TURBULENT SPAIN

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 251, 20 July 1931, Page 16

TURBULENT SPAIN

Glimpses at Past Changes REPUBLICANISM’S CHANCE Will - the-new Spanish Republic be more successful than its predecessor? Spain had’a short experience of republican institutions 57 years ago, and did not find occasion to admire or appreciate them (writes Sir Sidney Low in the “Daily Mail”). During the middle part of the 19th century, from 1833 to 1868, the Peninsula had been afflicted by the abominable regime of Queen Isabella 11, which was Bourbon rule at its worst: tyrannical, incompetent, and corrupt. In 1868 there was an insurrection, headed, as usual hi Spain, by a few ambitious soldiers. The Queen went into exile, and a provisional government was set up by the military leaders with a Republican politician as their mouthpiece, Don Emilio Castelar, an extremely eloquent person rather of the Kerensky type. He made speeches full of the loftiest sentiments, While all real power was in the hands of the military leaders, Serrano - and Prim. '' Short and Evil Reign. Serrano was declared Regent, and set about searching for a possible king who was at length found .in the person of Prince Amadeo of Savoy, second son of King Victor Emmanuel 11, of. Italy.. King Amadeo’s reign was' short' and evil. Nobody iu Spain really wanted the Italian interloper, and he had all the rival factions against him. So in February, 1873, after three extremely uncomfortable years, he resigned. Nobody else being for the moment forthcoming as a candidate for the vacant throne, there seemed nothing for it but to declare Spain a federal Republic. The Republican propagandists were allowed to try,.their hands at the business of administration, and a sad mess they made of it. ~ Three presidents, the last of them the voluble Castelar, were appointed within it year, and none of them could succeed in keeping a Ministry in office for many weeks, or controlling the disorderly Cortes. Brigands Waging War. The central Government was without strength or prestige and rival bands of Royalists, Carlists, Republicans, and mere brigands were waging war upon one another and peacable citizens. Several, provinces i were attempting, like the Catalans at present, to set up on their own account as independent republics. People were refusing to pay taxes, and the whole country was rapidly ■ relapsing into anarchy. Foreign complications threatened when the local separatists at Carthagena seized the harbour of that city and all the shipping in it. The ships were released by a British Naval squadron, and President Castelar nerved himself to take vigorous military measures against, the Carthagena rebels. It became clear to all sober Spaniards that the army, the only stable element in the country, would have to act. Once more the generals eame upon the scene. General Pavia, the military governor of Madrid, following the Cromwellian precedent, marched his soldiers into the Cortes, and cleared out all the deputies. A virtual dictatorship, with Marshal Serrano as chief of the executive, was set up, who with the army at his back gradually suppressed the nascent rebellions, and restored order in the provinces. Turning to Bourbons. ’ Sffitin, however, had had enough of the Republic. It turned with relief to the idea of a Bourbon restoration. On December 29. 1874, a year and ten months after the departure of Amadeo, Don Alfonso, the son of Queen Isabella, wn- procaimed King by the army chiefs; and a fortnight later Alfonso Nil, the father of the sovereign-who has just left the country, landed at Barcelona, and began his reign. The Carlists, the rival monarchist faction, still gave some trouble before they were finally suppressed. But the Republicans subsided, overwhelmed by the complete failure of their attempt to organise and rule the nation. Monarchy was accepted as the only tolerable alternative to this abortive muddle. History sometimes imitates, if it does not often repeat, itself. Who can say whether it will or will not be so now? It depends. I suppose, upon many factors, at present uncertain; one of which is the real temper of the Spanish "people, and another the character and ability of the leading Republican politicians.