AN UNOSTENTATIOUS DICTATORSHIP

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 74, 21 December 1937, Page 10

AN UNOSTENTATIOUS DICTATORSHIP

A reference in an interview in The Dominion yesterday to the Dictator of Portugal, Dr. Salazar, is a reminder of the existence, well established, of the most unostentatious and least advertised dictatorship in Europe. It has lasted for many years, the people on the whole are satisfied, though they are not allowed to criticise the regime, and Dr. Salazar himself is said to be very popular. His power, curiously enough/is derived from constitutional authority. His position as Premier and head of. a Government appointed in accordance with the new Constitution of 1926 described as the “Estado Novo,” or New State, is perfectly regular. There is a President of Portugal as well, and constitutional assemblies. Dr. Salazar’s dictatorial powers lie in his control, with popular approval, of the financial policy of the country. Therein he is supreme, exacting, and provident. It is only comparatively a few years ago that Portugal presented the most pitiable spectacle of national bankruptcy in Europe, and had to be propped up by the League of Nations. In the last few years she has had a credit balance. Portugal’s 16 years of republican government, which ended in 1926 in political and financial chaos after 16 revolutions and 43 Cabinets, demonstrated the unfitness of the Portuguese people, to govern themselv.es as a democracy. Under the, new Constitution, framed after a military coup which sent the political intriguers and careerists packing, the President holds office for seven years. .The Government derives its mandate from him, and may be dismissed by him, and by him only. In all major decisions, however, he is subject to the will of the Council of State, which consists of the Premier, the presidents of the Assembly, the Corporative Chamber and the Supreme Court, the Attorney-General, and five representatives of public life, chosen for life, by the head of the State. Under the articles of the Constitution the “New State,” according to Mr. W. C. Atkinson in an interesting commentary in the Nineteenth Century and After, accepts responsibility for the national ordering of the economic life of the nation, “not by direct interference in every direction, for the stimulation of private enterprise and initiative follows directly on its creed that the nation must, in the long run, work out its own salvation, but by encouraging large-scale co-operation. .. . . Portugal retains many of the attributes of a dictatorship, but it is a dictatorship with a difference ... an absolute power imposed arbitrarily from above, and leaves the fate of the many dependent on the moral calibre and competence of the few.” Salazar’s policy is the application of the strictest financial integrity in every aspect of government, the rigorous subordination of every spending department to his approval as Finance Minister, and a general economy until luxuries can once more be afforded. He is an ascetic, and deeply religious, dislikes publicity, attends two official banquets only a year, lives like a recluse, is no orator, and refuses all emoluments except his salary as Professor of Economics at the University of Coimbra, a position which he still retains. The most interesting feature of the new Constitution is its emphasis on the family “as the first basis of social education, discipline and harmony, and the backbone of the political order.” Heads of families elect the district councils, which in turn elect muncipal and provincial councils, and are duly represented in the Corporative Chamber. “The family leaven,” says Mr. Atkinson, “works throughout. . . . Communism and the Spanish Republic have sought to weaken the family structure as an outworn tradition. Government on the British model has been found impracticable. The experiment may be completely successful. After eleven years it still functions effectively. In some respects the Constitution possesses features—such as the exaltation of the family and control of public expenditure—that may commend themselves, to New Zealand people, whose sins in democratic governing are beginning to find them out.