Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1911. THE MONARCHISTS IN PORTUGAL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 21 October 1911, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1911. THE MONARCHISTS IN PORTUGAL.

SOME CAUSES OF FIAIL/URE. THE movement on the Portiuguese border for the restoration of .Royalty appears to hav<? received a serious judged.'by the account in th-; cables _ .and eve,n the Spanish authorities now ssam to b-j making arrests in order to keep the peace with j.t« Republican nieighibours. The cause, howevtr, was foredoomed to failtire, in view of the lack of the personal in olive. A conspiracy which is' indif fere.n;t whether one'claimant or another g-etsr a throne so long as h-y is of the i'blood royal' is half-hearted enough to damp the ardour cif the most enthusiastic and loyal of Chauvinists, and .between the two stools cif ex-King Manoei 1 and Dornx Miguel, the Pretender, the Portuguese Royalists have fallen to the ground'. * * * *

The seat and home of Monarchist plotting and organisation .for the invasion have been the, Spanish province of Galicia. north of Portugal, on the border of which the 'Republican mustered. 'Here, from an early date, the royal emigres gathered until the standard of revollt should be raised'. Thy emigres in question, numbered in all some 10,000 (a recent article in the "Manchester Guardiian" abated), whereof perhaps 6000 were able to bear arms, and 1000 had been officers, soldiers, or policeon-em. They formed little communities at Tuy, Vigo, Ponteved'ra, Orense, Santiago de C»mpostello, Verin, and other places in. Galiciia. Some of themi had left-Portugal • voluntarily owing to' their implacable opposition to this Republic, but the greater .number of them had been obliged, to leave because of their tireless l activity in the Royalist initerest. The Republican) authorities found' that tihey were plotting, that they had) gained over niany of the soldiers, and) that their presence in the co'un.try constituted a serious danger.

Within Portuguese borders the Moiravchisfc plot -was organised' much on the sarnio Tines as the Republican plot which had overthrown the Bragaaizas. The ■ 'Guardian's" narrator says that there was the same secrecy and the same "system of three," '-whereby ;no ©im© association knew for certain of more than two other persons who were imieimibers.of the association. Nearly all 1 the other faaitiures of; the Freemasons, the Qarbpnarios'', and "the Young Turks were l to fee found in thjs ill tra-Catholic organisation. The binding of the members to secretey under oath, however, was not -resorted! to, nor was there much likelihood' of a traitor being ipunisbed' with death as a traitor to the Republican causa would! hav© been punished in September last, and as se- ■ veral such traitors were, as a matter of fact, punished.

In addition to the wet blanket of indifference to the cause of the individual exiled Monarch, or Pretender, the Royal- • isfc 'plotters have been handicapped from j 'the outset by their lack" »if imieatis to In- • spira fear among . their onore funddsciplined followers. . The large niumJber of excelled' priests in the ranks oif the organisation. prevented. l it from, developing any oif that iron seiverity wliicli ssoms to be neicessary in a secret society 'bent on the execution of some, desperate task.' Besides, the. Royalists made bad plotters. : They had not the experience of their ; opiponanite. A'ged mcinks, poets, impressionist journalists infirm noblemen, and •beardleiss military students canimot foe. expecttd to form as dangerous a revolutionary organisation as- fiauatical Republican politicians, 'unicoanipromising Radical officers, and' hard r ibitten, anti-clea-ical artisans. AV'hat told- even -more severely against them was their; lack of a, suit-able )plaoe wherein toe • plot. All. the great to;wnis in Portugal are strongly -Republican. In Xiishon the RapiUibii.cans had found an admh-alblie fobus wherein to preparo' the .plans "which 'Succeeded so well last October. Tire Royalists had no city whereini to haitch their treason, 1 and 1 they conld not hatch it in the foleak countryside. L-arge portions off, Northeni Portugal' aro -undauibtedily Monarchist, iboit it 'would' be cibviionisly impossible to make thati open country the headquarters of the anti-RepulD-I'ica.n movement. ijence thie comings and goings of the plotters were' as weH-khmvri as the current jiioavs of the day. The menace to repufolipahiisfm on the Spanish 'border was not regarded very seriously at Liistbon till six months ago, when Cant. Paiva 'Coniceiro took command. But eyen he has had to succumb to the absence of a personal royal head, and therefore, for a time at least, tl)e new Portuguese Republic appears to bo safe.