"NO BETTER OFF."

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13905, 2 December 1910, Page 7

"NO BETTER OFF."

SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLT IN PORTUGAL. "VOLCANIC SOIL." (By the Lisbon Correspondent of the "Westminster Gazette.") On October 4th and sth there was a strike in Lisbon. Tho troops and fleet struck against the King, and ejected him. That was all that happened. It is misleading to dignify such farcical proceedings with tho name which distinguishes such turning-points in the history of the world as our own civil war and as the fall of the French Bourbons. In England and in America there have been industrial strikes which embraced more men, caused more suffering, and were in every way more important. Tho importance of the present change in the Government of Portugal I, lor one, fail to appreciate.' There is a kind of dictatorship, but King Carlos was murdered becauso ho established a temporary dictatorship with the object of putting things straight. There is a Censorship of a worse kind than any that ever existed under Royalty. If you are willing to wire that the Jesuits aro running like rats through all the old sewers and drains in the town (these old sewers are dignified with the name of "underground passages") with bombs and infernal machines for tho purpose of bloving us all up, then your telegrams will pass. If you cast the faintest doubt on that story you immediately get into difficulties, are subjoct to delays, are liable to sco your despatches mutilated. Some time ago the country was ruled by a gang of politicians and nominally by a weak young King, who, in course of time, might have been able to exercise a restraining influence on politics. To-day the coun.try is ruled by another gang of politicians, and the King is gone. The five millions of ignorant and industrious peasants will be no better off under the new regime than they were under the old. Education? Enlightenment? These things cost money, and the politicians are too busy feathering their nests, getting "jobs" for themselves and their friends, placing investments abroad so as to be prepared for the rainy day which will certainly come. At any rate, say the Republicans, the yoke of tho priest will be shaken' off, the maleficent Jesuit, the noxious nun, the baneful Benedictine will be chased from th© country. I do not see that this will make so much difference. The Regulars were encouraged to come because the secular clergy had fallen to the lowest state of inefficiency and immorality. The Jesuits, it is ftaid. engaged in politics. This was objectionable, but was it possible fer them to make Portuguese politics any worse than it was? They tried to form a Catholic Party, they subsidised newspapers, they probably influenced the Royal Family, but all their machinations seemed to have counted for very little, since, in spite'of them, the Government had already decided to expel the unauthorised religious Orders. A lady I knew, -who was suffering from epilepsy, was convinced that her fits were due to the fact that she wore glasses too strong for her sight. I have known men suffering from ner* vous breakdown who were convinced that their irritation and excitability would cease if they only got rid of those tight boots. In the same wav one sometimes finds nations stricken with some sort of internal decay ascribing that decay to some cause which cannot entirely account for it. Then, the recent King cannot have been a cause of Portugal's decadence.

CABLE NEWS.

The fatal rotativist system had grown up and hardened before he was born, and bo could not break it up save by establishing a temporary dictatorship and changing tho Constitution. The Republicans shout the__*elv€_ hoarso with joy over the fall of the "tyrant," they speak of the King having lived in luxury, they tell with tears in their eyes how they actually had to pay for the upkeep of three Queens! Filled with these stories, I visited the Palace of the Despot, the Palacio Real das Neeessidades. The site is valuable, but tho place itself is nothing but a church and a big barn of a house with th. street number painted en the comer, with not an inch of lawn or of grounds, with no railings or other protection, and with low-class grog-shops and doss-liouses crowding up to within a few yards of tho Royal bedroom. If ever I saw Republican simplicity, it was tbr.ve. Mr Roosovelt's house at Oyster Bay is far more aristocratic. Tho unfortunate young King was :us poor as his people, lie lived right in the midst of them. He was one of themselves. f At the Ministries it was the same thing. One could sco his Premier or his Minister of Foreign Affaire at any timo. A peasant with a grievance about a cow could talk the matter over with the Minister for Justice. Incredible ;t. it may seem, it is still the same. The Republican Ministers are almost as democratic as their Royalist predecessors, and Senhor Teophilo Braga is just as amiable and as condescending as King Manoel. But why was it nec*e___ry to make any change? Where are tho. evidences that the House of Bragan_:a was blood-thirsty and malignant, that it devoured tin* wealth of tho country, and ground the faces of the poor? Frankly, I don't see any evidences. The Portuguese Government may call itself a Republic or a Paradise or tho New Jerusalem, or whatever it likes, but it will _till remain a Tammany Hall ring, with a distinct tendency to anarchy. Significant events occurred recently. Tlio square in front of the Avonida Palace Hotel was filled with troops, and pieces of cannon were planted in tlie Praca. About tlio same time a correspondent was having an interview with Senhor Bernardino Maoliado, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, when threo private soldiers, armed, burst into the room, scattering tho guards, and putting the Minister's secretary to flight. Citizen Beraaidino Macliado was not irritated. Ho greeted tho "valoroso" soldiers with J_e_rty hand-bakes. Ho patted them on the* back. He embraced them. Probably he granted their request. These trifling incidents show us on what volcanic "soil we stand. A Central American Republic of tho wcrafc typo has been established hero in Europe.