AID FROM OUR OLDEST ALLY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 226, 22 October 1943, Page 12

AID FROM OUR OLDEST ALLY

Portugal Lends Us The Azores

T was announced last week by Mr. Churchill that Portugal had granted Britain "certain facilities" at the Azores for the better protection of Atlantie convoys. That may or may not have surprised most of those who were listening. But three out of four listeners must have been surprised to hear Mr. Churchill add that Portugal and Britain had maintained an unbroken alliance for five and a-half centuries. The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance was, in fact, confirmed in May, 1386 — 557 years

ago; and although both parties have passed through desperate years since that .event-in Portugal’s case, 60 years of subjection to Spainthe friendship has never been broken. This is an almost sensational fact in the history of international | relations. It means, to begin with, that the Portuguese have contrived to remain independent in defiance of the facts of geography. A glance at the map makes it dificult to understand how and why. And it means in the second place that both nations have fulfilled obligations in the teeth of threats and in contempt of bribes. Different From Spaniards What kind of people are the Portuguese? They are mixed racially, as all European nations are, but authorities still recognise a foundation of Celtiberian stock, by which they mean racial strains that’ have remained sirice’ prehistoric times and given some degree of stability to the type. But Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians, Moors, and Goths have all in turn over-run part of the country and left their mark. The point is that the Portuguese are different, recognisably different, from the Spaniards, and have, of course, a different language and culture. Portugal has been an ally of Britain for 557 years, an independent nation (with one brief break), for about 800 years. The footholds it still maintains in China, Africa, the Malay Archipelago, and India are a sufficient indication, if one were wanted, of the energy it displayed in Europe’s colonising days, and there can be little doubt that among the influences behind the new agreement over the Azores have _ been Japan’s violations of neutrality in Timor and Macao, But the purpose of this article is to indicate how the Portuguese live to-day,

what they do and think, and why nothing has disturbed the harmony between Lisbon and London. We conclude therefore, with a quotation from an article written by Rodney Gallop. for the Geographical Magazine in July, 1940, when Portugal celebrated the double centenary of her escape from Spain and the 800th anniversary of her existence as a separate state, "But for the war," Mr. Gallop wrote, "all the world would have flocked to Portugal to join in commemoration." But the war stood in the way, and most of Portugal’s friends had to "participate vicariously." Mr. Gallop ended .with this: Varied, But United "Although its six million inhabitants have been moulded in the crucible of a common experience into a single nation, the country has by no means been reduced to a dull and dreary uniformity. On " smaller scale it reproduces the variety of landscape and human background of the whole peninsula. Each of its provinces has its own character: the vast, tawny expanses of the. Alemtejan plain; the orchards of Algarve, in Febtuary a sea of almond blossom; the bright, miniature charm of the Minho; the bleak uplands, almost a prolongation of Castille, of Tras os Montes, the land ‘behind the mountains’; the vine and olive-terraced hills of Estremadura; and the two Beiras separated by the Serra da Estrela, the pines and rocks of Beira Alta and the blue distances of Beira Baixa. "Yet this variegated Portugal has a unity of its own, distinguishing it from Spain with a sharpness of contrast which only those who know 4nd love both countries can fully appreciate. The opposition between the two peoples is something more than a historical acci(continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) dent, the apparently inevitable conflict of interests between neighbouring countries. Our Lady of Almurtau Our Lady of the border, Turn thy back on Castille That thou mayst not be Castillian. Thus sung the peasants of Beira Baixa to the wonder-working’ Virgin of a well-known shrine near the frontier. "Similarly, the national spirit of Por--tugal turns its back on Castille with all the implications of the latter’s proverbial ‘nine months of invierno (winter), and three of inferno,’ and sets its face towards the moist airs and soft winds of the Atlantic. If Spain may be compared to a cord pulled taut to snappingpoint, Portugal is one hanging free of tension. If Spain stands for passion, Portugal stands for sentiment. If Spanish genius is primarily dramatic, Portuguese is lyric. The Humanistic Outlook "Portugal is above all things human, humane, and humanistic. Perhaps this may be attributed in part to the fact that the country was never feudal and man was therefore never looked upon as a soul-less serf, deprived alike of rights and liberties. Special charters assured the liberty and independence of each new township. "It is the humanistic outlook on life, ever conscious both of the dignity of mankind and of the pathos of human life, which forms the spiritual bond linking Britain and Portugal in an alliance which goes far deeper than political convenience. Five centuries ago, not long after the conclusion of the Treaty of Windsor, the friendship between the two countries and the solid interests which unite them were expressed in the following lines: Portingallers with us have troth in hand Whose merchandie cometh much into England. They are our friends with their commodities And we English passen into their countries. "In this centennial year, many of us who love the Portuguese, regret that we cannot ‘passen into their countries’ to attend the commemorative ceremonies, and to pay our tribute to the national spirit which is still so vital and so flourishing to-day. Our sole consolation

can be that we are prevented from doing so only by the war which we are fighting in defence of that view of life which is our common heritage and our common bond."