Signor Jose Canalejas.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 23, 7 December 1910, Page 2

Signor Jose Canalejas.

THE LEADER OF SPAIN’S WAR ON THE POPE

©BATOR Y is always a formidable weapon to that Senor Jose Canalejas y Mendes who, by plunging Catholic Spain into conflict with the sovereign pontiff in the Vatican, has concentrated upon himself the attention of the world. Senor Canalejas has made himself master of a sonorous and exquisite rhetorical art in which grace of gesture heightens grace of dietion. Distinction is the very flower of his oratorical manner —not the theatrical distinction of some stagy hero of a p'ay, but the natural and unforced majesty of the leader born. That is the way the Madrid “Heraldo” sums him up. Senor Canalejas is an aristocrat, we read, well born and well bred, a man widely travelled, and still more widely read; but above all else is he the oral whose accents persuade, arouse and inspire. But for this gift he could not

have stirred great audiences all over Spain, audiences often hostile or indifferent or at most but heated to a momentary partisanship. But Canalejas has travelled aAI talked in every part of Spain for years until by this time he knows his countrymen and can sway them as he will. Were the famed Spanish anticlerical a Russian, points out the "Matin,” he would be referred to as "an intellectual.” He has essentially- the modern mind. His tastes are for the sciences and the new knowledge, while his pursuits, although in the main political, have kept him in touch with every idea that is of to-day. His instincts are journalistic, and his methods sensational. He loves mobs and noise and avoids the traditional methods of the Spanish politician. In appearance, he reflects the modernism of his mind. One sees him, notes the French daily, in trim new sack suits and natty straw hats, swinging a slim cane and holding in bls hand some fresh French novel. He knows everybody in Europe worth knowing, but his companions are the men who do things. He longs to see Spain as modern as himself. and herein, we read, is the secret of his career

The appurtenances of the twentieth century main surround Canalejas when he is active politically. His office boasts its typewriters and its telephones, its filing cabinets and its roll-top desks. These things never please the statesman of the old school. Maura and Moret are finished grandees of the Spanish type —affable and courteous, but very dignified and prone to hold aloof. Canalejas is quick and nervous, never standing on ceremony, shaking hands freely instead of embracing, knowing no antique code of honour, and never thinking of his rank as Prime Minister of the most Catholic of Kings. -’He is up-to-date,” as the London ‘’Mail” says, "and iie dreams of bringing Spain up-to-date.” He uses a motor ear, and makes speeches in the street—expedients quite too unconventional for political purposes to the way of thinking of those

who prefer their Spain quaint and medieval. Business is the great aim and end of things to Canalejas. He chafes and fumes to see Spain lingering in the thirteenth century. He dreams of schools of commerce in every- convent. He longs to cut up the saeient cemeteries into building lots and to sell them to the poor on the instalment plan. Thus the London "Telegraph” interprets the Canalejas temperament. Nothing so aggravates’ the Senor as to' 'be assured that Spain must wait to be modernised. "Wait, wait! To-morrow, to-morrow!” he cried in the Cortes. "That has been the curse of Spain.” The enemies of Canalejas love to affirm that he would have made a splendid actor. He has the presence—the Senor is tall, handsome, well-formed. He retains in middle life the perfect physical frame that enabled him to chastise a bull-fighter who refused to stop swearing in the presence of some ladies at St villv. The Senor is an athlete in a variety of ways, and he runs foot races to-day for the improvement of his health. He had the misfortune when young, according to .1 clerical paper, to fall in love with Voltaire, whose works

niaib him an atheist. This is denied ia ■the "Heraldo,” a liberal organ, which assures the world that the Prime Minister lias profound respect for religion, although he inclines to rationalism, and was never very assiduous in his attendance at mass. Nevertheless, he believes in a Supreme Being, and remains a deist, “just as he was wnen a boy.” He reads contemporary German literature with devotion, and one of his favourite authors is Tolstoi. That marked partiality for the society, of Senor Canalejas which King Alfonso lias shown in rec-ent years is attributed to the sense of humour they have in common. The Senor is one of the finest talkers in Spain, as has been noted already, but at a dinner table he is said to be ravishing in his wit and inimitable as a retailer of anecdotes in a dry, grave, •sarcastic vein. King Alfonso is said, to have assured King George that no one could listen to a story told by Canalejas without roaring. The sweetness of disposition which contrasts so strikingly with the natural pride of Canalejas was never so characteristically- displayed, observes the French dally, as when the social boycott aimed at him recently collapsed. The women relatives of the grandees are almost without exception of clerical sympathies. No sooner had Canalejas accentuated his quarrel with the church than his invitations to great houses ceased. For a whole year prior to the formation of the Canalejas ministry the. present head of it received only stony stares from the feminine leaders of Spani-li society. He was cut pointedly by an Infanta. The criticisms of, his attitude went so far as to imply that ho was not really a gentleman, that he was engaged in a vulgar and .ignoble procedure, that he had become a traitor to the traditions of the best society. Canalejas seenied to be unaware of the boycott. He long went nowhere. Finally the King with the aid of the Queen took a hand in the social war. Word was passed about that their Majesties would cut all who cut- Cue Prime Minister. The boycott collapsed. Canalejas cherished no rancour and greeted cordially those who had cut him so cruelly. One tragedy has made sombre .the whole course of tho great anticlerical’s life—the death of the woman iie married in the days of his obscurity. On the eve of his greatest success, the Senora Canalejas passed away. It is still related in the Spanish press ' that the last act of the dying wife was to make her husband pledge himself 'to continife a Catholic. In spirit, according to the assertions of the Prime Minister, he kept faith with his dead wife. He placed the crucifix in her coflin and he saw that -he was interred in accordance with the laws of the religion she so loved. Nor has Canalejas severed his own connection with the faith of his fathers. Time and again in the Cortes ami on the platform he has declared himself a true Catholic. It can be affirmed upon the authority of the Madrid “Ep ua” that he receives sacraments with regularity. Nevertheless. Canalejas continues to wage relentless warfare upon Vatican policy. He asserts tiiat it is furthest from his intention to separate <paniar-ls from the faith to which they have adhered adown the eenttiiir--. Sonin clericals explain Canalej is as a hypocrite, but the weight of opinion is overwhelmingly in favour of the idea that he is honest and sincere. Canalejas remains poverty-stricken after a long political career, a circumstance much to his credit, the "Matin” thinks, in a land noted for the sudden wealth of statesmen. The Prime Minister holds no shares in Riff mines or in African plantations. He lives simply on a small income derived from an inherited estate and partly from his practice as a pleader. It is as the least Spanish of Spaniards that Canalejas impresses the student of his personality who writes in the Berlin “Kreuz-Zeitung.” The Spaniard is indolent and Canalejas is a pattern of industry. The Spaniard is harghty and Canalejas is molest and even humble. The Spaniard believes nothing matters very much and Canalejas is zealous for everything. Finally the Spaniard is perpetually procrastinating, whereas Canalejas refuses to wait for even the most drastic reforms. The modernism of his mind reflects in his domestic circle, where electric lights supplant candles and gas and where native Spanish dishes give way to new moles of cookery. Senora Canalejas remained while she lived as modern in standpoint as her husband although she had not broken with tte

chureh and wont piously to mass. Nor should it lie supposed that the relations the Prime Minister with the clergy are strained except in the political sense. He has many priests among his personal friends. One venerable prelate is persuaded that the Prime Minister is mad •nd therefore free from censure.