GERMAN INFLUENCE IN PORTUGAL

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2618, 13 November 1915, Page 7

GERMAN INFLUENCE IN PORTUGAL

VACILLATION OF THE GOVERNMENT

»'PEACEFUL PENETRATION"

(From tho "Morning Post.") Many are growing impatient in Portugal as the days pass and tho Government makes no statement concerning Portugal's international position. Soma time ago tho Premier convoked tiio editors ol tho Lisbon newspapers, and requested them to bo silent on this subject for the space of a month. At the end of a month he told them that lie still had nothing to say to them, and hoped that they would continue to jay nothing. The country therefore continues mystified, and it is generally recognised that, whatever the facts may be, tho atmosphere of ambiguity which has gradually grown up since the beginning of tho war does little credit to Portugal. A plain statement showing exactly what Portugal is doing or intends to do would be recoived with relief.

-So far tho country knows that Germans and Portuguese have been fight-' ing in Africa, while the German Minister has remained at Lisbon, and it suspects that Portugal can assist the Allies by providing stores and arms rather than by sending troops to the front, where thoy would probably be quite unfitted for a winter campaign. But it would like to know in moro precise terms how far the Government is acting up to its professions of devotion, to tlie cause of tho Allies.

It would givo satisfaction were the Government to state clearly—what many realise already—that if it is folly for any country to maintain an attitude cf neutrality, for Portugal it is sheer suicide.' Any small country (and, in the event of Germany's victory, every country would be small), oven though it may for 6ome short-sighted reason of immediate profit be unworthily selling its birthright and independence for a mess of pottage, or for other mysterious cause sympathise with Germany, Ikis to realise that if the Allies are victorious it will not have improved its position by its neutrality or hostility towards the Allies; aud if Germany, Austria, and Turkey are victorious it will lose its independence, swallowed up in a swollen Fatherland, or at best bo reduced td a shivering Little Red .Hiding Hood, with tits grandmother ever ready to turn woif and devour it like Belgium. The horrors of Belgium's fate are constantly in the imagination of small neutral States, and loom up uncomfortably behind all Germany's fair words and professions. But Portugal especially has long realised that she has everything to fear from Germany's ambition, and is, moreover, now daily reminded that sho owes the continuation of her imports, indeed her very existence, to tho British Fleet.

: It requires very few minutes' thought, to understand that for a Portuguese to be pro-German is in fact for him to be anti-Portuguese. However galling it may be to the pride of the Portuguese, the fact remains, and is now more than §ver evident, that Portugal cannot stand alone. . But it is scarcely credible that any person worthy of the name of Portuguese should, for the sake of party or even of religion, wish to see his country entirely .lose its independence, and that is what German dominion would mean. Portuguese intimately acquainted with the methods of Germany and of Great Britain have no illusions as to that. • Germany's Definite Aim. Portugal can and readily will render certain practical assistance to the Allies. Slw will do all slie can, since to no country do the ideals for which tho Allie are fighting mean more, turd for no country would German victory have mere fatal xosults. Docked of their colonies and their islands, ruled by a scion of the House of ilohenzollcni, the Portuguese would learn in bitter tribulation the inner meaning of the word Liberty, which they now so strangely mis-spell. Thus for a marvel Portugal's honour and interests fit into one sack. She will obviously do all that lies in her power to further tho cause of the Allies. She will do all that is asked of her. But there is one matter as to which it may not be possible for an ally to present any definite request, yet as to which it is most urgent for Portugal to take action, and that quickly, unless she wishes at some future time to become a German pro. linoo. This matter, concerning which any Government worthy of tho name, gifted with a little far-sightedness and not entirely absorbed by party interests, would have taken action long ago, is the question of German influence in' Portugal. In no country has Germany carried peaceful penetration further, and should it continue at. a similar rate—a pas de geant, it has been called—Portugal will find herself on some future occasion bound hand and foot, financially and commercially, that she will be utterly unable to como to any indei pendent decision. She will fall into Germany's mouth like ripe fruit and be of as little assistance to her nominal Allies as fee Man in tho Moon.

People sometimes expresses a wonder that flerr Rosen, the German Minister, should continue to enjoy the pleasant climate of Lisbon and Estoril, and are inclined to believe that his presence is not entirely due to the pleasure of perusing the insulting references to Germany in the Lisbon Press. These have been of such a nature as to fill any man of spirit with a desire to send in his passports three times a'day. lie fact is that the Germans since the outbreak: of war have not only maintained, but havo been actively trading on and increasing their influence here, with a view to corrupt opinion during the war, embarrass the action of the Portuguese- Government, and complete the toils in which this unfortunate country is to be taken when the war is over. There is not the slightest doubt that Germany has a perfectly definite aim in Portugal, has had for the last twenty years, and is pursuing it with all. her admirable and relentless method and her specious lies. If, in order to thwart these sinister workings, it is necessary for Portugal to declare war, it would be worth her whilo to declare it, and so get rid of those gentlemen who, according to the' loud and emphatic protests of a German writer before tho war, have no thought but of peaceful commerce —no ulterior object whatever—but whose embarrassing influence, exercised openly and underhand, in questions of external and of internal policy, has made itself felt in remarkably strange ways during tho past year in Portugal. If tho Portuguese Government omits or delays still longer to take decisive steps in this respect it will not only show how hollow were its professions, put forward when their object was to sccuro fclio support of Groat Britain in. a party's advantage. It will havo done very much more than demon-

strata that the Democrats are 'timeserving hypocrites.' For it will have helped to fasten round Portugal's neck an incubus which will grow moro . oppressive with each month that passes, and will finally, in a generation it may be, or later or oarlier, give tho wretched Portuguese an opportunity of appreciating at closo quarters what freedom as interpreted by Germans really means.