PORTUGAL'S STORMY CAREER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9333, 6 October 1910, Page 5

PORTUGAL'S STORMY CAREER.

AN UNHAPPY COUNTRY.

CORRUPT POLITICS,

Portugal has had a stormy pxistence Yet, amidst all her troubles, she has succeeded up to the present in maintaining a'somewhat precarious national existence On February Ist, 1908, happened one of the most terrible crimes in the history of political assassination. While driving through the streets of Lisbon, King Carlos I. Amd his eon, Prince Luiz Fihppe, were shot by a number of men, and tho second son,, Prince Manuel, seriously wounded. Queen Amelia narrowly eecap-. Ed with her life. Lisbon was at once put under martial law, and the Spanish frontier guarded. Senhor Franco, the former Premier Dictator, against whose life it was believed the assailants were also plotting, immediately fled to Spain, and i. hence to Paris.

Portugal has been in a shocking state, socially and politically, for years past. j.te population is the most illiterate in Europe; 75 per cent of the people are i-.nable to read or write. Naturally they are densely ignorant. The politicians have divided the spoils of office among themselves and piled up tho national debt in the most unscrupulous and reckless laehion. Year after year Portugal has found herself faced with a heavy deficit, iind successive Premiers have only tinkered at reform. * A new Ministry, headed by Rear-Ad-miral Fcrreira do Amaral, a high-minded man of liberal but monarchical sentiments, succeed Franco, and repealed the more obnoxious of Franco's measures, restoring all the constitutional guarantees, and releasing many political prisoners. The coalition Ministry, which had been formed on the assassination of King Carlos, resigned on December 19th, 1908. The formation of a new Cabinet was complicated by the division of parties in the ■Cortes. Eventually a Cabinet of three Rogencradore and four Progressiste was formed by Senhor Campos Henriquee, the leader of one of the Regenerador parties. The new party proclaimed a policy of 'tolerant Liberalism," and was violently assailed as Progressists by the Regeneradot-e following Senhor Vilheaa. At the request of the Premier, the Stato Council postponed tho meeting of Parliament until March Ist. On that date the session wis opened by King Manuel. It closed, after a succession of stormy scene* in the Chamber of Deputies, on the 16th. On the 51st the Cabinet resigned. Senhor, Beirao having failed in an attempt to form a Ministry', the task was undertaken by Senhor Telles, whose Ministry undertook the programme of its predecessor, and was promised the support of the Progressiste, Henr;quists, and Amaralists. Its motto was "Liberty, appeasement, and administration." It lasted for nearly four weeks. Personal equabblcs and party obetruction having brought the business of the Lower Chamber to a standstill, Senhor Telles resigned on May 4th. He was succeeded by Senhor Wenceelau de Lima, who formed a non-party Administration. With the exception of the Premier, the new Ministers were all inexperienced in politics, none of them being a member of tho Chamber of Deputies. The intrusion of Church affairs, in the politics of the kingdom during the last few months has not been conducive to peace.