DE RIVERA’S LAST TASK

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 924, 18 March 1930, Page 9

DE RIVERA’S LAST TASK

IN PARIS TO SERVE SPAIN NOT TO FIGHT FUNERAL IN 1 OMELAND United P.A.—By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, Mondaju ~ "JJaily News” publishes a letter it had just received from the late General Prime de Rivera denying the report that he went to Paris in order to fight a duel. H le letter said: “X have come to ,(° °ut calmly, quietly and l estfully the best way in which I can serve my country.” According to Spanish custom the general s body will be clothed in a white woollen robe, such as is worn in Spain by members of the Carmelites. The feet will be enclosed and the hands will clasp a rosary of black beads. His remains are to be interred in Spam. SINS OF DICTATORSHIP MINISTER’S CRITICISM SPAIN’S FINANCES UPSET MADRID, Sunday. The new Minister of Finance, Senor Arguelles, has caused a stir by surveying the work of his predecessors under the late General Primo de Rivera. Senor Argueiles charged them with plunging the country’s finances into chaos, juggling with the departmental accounts, allocating large Government contracts in order to secure supporters, providing thousands of thenfriends with sinecures upon committees, and working up demonstrations in the streets in favour of the Dictator at enormous cost The consequence of all this, said the Minister, was an unprecedented outgoing of capital. During de Rivera’s regime, he said, the Budget deficits were constantly increased until in 1929 there was one of two milliard pesetas. The former Treasurer had converted that deficit into a surplus by opening a fresh account under the pretest of an extraordinary Budget.