestant and constitutional State is naturally objectionable. I do not know the details of these attacks; but Mr. Layard has very properly treated them with the contempt which they deserve. With regard to what the noble Earl said as to the practice of this country in the matter of recognition of Foreign Governments, Her Majesty's Government have not departed from the usual manner of proceeding, and I do not understand that he objects to the course which has been taken by Her Majesty's present Government in recognizing the Government of Marshal Serrano. We delayed a little in the first instance because, as your Lordships will remember, the Government of Marshal 1385 Serrano was one which did not rest on any popular basis, but was created by a military pronunciamiento, and it was natural that we should wait until we saw that it was a Government in a position—I will not say to be permanent, for it is very difficult to say what Government will be permanent in Spain as Spain now is—but in a position in which it could hold its own, and in which it should be recognized de facto by the great majority of the people. We thought the Government of Marshal Serrano fulfilled that, condition. It was undoubtedly recognized de facto over nearly the whole of Spain with the exception of the Provinces in which the Carlist War was then and still is going on. The fact that war was going on was given as a reason—and I think it was a very fair reason—why it was impossible to place the Government of Marshal Serrano on a basis of legality by the convocation of any Parliamentary Assembly. It was said then, with perfect truth, that an Assembly which represented only a part of the country would not fulfil the necessary conditions of a national Parliament; while to summon representatives from the Provinces which at the time were occupied by a hostile force, was a course which it was impossible for any Government to adopt. We therefore waited for a while before recognizing the Government of Marshal Serrano, and when we judged the time had arrived we instructed our Representative in Spain to recognize it. We had been preceded in this recognition by other Governments, and one motive with them was to give the Government of Marshal Serrano a certain degree of moral support against the Carlist party. The initiative was not taken by us, but by the Government of Germany. If a different course of action had been followed by the leading Governments of Europe on that subject many inconvenient complications might have arisen. I need not refer to them more particularly. We found that the French Government was willing in that matter to take the same course as the Government of Germany; and with the single exception of the Government of Russia, there was no European Government that was not ready to recognize the Government of Marshal Serrano. We, therefore, thought it would have been a step that was very unusual, and one for which it would 1386 have been very difficult to assign adequate reasons, if we had declined to do that which, with one exception, every other great European State had done. So much for that transaction. On the first night of the Session the noble Earl (Earl Granville) expressed his surprise at not finding some mention of that transaction in the Speech from the Throne. My sole reason for not advising the insertion of a paragraph on that subject was that the Government of Marshal Serrano having collapsed in a manner which anywhere but in Spain would have caused considerable surprise, and with a degree of suddenness that no one anticipated, the question of its recognition six or seven months before was one that had lost all practical interest and importance. And as we had acted in the case of Marshal Serrano's Government, so also we have acted in the case of that of King Alfonso. We found the Government of King Alfonso to be accepted by the country, as that of Marshal Serrano had been, over all other parts of Spain except those which the Carlists occupy. We were in no particular or precipitate haste to give a formal sanction to that Government; but we satisfied ourselves that it was de facto established, and we believe that it has at least as good a chance of permanence as any Government that might take its place. Where revolutions are so frequent as they are in Spain, I do not think it would be a desirable thing for it to be supposed that by recognizing a de facto Government in Spain, we commit ourselves to any expression of opinion upon its merits, or to anticipations as to the future. We recognized the Government of King Alfonso as we recognized the Government of Marshal Serrano, because it appeared to us to be that which, as a fact, the Spanish people acknowledged and obeyed. As to the Papers to which the noble Earl referred, I do not know that they will throw any more light on the subject than I have endeavoured to give in these few remarks; but there is no reason why they should not be produced, with, of course, the usual care to avoid anything that may compromise other persons or other Governments, and I shall be very happy to produce them.

SPAIN—RECOGNITION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF MARSHAL SERRANO AND KING ALFONSO.—QUESTION.