The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1923. PERU’S DICTATOR.

Southland Times, Issue 19102, 21 November 1923, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1923. PERU’S DICTATOR.

A message from New York saying that President Leguia has nipped a revolt in the bud hardly does justice to the Dictator of Peru, who has been ruling in the republic since 1919 when he deported his predecessor, Jose Prado. Leguia was president in 1912, and at the v expiration of his term in that year he prevented the holding of elections in order to remain in power, but by 1915 the country emerged from its crisis by a revolt convention of all the political parties which selected Dr Prado for the presidential office, Mr Leguia being exiled. In 1918 Dr Prado’s term expired, and in his last message to Congress he boasted that “during his administration not a single citizen had been arrested for political reasons.” Mr Leguia returned to Peru from exile in Europe and almost at once the army attempted to seize power, but their insurrection was suppressed. A few months later, however, in the course of the election, Mr Leguia, with the aid of the troops, anticipated the result of the poll and took office. He dissolved Congress and in another election secured a docile legislature. In spite of some eloquent explanations by some of his friends, President Leguia appears in the role of a dictator with a brisk method of removing political opponents. Shortly after his rise to power he suppressed the three leading newspapers in Lima and set about deporting the leading spirits of the parties opposed to him. Dr Augusto Durand was deported and died mysteriously on a Peruvian warship, his newspaper, La Prensa, being expropriated by the president without compensation under circumstances which led the Congress of Journalists in Honolulu in 1921 to adopt a resolution condemning this act of the Peruvian Government. Statesmen, judges, lawyers, scholars, business men and people from all classes were deported by President Leguia in large numbers and were left to roanY about in exile In 1921 a public lecture was held in the halls of the University of Lima as part of a movement to protest against the Government’s frank disregard of the Supreme Court’s rulings and its flouting of the Constitution; but armed police entered the building while the lecture was in progress, firing and wounding several students. As a protest the University closed its doors for a year, and the Government’s efforts to install a new faculty failed miserably. In this contest the president of the University (Dr Javier Prado) and many professors, lawyers and scholars were deported to Australia. In January, 1922, the leader of the Peruvian Democratic Party (Mr Pierola), Dr Osores, ex-Minister of Justice in Leguia’s Cabinet, and General Puente were deported with other prominent citizens, and it would appear that the president still finds it necessary to utilise the decree of exile in order to clear the way of opponents. His term under the Constitution expires in October of next year, and it is now stated by his critics that he aims at a change in the law to enable him to remain in office for another term. The picture drawn of his rule by those who are compelled to remain outside of the country is probably exaggerated, but the president is extremely unfortunate in having to deport so many public men. That peculiarity of his administration is the strongest evidence to support the harshest of his critics.