DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
1ir. Koerner to AMr. Seward. 
No. 73.]                        LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, 
Madrid, Tanuary 17, 1864. 
SIR: The telegraph will have informed you, ere this, that the cabinet of

Miraflores has ceased to exist. It.was defeated, oil Friday last, by a large
vote 
in the Senate. The question on which the vote was given was one arising out

of a proposition of the ministry to repeal certain organic laws which had
been 
passed in 1857 under the administration of General Narvaez. By the consti-

tution of 1845 all senators were nominated for life by the Crown, to be taken

from certain classes of functionaries or from the grandees of Spain, enjoying
a 
certain fixed income -from land or other stable sources. The organic laws
of 
Narvaez, called reforms, provided that the dignity of senators should be
hered- 
itary in the family of grandees, upon condition, however, as heretofore,
the heir 
should have the requisite income, and, in order to secure this property qualifi-

cation, the grandees were permitted to entail their estates. 
Another of these reforms of Narvaez provided that the rules of both houses

of the Cortes should be established by a law, thus placing it out of the
power 
(as was alleged) of accidental majorities in either house to oppress minorities

by arbitrary changes of the rules. These reforms, however, remained a dead

letter; neither the administration of Narvaez (which hardly survived the
pas- 
sage of the reforms) nor any of the various subsequent cabinets finding it
ad- 
visable to even propose a law of entail for the grandees-the common law of

Spain forbidding the entailing of estates-nor to offer a law establishing
parlia- 
mentary rules for the Cortes. 
The present ministry, counting upon the support of the O'Donnel party, 
which was committed in favor of repealing the many reforms, introduced a
bill 
abolishing the provisions allowing grandees to entail, and also the one which

provided for a law of parliamentary rules. As it was admitted, on all hands,

that the said Narvaez reforms had produced no change, and remained unexe-

cuted, and would in all probability ever so remain, it is very clear that
the ques- 
tion of itself was of no great moment.  The ministry, however, trying to

remove from the organic laws provisions which had become impossible of execu-

tion, had undoubtedly the better side of the question. Its motive for raising

such an unsubstantial question was probably to obtain some cheap popularity,

as the proposition to deprive the grandees of the privilege to entail, and
thereby 
prevent in many instances the inheritance of the senatorial dignity, had
a certain 
odor of liberality about it. 
The measure could only have been carried by the assistance of the O'Donnel

party, (Union liberal,) but that party almost to a man voted with their chief,

O'Donnel, whose only object was to beat the ministry, to which he had of
late 
become very hostile. This conduct was of course inconsistent with their former

professions and pledges in regard to the Narvaez reforms, but the ministry
must 
have been very blind if they counted upon political morality in any of the
existing 
parties. 
Although the adverse vote was not given directly on the bill proposed by
the 
ministry, but on a preliminary question, which showed, however, pretty plainly

what it would be on the main question ; the Senate was immediately adjourned

and the ministers tendered their resignation, which, under the circumstances,

had to be accepted. No cabinet has been formed yet. The probability is that

another coalition ministry will be called in, and although such an one offers
no 
stability, yet it is difficult to do anything else at present where neither
the con- 
servatives, nor the Progressistas, nor the old O'Donnel compromise party,
(Union 
liberal,) has a majority in either house, or perhaps in the country. If Narvaez,

as head of the 1oderados, or Oilazaga-Prim, as heads of the Progressitas,
were to