IS IT REVOLUTION?

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1739, 2 May 1913, Page 4

IS IT REVOLUTION?

The uflrcst in Portugal seems likely to develop into another revolution. Armed bands have been roaming the streets and exchanging shots with the Republican Guards, and the newspapers assert that the conspirators have formed a Ministry under an ex-Premier _ (Senhok Lima), who is at present in Switzerland. It is by ho iseans easy to arrive at a correct estimate of the value of rumours as to the state of affairs, but there is no room for doubt that as the result of tho grossest misgovernment a very serious crisis has been reached. ■ The present position cannot last much longer, but it is very difficult to forecast the nature of the coming change. When the Monarchy fell the people of Portugal were not fitted by experience for self-government, and the political affairs of the nation fell into the hands of men'who were quite unequal to the task of building up a- just and stable government to take tho place of the former regime. In addition to their own ignorance of true statesmanship, they have been hampered by fears of Monarchist plots on the one hand, and on the other by growing dissatisfaction among the workinp population, who expected impossibilities in the way of social betterment. The new Government raised great hopes, which they have been quite unable to fulfil, and ambitious schemes of reform have failed owing to want of money, the general disorganisation of the State, and other reasons. The separation of Church and State caused further trouble,_ and at present a condition amounting to anarchy has been reached. The Paris correspondent of the Milanese journal L'Ttalia recently wrote of the state of affairs prevailing in the strongest terms: Tho reign of (he Carbonarios, that is lo say of all that is most disorderly, most criminal, and most abject in the Portuguese population, he wrote, is no longer in dispute. 'J'hc central Government, niter having Haltered and encouraged them, as (he only resource lo defend and sustain ihe Republic ngainst tho Conservative current, is now powerless to restrain their excesses. They insult, arrest, strike, and slay with.'impunity. Cases of .the invasion and plundering of both privato houses and churches are no longer to l>e counted. They provoke riots in order to impede tho regular functions of tho law courts, the municipal councils, and public meetings; threaten and ill-treat juries and judges, dictating to them thoir verdict, and force tho Government to dismiss functionaries of every class and chooso them from among their own adherents. They insolently exercise a surveillance over military officers whom they suspect, and cause tliein to be punished 01' cashiered at their will. In a word, they are the masters of Portugal. No one. not even the President of the Kepublic, escapes their tyranny. Ono fact cxplajns the omnipotence of the Carbonarios. It is that the Portuguese Army no longer exists but. in name. The army has become a sectarian instrument. The writer goes on to refer to the unjust treatment of the ecclesiastical institutions, and no doubt his sympathies are on the side of Ihe, Church ; but other sources of information also go to show that a reign of (error is m progress. Several fellers have appeared in the Spectator pointing out Ihe tyrannical treatment of Royalist prisoners and the savage attacks upon the Roman Catholic Church. In a footnote In one of these letters the editor of (he Spectator states liiaf, though lie has no antagonism towards Portugal because it is a Republic, lie wants lo help the Rovalist prisoners because they aro prisoners and shamefully and cruelly treated, and not in Ihe least because they are Royalists. Nothing can excuse such exhibitions of injustice and oppression as have been described in the, Spectator and L'ltalia, and thev can ' only end in revolution. " '