THE PORTUGUESE REPUBLIC

New Zealand Tablet, 4 May 1911, Page 801

THE PORTUGUESE REPUBLIC

THE AUTHORS OF THE REVOLUTION

The editor of Le Correspondant (Paris), M. de Mun, had, at the outbreak of the recent crisis in Portugal, the .advantage of having on the spot a well known correspondent of ; his journal, M. Saint-Blancard, who was able to study the situation and the events leading up to it at first hand. He was abb? to satisfy himself whether the people were weary of the monarchy and really desired a new form of government; whether the conditions of the country were due to the rapacity of the court set; and whether the large number of clerics in the country had sought in any way to play a role of political preponderance in the country, and by doing so, had precipitated the revolutionall of which charges are familiar. M. Saint-Blancard, in the paper that he contributes to the current number of Le Correspondant, sums up the result of his study as to the nature of the revolution by declaring that it was ' primarily Masonic and military.' It is, in a remarkable way, different from all other revolutions of history, inasmuch as the will of the people counted for nothing in the overthrow of the sovereign to whom they were really devoted. It was, as Mr. H. Donahue, of the Daily Chronicle, declared in a despatch, a tragi-comedy in which popular sentiment played no part whatever. The revolutionaries had assured themselves of the forces of order, namely, of the army and the navy, and these, acting without any sympathetic encouragement on the part of the populace carried out the orders of the insurgent Government. When it is remembered, says M. Saint-Blancard, that there are in this small country nearly three hundred Masonic lodges, and.that the press of the country is, or the most important portion of it, in . the hands of the anti-clericals, it will be understood that the engineering of the revolution was not a matter of either heroic hardship or patriotism. It was, on the contrary, a business move, in which the property of the Church became the sole objective of the revolutionaries. ' Liberty' is, of course, their watchword, and in the name of liberty all possible excesses are committed. There is now little doubt that it was Masonry that inspired the conspiracy that led to the killing of the late King Carlos and his son, just as there is little doubt that the present personages who have assumed the reins of government fere all) notable mqmbers of Portuguese Masonry. : Besides the cry of liberty, they seek, like their brethren in France, the suppression of all the congregations, without exception, lay teaching in the schools, and unlimited divorce. As for the anti-monarchical feeling, it did not exist, says M. de Saint-Blancard, any more than there existed any condition whatever of popular unrest in the country. The Crown by no means failed in its obligations to the country. Indeed, its influence for the good of the country was more beneficent than ministerial action. It was the Crown that favored the reforestation system, and encouraged cattle-raising, wine and olive-growing, and fostered railway construction throughout the country. The lace industry was organised under the personal influence of Queen Amelie, whose numerous charities, founded all over Portugal, attest the energy and activity of a woman who was a model Queen and Catholic. Several hospitals for children and for consumptives owe their establishment to her endeavor. The unmerited accusations hurled against her as one of the degenerative influences of the nation have originated in anti-clerical centres, and for the reason that her devotion to Catholic belief and her energy in the cause of the Church, added to her great popularity among the masses, made her at one time a fearsome obstruction to the policy of the revolutionaries. That she exercised no influence in the appointment of higher ecclesiastics, is certain from the fact that since 1901 the appointments of the higher clergy are made by the Government, Portugal being one of the few countries in which this custom prevails. The future of Portugal cannot, M. Saint-Blancard thinks, be very safe in the keeping of men who are everything except statesmen; who have no settled principles of government and whose moral code is based on princip'es that exclude the idea of a God. Sectarian passions and the hatred of. religion in all shape and form do not appear to be qualities that make for stable government even if they are supported by the unanimous good-will of the people, and are redeemed by talent. The present Ministry in Portugal, he concludes, has neither talent nor the support of a respectable fraction of the Portuguese. , ■