SPANISH REBELLION

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4607, 9 October 1934, Page 4

SPANISH REBELLION

With the resignation of the Samper Government in Spain after five months of office the situation in Spain has taken a serious turn. Severe fighting is reported from all parts of the country and the public services are in a chaotic condition. The Spanish people, in a general way, are not given to hysterical outbursts, but since the abdication, or rather the deposal of King Alfonso, the country has been in a state of unrest. The present trouble seems to be centred in the Basque and Catalan provinces amongst the'

agrarian inhabitants, who are being assisted by the Socialists. Last June the Cortes granted autonomy to the State of Catalonia, and with this power the Catalan Generalitat or local Government passed a measure regulating land cultivation contracts between owners and tenant farmers by which the peasants could, after twelve years, become owners of the land they had cultivated. On appeal to the Tribunal of Constitutional Guarantees the measure was declared unconstitutional. With this decision the Premier, Senor Samper, was in complete accord and he stated that under the constitution the National Government alone had the right to legislate on land questions and the regulation of cultivation contracts. At this announcement the Left party of the Catalan delegation to the Cortes protested loudly and withdrew in a body. Twelve National Basque deputies also marched out as a protest at the delay of the Cortes in granting autonomy to their province. Nothing daunted, the provincial Government at Barcelona again passed the rejected measure making it retrospective to the orig-

inal date of promulgation. The pre- ' sident of the provincial Government said that the National Government "must now retreat or resort to vio- '■ lence, and we are willing to risk our lives for Catalan autonomy." Faced with this position the Premier, Senor Samper, directed the Government's offices to cancel all land contracts drawn up under the Catalan Act, but promising a new measure embodying many of the provisions of the Catalan Act. After a heated discussion the Premier managed to get the measure passed, but against the wishes of the Conservative Catholic Party which had hitherto supported the Government in its policy. Senor Samper did not take into consideration the proprietary interests of the Catholic Conservatives, and last week the leader of that party, Senor Gel Robles, fiercely attacked the Government for the way it had handled the Basque and Catalan affairs with the result that the Government was defeated. This provided the opening that the Socialists had been looking for. Last June the Socialist Federation of Workers of the Soil ordered its two million workers to go on strike, and appealed to two million other farm workers to join them. Owing to the measures taken by the Government, however, the strike did not materialise except in some isolated cases. In the province of Andalusia some 7000 farm workers went on strike and a clash with the Civic Guard occurred in which ten were killed. Since then there have been rumours of an attempt to set up ' a Fascist Government, and this has resulted in the Socialists working in secret to combat such a coup d'etat. It is reported that the Socialists have been secretly importing arms and munitions, and the Government is finding' it difficult to cope with the situation. The miners have joined in the strikes that have broken out in all parts of the country. The fact that there is a shortage of food in many parts makes the position more serious than ever, for a hungry population will resort to any measures to obtain food.