SPANISH PRESIDENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22390, 9 April 1936, Page 11

SPANISH PRESIDENT

, enforced resignation CORTES' VOTE OF CENSURE ;—• MADRID. April 7 The President of Spain, Don Alcala Zamora, has been compelled to "Sign owing to the Cortes adopting by votes to five a vote of censure moved by the Popular Front, comprising Republicans and Socialists, for his unconstitutional dissolution of th# Chamber on January 7. The Monarchists and the Catholics abstained from voting. The Speaker, Dr. Martinez'Barrios, once Premier, who formerly was a lino-> type operator, and recently was described on election posters as a "man of Hunger, blood, mud and tears, will temporarily act as President, but the office must be permanently filled within 40 days. President Zamora, against whom several assassination plots have been 1 directed, drew the world's highest salary for a President, namely, £Bo,oooj a year, which he has enjoyed for oven four years.

Don Alcala Zamora had an unusually-} brilliant career as a lawyer and ha 1 would hare been marked out for emi-j nence in that profession had he not' taken up politics, in which he gained exceptional prestige and was noted for the appeal of his oratory. He was elected Premier of the Republican Government in Spain on the fall of the monarchy in April, 1931, after 26 years' political experience. He first entered, the Cortes as a Liberal and since then has held many portfolios. In 1930 he declared that he had lost all faith in I the existing monarchy, and by his j efforts did more than anyone else to I extend the Republican movement. Don Zamora was the mainspring of the rising in December, 1930, and on ! the proclamation of the Republic in< April he became Premier and provisional President. He was elected President on December 10, 1931, and assumed office three days later. Dr. Martinez Barrios, who has became acting-President, is a lawyer and the head of the Freemasons in Andalusia. He became prominent as a Republican and anti-church worker and was Minister of the Interior in Senor Lerroux's Cabinet. In October, 1933, Dr. Barrios became Premier and excluded Socialists entirely from his Cabinet.