TURBULENT SPAIN

Hokitika Guardian, 23 July 1931, Page 2

TURBULENT SPAIN

GLIMPSES AT PAST CHANGES.

REPUBLICANISM’S CHANCE. Will the new Spanish Republic be more successful than its predecessors ? Spain had a short experience of republican institution 57 years ago, and did not find occasion to admire or appreciate them "(writes Sir Sidney Loff in the “Daily Mail”). During the middle part of the 19th century, from 1833 to 1868, the Peninsula had been afflicted by the abominable regime of Queen Isabella II" which was Bourbon rule at its worst: tyrannical, incompetent, and corrupt. -

In 1868 there was an insurrection, headed, as usual in Spain, by a few ambitious soldiers. The Queen went into exile, and a provisional government was set up by the military leaders with a Republican politician as their mouthpiece, Don Emilio Castelor, an extremely eloquent person rather of the Kerensky tvpe. • He made'speeches fnll of the loftiest- sentiments, while all real power was in the hands of the military leaders, Serrano and Prjm. SHORT AND EVIL REIGN. Serrano was declared Regent and set about searching' for it possible king who was at length found in the person of Prince Savoy, second sou of King Victor Emmanuel 11, of Italy. ,; i, • King Amadoe’s reign was short and evil.

Nobody in -Spain really wanted the Italian interloper, and he had all the rival factions against him. So in February, 1873. after three extremely uncomfortable years lie resigned. Nobody else being for the moment fothcoming as, a candidate for the vacant throne, there seemed nothing for it but to declare Spain a federal Republic. V- - The Republican propagandists were allowed to try their of the business o-f administration, and a sad mess they made of it, ; •' • Three presidents, the last of them the-voluple /pastelar, were appointed within a year, arid none of them could succeed in keeping a Ministry in office for many weeks, or controlling the disorderly Cortes. BRIGANDS WAGING WAR.

The central Government was yrithout strength or prestige and rival bands of Royalists, Carlists, Republicans, and mere brigands were waging war upon one another and peaceful citizens.

Several provinces were, attempting like the Catalans, at present, to set up oh their independent' republics.. People were refusing to pay taxes and the whole country was rapidly relapsing jpto aparohy,

Foreign,... eoroplioations threatened when the local separatists at Carthagena seized the harbour of that city apd all the, shipping in it. The ships wore released by a British Naval squadron, and Presjdept Oastel? ar nerved himself, to take vigorous military measures agrlnst the Carihagena rebels.- ; It. became clear : to >/ H sober Spaniards that the army, the only stable element in the country, would have to act,

Once more the generals came upon the' scene. General Pavia; the military governor of Madrid, following the Cromwellian precedent, marched hi® ■soldiers into the: Cortes, and cleared out all the deputies. A virtual dictatorship, ; with Marshall Serrano a.s chief of the executive, was set up. who with the armv■•at his. hack gradually suppressed • the nascent rebellions, and restored order in the provinces. TURNING TO BOURBONS. Spam, however, had had . enough of the Republic. It turned with reuetf to the idea of a Bourbon restoration. Oh Decern oer 29, 1374, a year and ton months after the departure of Amudeo, Don Alfonso, the son of Queen Isabella,, was proclaimed King by the army chiefs; and a fortnight later Alfonso Xll, the father of 'the sovereign • who has just left the country landed at Barcelona, and began bis reign. , r The Carlists, the rival monarchist Faction, still gave some trouble before they were finally suppressed. But the Republicans subsided, overwhelmed by the complete failure of their attempt to organise and rule the nation. Monarchy was accepted as the only tolerable alternative to this abortive muddle. History sometimes imitates, if it does not often repeat itself. Who can say whether it will or will not do so now? It depends, I suppose, upon many factors at present uncertain; one of which is the real temper of the Spanish people, and another the character and ability of the leading Republican politicians.