LATE SPANISH PREMIER.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 83, 3 December 1912, Page 6

LATE SPANISH PREMIER.

Senor Jose Canalejas Mendes, for five years Premier of Spain, was at one time an ardent Republican, and in the days of that indiscretion lie was forced at one time to fly for his life after being accused of plotting to overthrow the monarchical form of government in Spain. He was an aristocrat, well born and well bred, a man widely travelled and still more widely read, but above all else he was an orator, a master qf sonorous and exquisite rhetorical art, in which grace of gesture heightened the grace of diction. He was a popular idol in his country, whore lie stirred great audiences, often hostile or indifferent, or at most but heated to a momentary partnership. But he travelled and talked in every ps.rt of Spain for years until he knew his countrymen, and could sway them to his will.

He was the one man in Spain who stood most for twentieth century progress, business was the great aim and end of things for him. Ho wanted to modernise the country, and nothing so aggravated him as to be assured that Spain must wait to bo. brought up to date. Tall, handsome, and well-form-ed, he retained in middle life the perfect physical frame that enabled him to chastise a bull-fighter who refused to stop swearing in the presence of ladies. He was an athlete in a variety of ways, .and it was, his custom to run footraces right up to the time of his death for the improvement of his physical condition. Canale]as came into great prominence in 1910 by his conflict with the Vatican, whose power in Spain was curtailed as the result of his legislation. He declared that he was a Catholic when he attacked the power of the Church, but considered that his proposals wore necessary for the progress of his country. •

King Alphonso had a marked partiality for the society of his Premier, and when a social boycott was attempted as the result of his clerical measure, the King and Queen took a hand and passed the word that they would cut all who cut the Prime Minister. Then the boycott collapsed, and to the credit of its victim it can be said that ho cherished no rancour and greeted cordially those who had cut him so cruelly. Although a grandee, allied with many noble houses, Canalejas preferred to ignore the circumstances, and in his political campaign ho adopted the methods of his Socialist opponents speaking in the streets, and arguing with a fierceness of mood which caused animosity in many political bosoms. He greatly shocked the haughty grandees on one occasion by using his fists in an encounter with a Socialist in Bilbao, a proceeding utterly abject and ill-bred from the traditional standpoint. But ho won.

Senor Canalcjas was not Premier when Francisco Ferrer was executed, and therefore his responsibility was not direct, but his assailant was probably fired by the revolutionary character of the speeches on “Ferrer Day,” now the chief festival of the anarcliist element in Spain.