The authorities of Rio-Tinto and the Management of the Mine appear highly satisfied with the courteous and kind reception that both the town of Rio-Tinto and the mass of workers from the Mines offered to the Infantes of Spain and Princess Elena on the 17th, to the point that they have posted a statement in public places giving a vote of thanks to the population for their noble and refined conduct. To us, the attitude of the people and the workers of Rio-Tinto on this occasion causes no surprise at all. The Spanish worker, whatever his detractors may say, knows his own worth and his spirit possesses something of that chivalrous nature which distinguished our people during the Middle Ages and the early centuries of the modern era: a spirit that is by no means erased in our race. The illustrious guests of the Mines, as we have already mentioned when describing their journey to the Town Hall square where a popular dance took place without restrictions and without the presence of the agents and authorities necessary to maintain order and social decorum, rubbed shoulders with everyone; they spoke with whoever wished to speak with them: they sat on the benches in the square, remaining there in short for more than an hour and a half, and it was a sight to behold the cordiality alongside the courtesy with which that entire multitude behaved. The memory of this event confirms our belief regarding the sons of our soil, whose nobility has neither ranks nor hierarchies and which is never found wanting in important moments. The Spanish worker is not merely that type of simple exterior we have described, but is also an intelligent, active, and temperate worker: he becomes proud if he is belittled; fierce if he is mistreated; but docile, simple, and grateful if he is treated with the consideration he deserves as a man. It is certain that foreign workers may have surpassed him in technical instruction, but by no means in aptitude or in the faculties to receive it. Our homeland saw its sources of industrial and artistic production blinded before the various wars the country has sustained, both civil and external throughout this present century, as well as by the administrative misfortunes committed behind the back of industry. Thus, for a hundred years, our industries have remained in certain branches or have at least regressed in their stages, while precisely during that time, foreign industries have traveled an immense path and reached the highest degree of perfection and encouragement alongside their abundant production. This is the sole cause of the lack of technical knowledge among our workers, and in no way is it due to the stupidity with which some wish to brand our industries; with astonishing speed, they develop and reach a high degree, representing at the same time a contingent of great importance for labor. This is not merely an opinion we hold out of self-love or national spirit; it is a great dilemma of the directors of Rio-Tinto—there is one Director, the very creator and life of the same, who, free from all passion, has told us many times of these same ideas and has maintained them abroad whenever he has had the occasion to deal with matters of this nature. Our homeland having been resigned in the industrial movement that all the nations of Europe saw for a century, this movement finds itself today in a position to regain much of the lost time. At present, there exist in Europe many idle capitals that until now sought employment mainly in the Hispanic-American Republics, where today they are not inclined to go due to the deplorable economic state in which those countries find themselves, a situation that has brought in its wake, as a logical result and consequence, political agitation and disturbances of public order, which in turn contribute to further aggravating the financial situation of those countries; on the other hand, the colonial businesses of the great European powers, and generally all the colonisation businesses that the most populated powers of Europe where more surplus capitals exist have created, have not yet acquired sufficient development to inspire such confidence as to absorb from those capitals the surplus energy which today finds itself in better conditions than ever, almost barren as it is in industrial exports, to bring to our soil sufficient money to develop multiple industries and invigorate its domestic and foreign trade; and for this we lack three things: intelligence, the skill of politicians, and the combinations of our diplomats—in a word, that our public men have a sense of our working people. Spain is an almost depopulated country; in France, Belgium, England, and Germany, the population is double or triple in relation to the territory; in those countries, consumption is immense for their own production. In Spain, where a fertile soil and a benign climate facilitate existence, it is nonetheless demonstrated by this century and by many more ancient ones that politicians live among us who believe that any people living exclusively from agriculture, disregarding industry, cannot sustain—however fertile it may be—a large population or develop great wealth; and workers of Rio-Tinto, understand well what we have said for many years, which we have fought against: that our country is eminently agricultural is a truth, but it is not the whole truth; it is a truth, but one that is not acceptable if by it one means to imply that Spain is not an industrial country; the lands of our homeland keep in their bosom all the minerals of easy exploitation, its coastline for it capitals and communication routes that can make it the mother of chemical industries and develop mechanical industries to a high degree. Agriculture, poor today in such a fertile country, needs industry for its vigorous development; both because industry would supply it with procedures and machines to facilitate its production, and because it would offer a large population for the consumption of its industrial products. In those countries with a milder climate than Spain, where life due to these same climatic conditions becomes much more difficult than here, where the population exceeds the needs of agriculture and industry and the surplus of hands is excessive, competition is terrible, and the struggle for existence energetic, strikes and workers’ demonstrations are understandable; but in Spain, where not all the elements enclosed in our depths have been exploited, which in the Roman era constituted a movement of labourers when today it barely has half, where hands are lacking to untangle all its elements of production, such movements do not have a basis in reason as they do abroad, but are manifestations of ignorance. What is needed here is prudence, agility, order, and guarantees to attract the surplus capitals today in Europe, which would transform our soil in a few years, turning it into a great labour market, having so many elements for it. Our workers should know that some of the strikes organised in Europe were not done in the interest of the working class, but due to industrial or commercial rivalries to ruin industries that provided competition to others; the terrible strikes in Belgium of the glass-making workers, which affected magnificent factories producing objects of said material, it is proven were provoked by industrialists of similar products so that the destroyed factories would no longer compete, leaving a multitude of workers who worked in them destitute, and who even today have not been able to find work that compensates for the wages they earned there. Other branches have been international questions that have gone to foster the development of industries that were coming to compete with the country from which the strike orders originated, without the workers in these cases having gained anything, but rather greatly harming their interests. We understand that what we have been saying regarding Spain in general, we specify very particularly regarding the province of Huelva and its rich masses of extraction. If Huelva has seen its industrial life greatly develop in a few years and its population double, it is precisely due to the industrial and mercantile conditions of this region; but this development is only just beginning, and still the Huelva-Extremadura region is capable of attracting vast amounts of capital in the favorable situation in which we find ourselves, which will increase labor and consequently increase the well-being of the worker, the small industrialist, and the property owner. For this to happen, the people need only remain calm, without giving way to demonstrations, strikes, and tumults that have no reason to exist here, because neither does labor overwhelm, nor does competition diminish the salary, nor are there long periods of unemployment.

(Adapted from La Provincia)