The Daily News. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8. RED REVOLUTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 154, 8 October 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8. RED REVOLUTION.

The ancient 'history of Portugal is full of the brilliance of great achievement and conquest, and as late as the sixteenth century it was probably the greatest commercial nation existing. The annexation that followed by Spain (which country ruled it for sixty years) aided its decline, and the people who were once [dominant in many directions nowadays lack everything but the fierce pride of their ancestors and the revolutionary •tendency that has now apparently broken all bounds and is spreading destruction in one of the earth's fairest cities. As is not uncommon, the present troubles, although not entirely the result of religious dissatisfaction, burst into flame at the shooting of Dr. Bombardo by Lieutenant Rebello. Bombardo was the leader of a Liberal campaign against the Clericals. It is unquestionable that unhappy Portugal is wholly priest-ridden, and that because politicians have been wholly controlled by one element that the people have been allowed to remain ignorant, have been used as catspawg by politicians and have been stung to take the only redress offering. In all history there is but one ending to the oppression of any people —red revolution. The politiciaus of Portugal have fattened on the spoils of .office and have increased the national debt enormously. The party in power had the privilege of giving away sinecures at high salaries and of granting monopolies to trading firms. Therefore the people of Portugal and their food, their education, their lives have been in the lands of corrupt office- • seekers. The people have been always high spirited and retaliatory, and, finding real national life impossible, leave their country in droves every year. King Carlos, the monarch who was assassinated, was utterly oblivious to the needs 'of the people. For many years before I his death he 'had been receiving sums of : money hugely in excess of his Civil List. He granted the monopoly of tobacco to a private concern, receiving, it is stated on high authority, a large bribe for so I doing. His subjects, who had previously . paid one shilling a pound for tobacco, •had then to pay seven shillings. Riots .have been caused by a lesser injustice than this among people not so inflammable as the Portuguese. Previous to the death of King Carlos, the Dictator Franco, promising reform, did. everything to prevent it. He ruled Portugal with a .rod of iron, suppressed newspapers, and freely imprisoned without trial anyone suspected of antagonism to his dictates. Many people were transported on suspicion of opposition to him, and the King placed himself completely in the hands jof the Dictator. At his death the Constitution was suspended, and the country was ripe for the events;..,that have been postponed evidently through the shock the assassinations of the King'and Crown Prince caused. In the light of other revolutions there seemed to have been sufficient powder to set the people ablaze for years past. Owing, to the system, the downtreading of the poor, the lack of real work for the nation, seventyfive per cent of the population of Portugal are wholly illiterate. It is certain that because of intolerable wrongs the people have at last risen. The people ©f Portugal are ill?paid, overtaxed, and a large proportion of them are idle. Under such circumstances, only a leader is necessary to induce the people to wreak revenge on those who 'have done the wrong in the primitive way that comes to all nations in time of national upheavals. It is impossible to foresee the conclusion of this war against oppression, or to say fchat the last will not be worse than the first. It is possible that "spoils to the victors" will be the prevailing inclination, for such an inclination has prevailed' in the uphappy country for generations. By a reference in a cablegram it seems to be feared in Rome that the-revolution in Portugal may affect Spain. If the conditions existing in Portugal do not obtain in Spain, it is impossible that the disaffection can affect that country. If the people of Spain have grievances, either religious or civil, that are related to the grievances of the revolutionists, then of course there is cause for fear. That there are some inclinations to violent opposition to monarchy in Spain is shown by the attempt that was made on the life of King Alfonso and his consort. The grievances of a people grow by pondering on them, and the industrial aspect of all countries affects revolutionary thought and action. In these days of industrial strife and the war of class against mass, it is only necessary to point to 'the idle and dissatisfied thousands of workers in the north of England to indicate food for revolt. If those British workers were placed under the conditions the Portuguese have endured one could prophecy revolution even in a shorter time .than has been taken in the Iberian kingdom.