WANTED MEN.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14321, 11 October 1910, Page 5

WANTED MEN.

PERMANENT REPUBLIC IMPOS

SIBLE. DANGER. TO SPAIN. 'Writing of the Portuguese situation after the assassination of King Carlos an 190S, "Cakhas," of the '-Fortnightly Review," said:—

Porugal needs measures. But real measures never come, except from real men. In Lisbon there is probably no man of sufficient; magiutu-.le available, and if there were, he could not govern through the parties who have hitherto blighted affairs. He would have to attempt, with more ability and more ruthlessness, t.ho work in which Dora Carlos perished and Senhor Franco failed. He would have to be a person of solid powers and magnetic temperament, able to make himself respected by economists and idolised by the army. DIFFICULTIES OF REPUBLIC. "To the efficiency of Government in Portugal a masterful nfcij> <-if executive energy is apparently indispensable. If dictatorship is impossible-, so much the worse for progress. It is probable that even in Spain a constructive despotism formally renewable every five years would be of priceless advantage if the nation could only be brought to consent to the method. In any case it must be well understood, so far as both nations of the Iberian peninsula are concerned, that anything like a permanent Republic is impossible. Even <n France the Republic has only been established with extreme ctufiioulty. And Franco is a comparatively northern nation which still suffers from the bankruptcy of personal Government without the hereditary title—which corresponds in the reality of its influence "and meaning to the symbol of the consecrated oils. And even across tbo Channel the Republican system is not yet of indisputable permanency; aud though now safe enough in pence, it cannot with confidence risk a great crisis of any kind. A COLLAPSE PREDICTED. "It will be objected that the Republic has already existed for a. short time in Spain. Yes, but it could not; maintain itself. . . It. cannot be doubted that in Spain the temporary triumph of revolution would soon be crushed by a dictatorship. The same thing is true of Portugal, though the factors are not identical. In the latter country the relative power of the capital is, of course, far greater. But successful revolution in Poring il would be a deadly danger to Spain, and at a further remove would menace the peace of Italy. The Republican spirit is ,of course, peculiarly nourished in Lisbon by the example of Brazil, which is Greater Portugal, though under a separate Government. But it is much rather to l>e concluded that a Portuguese Republic would disappear in anarchy in six months; and it is, in any case, sufficiently certain, as has been remarked, that in both nations south of the Pyrenees authority is permanently a greater force than freedom, because it is a greater necessity when ideals of li"berty come into conflict with the interests of order."