Chapter XIV: Portugal of the Future (1)

[Sidenote: Portuguese Finance.]

To find Portuguese finances in a satisfactory, above all, in a natural, condition, it is perhaps necessary to go back to the days of King Diniz, who, after spending much on the development of the country, left a full treasury at his death in 1325. The succeeding kings maintained this prosperity, but at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries the great change came which has made Portuguese finance the most artificial in Europe. Precious stones and metals and spices from the East took the place of money derived from patient industry and the toil of men’s hands. Agriculture, which has always been Portugal’s principal industry, was neglected, and the fields lay desolate. The peasants willingly in a spirit of adventure, or eager to exchange assured misery for an uncertainty, or forcibly enlisted, were shipped off to the Indies. The great majority of them never saw Portugal again: disease, battle, and shipwreck having done their work well. The eyes of all in the country became fastened upon Lisbon, but the wealth arriving at Lisbon rarely filtered into the provinces; far more frequently it was employed in purchasing articles of luxury from abroad. It is the situation of the present day, Lisbon importing motor-cars by the score and innumerable luxuries, while the country remains undeveloped and poverty-stricken. After the gold from India came the discovery of gold in Brazil, a later possession of Portugal, and even to-day, when Brazil is a separate State, the money coming to Portugal from rich Portuguese _brazileiros_ props up a system which, on the failure of this last resource, is in danger of falling with a crash, as indeed it fell in 1892.

[Sidenote: Direitos de Alfandega.]

The Customs duties constitute about a third of the entire revenue, and the system of excessive protection enables Ministers of Finance to live from year to year, but it may be described as a system which fills the Exchequer and ruins the country. It is maintained for the simple reason that it does enable the Government to avoid bankruptcy, and it is excused as encouraging Portuguese industries. But in a country almost exclusively agricultural as is Portugal, protection should be of a very moderate kind. The most extreme protection cannot make Portuguese industries flourish and it seriously injures agriculture. Because agricultural machines and other implements imported from abroad are comparatively lightly taxed (from 5 to 60 _réis_ per kilo), it is imagined that agriculture does not suffer from a system which sends up the general cost of living to an abnormal degree! It may be of interest to give some examples of the Customs tariff. Motor-cars are taxed 120,000 _réis_ (20 _réis_ roughly = one penny), motor cycles 50,000, pianos 50,000, silk articles up to 13,500 per kilo, woollen articles up to 3,500 per kilo, cotton articles up to 1,600 per kilo, a kilo of tobacco 4,500, men’s hats 900 each, a kilo of biscuits 120, of sugar 120 and 145, of tea 1,000, chocolate 200, jam 200, honey 35, cheese 300, butter 250. Horses pay from 24,500 to 32,500 each, donkeys 2,500, mules 14,500, goats 500, sheep 500, pigs 3,600, cows 7,500. Dynamite is taxed 270 per kilo, books—more dangerous and less in demand than dynamite—if Portuguese and bound, 900 per kilo, _broché_ 400. Foreign books pay from 100 to 510 per kilo. Books, however, coming from France, Belgium, or Brazil, are free (the result being that the Lisbon bookshops are flooded with French books). Wrought gold pays 120,000 per kilo, wrought silver 35,000 per kilo. Gold and silver coins, says the _pauta_ published by the _Annuario Commercial de Portugal_, are free; and one has to be humbly grateful for such generosity. These Customs duties provide about one-third of the nation’s revenue. As to the expenditure it will be found that a large proportion of it never goes further than Lisbon. When the sums due for the service of the external and internal debts are subtracted, the various departments absorb the rest, that is, to a great extent, the officials of the various departments and the officers of the army and navy retired or on active service.

[Sidenote: Artificial Conditions.]

The rates of exchange, moreover, fluctuate more than in any other country, the value of the pound sterling varying from 4,800 _réis_ to 7,000 or 8,000 _réis_. And since not only articles of luxury but a large quantity of wheat is imported annually, this naturally has the most serious effect on the life of the whole country. The imports of Portugal stand to her exports in the proportion of at least 4 to 3. The whole value of the imports is more than double that of the exports, but about a third of the former are re-exported from Lisbon. The Customs (_Alfandega_) duties yielded, in round figures, 20,000 _contos_ in 1911, 21,000 _contos_ in 1912, and 23,000 _contos_ in 1913. The Monarchy, as now the Republic, has been powerless under a system of artificial finance which has never borne a close relation to the resources of the country, but lived first on spices from the colonies, then on gold from Brazil, then on foreign loans, till the bankruptcy of 1892 rendered even these impossible, since when it has been compelled to live on issues of paper money and increase of the floating debt. The Portuguese Treasury during centuries has closely resembled Gil Vicente’s poor nobleman, who with a small and dwindling income, contracted heavy debts and maintained great estate. It was alleged that the floating debt had sunk to 81,000 _contos_ a few months after the Revolution of October, 1910, but subsequent figures disproved the optimism of January, 1911, and in January, 1914, the floating debt which stood at 82,000 _contos_ in September, 1910, had advanced to 89,851 _contos_.

[Sidenote: Dr. Costa’s Financial Methods.]

During his year of office in 1913 as Premier and Finance Minister, Dr. Affonso Costa’s untiring efforts were directed towards abolishing the annual deficit. This may seem to many the very first condition of an improvement in the national finances, and the object was theoretically excellent. But it may be attained by illegitimate means, as unfair taxation or by postponing necessary payments, and in that case the deficit will only be abolished at the expense of a far greater deficit in a few years. It has always been one of the anomalies of Portuguese finance that it is possible to have a full exchequer in a ruined country. To take but one instance, if the crops in Portugal fail a huge additional amount of wheat must be imported, and while the peasant is starving the Exchequer rakes in a surplus in Customs duties. Dr. Costa’s narrow methods—his great bid for popularity and a surplus—really increased the artificial character of Portuguese finance, and its tendency to live from hand to mouth and let the future take care of itself. It was not only that he made of finance a party catchword and a source of class-hatred, adopting Almeida Garrett’s extraordinary maxim that one rich man means hundreds of poor men (_Viagens na minha terra_: “_Cada homen rico, abastado, custa centos de infelizes, de miseraveis_”), but that he bent all his ability or energy to the satisfaction of a personal vanity—to be able to set it on record that his year was the year of no deficit and—_après lui le déluge_. The object should have been rather to encourage wealth in Portugal, even at a temporary loss to the Exchequer, to give landed proprietors every incentive to dwell on and develop their estates rather than to drive them out of the country by a new property tax, by which they sometimes paid, in this and other contributions, over a fourth of their income. This tax (_contribuição predial_) was successful in immediately raising revenue, but unfortunately the annual expenditure has also increased. Dr. Costa estimated it at 78,000 _contos_ for 1914-15, but in 1909-10 it stood at 74,000. Expenses connected with the War in 1914 and 1915 have added at least another 40,000 _contos_, so that Portuguese finances will now be hampered for many a year.

[_See p. 106_]

[Sidenote: The Public Debt.]

The whole ambition of Portuguese Finance Ministers is to make a huge foreign loan, which has been impossible of late years, but which the altered circumstances may now enable them to achieve. The total of the Public Debt is in round figures, 900,000 _contos_, the annual interest over 20,000 _contos_, say twelve shillings per inhabitant. Since the conversion of the external debt in 1892 the interest has been faithfully paid. It is guaranteed by the Customs duties. Whatever improvement future years may bring to the Portuguese finances will not come at a bound (reduction in the deficit in five days of 5,000 _contos_, a surplus of hundreds, a surplus of thousands, the salvation of the country) but must be very gradual, questions of finance never being questions of the moment only but reacting far into the future. It will be the work of scientific financiers, never of demagogues. He would be a very unreasonable critic, or a very ignorant party politician, who should expect the Republic to transform the financial situation inherited from the Monarchy from a desert into a garden of roses at the mere wave of a magic wand. What is expected of any Government worthy of the name is that it should be a firm and stable Government, that it should maintain order, promote private initiative and wealth, and inspire confidence by giving the country not doses of mystification and paper money, but a straightforward account of the state of its finances.

[Sidenote: The Colonies.]

The country needs to be enlightened, too, as to the advisability or the reverse of parting with some of her colonies. With an area in Europe of 35,490 square miles, Portugal owns more than 800,000. It is an alarming proportion, although of course that of the empires of Belgium, Holland and Great Britain are even greater. But the Portuguese do not seem to possess the energy and administrative ability needful to leaven the whole lump of their possessions, in spite of the fact that they adapt themselves readily to new conditions and to extremes of climate, and are enterprising in ideas. “As navigators and not as conquerors, wrote Oliveira Martins” (_Historia de Portugal_), “we unveiled all the secrets of the seas, but our empire in the East was a disaster both for the East and for us.” Many of the higher nobility—all that was best in Portugal—were too proud to engage in trade in the New World. Others went out in order to amass wealth by whatever means in the shortest possible time. The colonies were mercilessly exploited by the mother country. A close system of protection prevented foreign nations from trading with the Portuguese colonies, and the Portuguese themselves did little or nothing for the development of their resources. The unsound administration in Portugal itself became more so in remote Madeira and most so in the distant colonies, where more recently the Governors have been fettered by the strict centralisation of power in Lisbon and driven to despair by the constant changes of Government, which seem to make any continuous policy impossible. As to the condition of the colonies under the Republic a Republican newspaper—_O Seculo_—has described it as a state of anarchy, “an ocean of disorder” (27th February, 1912). “The Portuguese Parliament has given the natives not justice nor good administration, but—the right to vote, and this in order that it may be possible to say grandiloquently that all Portuguese, white or black, have equal rights in the eyes of the law: To the native of Africa or Timor, totally ignorant of what is a Parliament or politics, to the native from whom we have torn his land, whom we have exploited for centuries, to this native without education or hospitals or schools or roads, to whom we give nothing, for whom we do nothing, and from whom we derive no small profit in the plantations of São Thomé and the mines of the Rand and in so many other ways. Parliament has granted not a better justice or more protection or a good administration adequate to his present state, but the right to vote” (_O Seculo_, 20th November, 1912). The same newspaper declared in a subsequent article that the sale of any part of the colonies would be a fatal blow to Portuguese nationality, and a public confession of insolvency “so ardently desired by Germany.” The sale of Timor or Macao or Guinea would only be the thin end of the wedge. This is the view commonly held in Portugal. Yet Spain, after having looked askance even at the co-operation of foreign capital in her colonies—as does Portugal now—has learnt to regret bitterly that she did not sell Cuba when she had the opportunity.

[Sidenote: Angola.]

Exception has been taken even to the decree allowing the transport of foreign goods through Angola on payment of a moderate tariff, and as this decree will not come into force until customs houses have been built all along the frontier, many Governments are likely to have risen and fallen in Lisbon before it ceases to be a dead letter. Meanwhile a brisk smuggling trade goes on between Angola and the Belgian Congo. (The duty on cotton goods imported to Angola is 250 _réis_ per kilo white, 500 _réis_ coloured. Foreign tobacco pays from 1,800 to 3,600 _réis_ per kilo, and the duty on other articles amounts to 10, 12, 20, and 25 per cent. of their value. Foreign imports to Portuguese Congo pay a smaller duty, for the great majority of articles 6 per cent. _ad valorem_.) Angola, with a thousand miles of coast, is divided into five districts: Congo, Loanda, Benguella, Mossamedes, and Lunda, and is occupied by 5,000 troops, of which under 2,000 are Europeans. The total number of Europeans in the colony is in normal times only about 9,000, or 2 per cent. of the entire population. The chief exports are rubber, coffee, wax, etc. It is a fertile land, capable of immense production when the country can be opened up and exploited. Of course, the required outlay for this is enormous, and the Portuguese have not been able to develop their own European territory, have not the smallest prospect of being able to develop Angola—a country many times the size of Portugal—not in the twentieth century. It is sheer waste to allow this country to remain undeveloped for want of capital which, chiefly owing to the large potential production of rubber, would under capable administration, amply repay itself. At present the annual deficit in Angola’s budget varies from 800 to 1,500 _contos_, and the colony is moreover burdened by a heavy debt. It is one of the most distressful colonies of Portugal.

[Sidenote: Mozambique.]

The immediate prospects of Mozambique are less distressing, and recently a slight surplus has been attained, but here, too, the Hinterland is totally undeveloped. Apart from the strip of territory along the coast (1,400 miles in length), says M. Marvaud,[71] “l’autorité portugaise ne se fait sentir aux indigènes qu’à coups d’expéditions militaires.” It yields, among other products, rubber, cotton and sugar, but it depends largely for prosperity on the traffic of the port of Lourenço Marques. This traffic has been secured by the treaty of April, 1909, between Mozambique and the Transvaal, but is envied by other African ports, which may succeed in depriving Lourenço Marques of the traffic in a few years hence, when the treaty expires. Meanwhile the natives of Mozambique leave the colony to work in the mines of the Rand, and Mozambique thus prospers artificially and temporarily, while its own resources are undeveloped and the means of developing them decrease.

[Sidenote: Portuguese Guinea.]

Portuguese Guinea, with about 170,000 inhabitants, yields much the same products as Mozambique, but its climate is unhealthy. Much of the trade has been in the hands of Germany, and, although the soil is rich the yearly deficit which the Lisbon Government has to meet for this colony is, with that of Angola, the principal reason why it has been found impossible to allow those colonies which have a surplus to keep it for their own use.

[Sidenote: S. Thomé and Principe.]

Thus, the Budgets of the islands of São Thomé and Principe show a yearly surplus, but they have not been permitted to utilise it for the construction of the roads so greatly needed for their further development. These islands produce coffee, rubber, tobacco, ginger, tea, but over 90 per cent. of their exports consists in cocoa.

[_See p. 168_]

[Sidenote: The “Serviçaes.”]

As there is insufficient native labour, they are obliged to import natives from Angola and elsewhere to work on the plantations. The contracts with the natives stipulate that they shall be repatriated after a certain period, but in practice they have often remained indefinitely in a condition differing from slavery only in name. (Slavery, in name, was abolished in 1875.) The Lisbon Government has shown a sincere desire that the _serviçaes_ should be duly repatriated, but the interests of the planters have been to obtain native workers where and how they could, and to retain them permanently.

[Sidenote: Cape Verde Islands.]

Nearer home Portugal possesses the colony of the Cape Verde Islands, population 150,000.[72] They produce maize, coffee, etc., but suffer from drought. Their Budget hovers between a small surplus and a small deficit.

[Sidenote: Timor.]

Of their once mighty empire in the Far East the Portuguese retain Goa, Diu, Macao, and the western half of the island of Timor (the Eastern portion being owned by the Dutch). The administration of the Dutch compares favourably with that of the Portuguese, and Timor’s revenue has to be supplemented from the surplus of Macao—one of the most disheartening features of Portugal’s colonial system.

[Sidenote: Portugal and her Colonial Empire.]

It is true that the Portuguese colonies have made some progress during the last quarter of a century, and that their exports to Lisbon tend to increase, but they are still a drag on Portugal’s energies and finances. Yet, of course, the Portuguese have the feeling that if they refuse to part with any of their overseas dominions and succeed at the cost of every sacrifice in staving off bankruptcy, and keeping their colonies together, a time may come two or three centuries hence when Portugal may once more be a flourishing empire. Perhaps with less centralisation and, consequently, more continuity in the administration of the colonies a greater measure of success will be attained. No one will refuse to pay a tribute to the energy and ability of some Portuguese colonial Governors. Certainly Great Britain would rejoice to see these vast regions ably administered and developed at the hands of her ancient ally. But despite their obstinate resolution to part with no inch of territory, the Portuguese have by no means learnt to think imperially; indeed, the interest in the colonies seems only to flicker into life when there is thought to be some danger of losing them. And it is clear that generations must elapse before the most painstaking and energetic action on their part meets with financial reward. Many observers have thus come to the conclusion that Portugal would be well advised to sell a part of her enormous overseas possessions.

[Sidenote: Portugal’s Future.]

But against the notion of those who say that Portugal is dying, slowly dying, it is necessary to enter a strong protest. If reference is made to Portugal’s future, “But has Portugal a future?” ask these sceptics. And the answer is that she has not only a future but a great future. She is in the fortunate position of having accomplished great deeds and having great deeds to accomplish. By no means _un peuple qui s’en va_. Rather _un peuple qui revient_. For, in the sixteenth century, Portugal may be said to have conquered a whole world and lost her own soul. The reverse process is now before her: to begin with Portugal’s own development and prosperity and so work outwards, and no one will contend that to convert Portugal from its miserable state into a flourishing and contented country will not merit all the praises won by Portugal’s discoveries and conquests of yore.

[Sidenote: The Republicans.]

But this prosperity cannot be sudden. Public opinion abroad, at least, has never asked of the Republicans one half of what they have constantly given, in words. No one expected the Portuguese people to become enthusiastic electors after a century of indifference to politics, or to cease to be illiterate at the promulgation of a decree. What is asked of them is that they should not indulge in continual disturbances. The majority of Portuguese Republicans are perhaps rather weak and vague, but kindly, well-intentioned persons, anxious for peace and the prosperity of Portugal, and it may be imagined how mortifying to them have been the criticisms brought upon the Republic by action of the extremists. These extremists have to be eliminated before it is possible to work for the welfare of Portugal, that is, the gradual development of the Portuguese nation on lines essentially Portuguese.

[Sidenote: The Clerical Question.]

With a people so ready to assimilate foreign customs, it is urgent not to dose it with a French atmosphere, but to encourage all that is truly national and all too ready to disappear. Along these lines it should not be very difficult to find a solution for the clerical question which has assumed serious proportions since the Revolution. On the occasion of the third anniversary of the Law of Separation between Church and State in Portugal, the Premier, Snr. Bernardino Machado, wrote that it was “in its essence a law of defence and of social pacification.” Only if pacification means unrest can these words correspond with reality. The best way to restore a spirit of quietness will be to revise carefully the Law of Separation, or, if the Democrats continue to oppose any such revision, to repeal the law and enter into a new Concordat between Portugal and the Vatican.

[Sidenote: Decentralisation.]

The character of the people will have to be consulted, too, in the question of decentralisation. A sudden change is not likely to be more beneficial than an imported anti-clericalism. The divorce between Lisbon and the provinces will no doubt go lessening as communications improve. So long as Portugal is in the grip of a stringently centralised political machine, it is idle to expect any benefit from passing decrees which entrust certain affairs, for instance, construction and repair of roads, to the municipal authorities, more especially as these decrees do not always provide any clue as to how the necessary funds are to be raised.

[Sidenote: Local Autonomy.]

But perhaps it would be possible to give the town councils a provisional autonomy in the matter of primary schools, sanitation, roads, etc., interesting their vanity in the result, taking advantage of local patriotism; or, in cases of signal neglect, imposing fine or disfranchisement. A decree of the Republic (dated 4th May, 1911) has attempted something of the sort for agriculture by imposing an additional tax of five _centavos_ per _hectare_ on uncultivated land, and the condition that, if it is still uncultivated in twenty years, it shall become State property. But that savours perhaps too much of State interference in private property. At any rate, the advantage of some such scheme of decentralisation would be that the State would say to the town councils: “I will give you complete freedom in these matters, and, far from interfering to a greater degree, will not interfere at all if you will help yourselves.”

[Sidenote: On the Black List.]

A list of towns and villages might be printed at the end of ten years and posted up throughout the country, or rather two lists, the second being the black list of towns or villages which had failed to give any serious attention to the schools, roads, etc. These would still be kept under strict supervision, whereas the others might be allowed complete independence in these matters, gradually, according to their degree of merit. It would be a duty of the Civil Governors to visit the towns and villages in their districts, with the help, when necessary, of Government inspectors, and it might be possible to include the quality of bread, the water supply, the cleanliness of hôtels and inns, tidiness of streets, and a few such subjects in the inquiry without causing it to degenerate into an inquisition. One is the more inclined to attribute vast importance for Portugal’s future to little questions of this kind after reading through lengthy decrees, many of the clauses of which are copied more or less closely from earlier French decrees and are, in relation to actual conditions in Portugal, of a theoretical, abstract nature.

[_See p. 85_]

[Sidenote: “Accursed Politics.”]

Politics are, unhappily, becoming more than ever the burning question at the expense of administration, penetrating the whole life of the nation, _a maldita politica_, as the Portuguese themselves say bitterly. Perhaps future historians will regard as the gravest fault of the Republic that it has thus exalted politics and even saturated education with politics. Perhaps this is the natural result of a revolution by a minority. The author of _Ethiopia Oriental_ tells a touching story of how a lion chased its prey to a river’s bank, where it succeeded in seizing its hindquarters. A hippopotamus, however, then put in an appearance, and seized the rest, and in the tug-of-war that ensued, as Portugal now between her political factions, the unfortunate animal had a very disagreeable time. But the country becomes every day more disgusted with politics, and craves for honest non-political administration. It is to be hoped that the rotative politics of Lisbon will soon have had their day, and that with the spread of education the Portuguese people will awake from its long sleep of torpor and come into its own.

[Sidenote: The Restoration.]

Critics of the Republic have to ask themselves what they have to set in its place. Is the Monarchy, which in October, 1910, melted away like snow in the sun, even willing to return? The Royalists in Portugal have amply shown their weakness, and the active supporters of King Manoel seem to be as few as those of Dom Miguel. “Active,” since, just as in Spain Carlism as an active cause is dead but survives in spirit, in Portugal a spirit that would find greater satisfaction in a Restoration than in the Republic is widespread. It is especially difficult to forecast the future of Lisbon politics because in their general atmosphere of indifference and _laissez-aller_ it is always open to a person or group of persons to impose themselves—for a short period—in a sudden outbreak of energy. It might not be difficult to restore the Monarchy temporarily by a sudden _coup d’état_: the difficulty would be to maintain it. A restoration brought about by force now would create a very dangerous and unsatisfactory situation. Not to speak of the constant danger to which the King would be exposed (and _O Mundo_, which has declared that there is as little right to be a Royalist in Portugal as to be a protector of assassins, has shown how closely it is in league with assassins by warning King Manoel that he will be shot like his father if he returns to Portugal), there would be a perpetual renewal of conspiracies. The Republicans, far from being crushed, would gain new adherents by constantly asserting that if they had but been given a free hand they would have performed wonders for the people and for Portugal. It is thus essential that the Republicans should be given a free hand to show what they can do. This will be seen if they are left in peace by their opponents till, say, the year 1920. Royalists who have their cause really at heart will have the wisdom to wait and not injure it, perhaps fatally, by foolish and precipitate action. The Royalists sometimes say that the Republic has manifestly failed because it has increased the tendency to disorder and indiscipline, and rendered the financial situation more critical; but it would perhaps be fairer to say that it will have manifestly failed should the next period of five or six years resemble the first, since three or four years is not a very long period by which to form a definite opinion of a new _régime_ after a revolution.

[Sidenote: The “Republica Radical.”]

But, judging from the past, no one can be very optimistic. A considerable number of Republicans at Lisbon desire a more radical Republic. The stages are to be from The Monarchy to Republic, and from _bourgeois_ Republic to Socialist Republic, or the _Republica Radical_. It was in the same sense that Don Pablo Iglesias, leader of the Spanish Socialists, prophesied in 1910 that the Portuguese Republic would not long be content to remain of the _bourgeois_ type.

[Sidenote: Manual Labour.]

A Republic of workmen, in which all who did not spend at least five hours a day in manual labour would be disfranchised, would be a delightful experiment. A Republic of principles so excellent would not, however, suit the character of the Portuguese very well—a people that still looks askance at manual labour as illiberal, even to the carrying of a parcel in the street, and loves the liberal professions and idleness-with-a-sense-of-importance. Yet if Portugal wishes to be really revolutionary she would adopt this programme of manual labour (with alternative of military service) for all under sixty years of age from Minister to miner, from President to ploughman, the only sure remedy for a great many modern social problems. And there are other revolutionary methods by which Portugal in the twentieth century might prove herself original and win the admiration of Europe, for instance by ordaining that women who do a man’s work should receive a man’s wages, or by teaching the people to depend on themselves and not on the State, or by abolishing the whole system of party politics.

[Sidenote: Abolition of Party Politics.]

Hitherto her revolutions have only increased the domain of politics, and each party in turn beseeches the country to look to it exclusively with mouth agape for the fruit to drop in. Yet it becomes increasingly evident that the only problem for all Portuguese who love their country is the rooting out of that kind of party politics which has infested and ruined the country for three-quarters of a century. The remedy is for all such true patriots to club together and found a party and a Press which will have nothing to say to clericalism and anti-clericalism and other such questions, never for a moment discuss them—what have they to do with the government of a State?—will not concern itself with personal ambitions, merely looking upon the State as a public department of police and civil servants, implying hard work, and pay far less than would be earned by men of similar intelligence devoted to industry.

[Sidenote: Work for Patriots.]

Above all, such a party would encourage the people to expect nothing from the State and everything from themselves. It would thus begin with the individual and teach him to cultivate his own garden, a lesson enormously needed in a country so inclined to vague ideals and actual _desleixo_. In its Press and in public speeches throughout the countries it would show by concrete facts and figures the immeasurable good achieved in certain districts by a single landowner living on his land and looking after his tenants and estate, or a single priest looking after his parish and leaving politics to look after themselves, or even on a smaller scale by a single peasant family with a knowledge of cleanliness and good cooking.

[Sidenote: A Portuguese Party.]

These real patriots would be so undignified politicians that they would not in their speeches mention a single “ism,” but they would tell the people what one village had gained in health by a good sanitation, what another had gained in wealth by having roads well built and well repaired. They would not inveigh against the Capitalist or the Conservative or the Anarchist, but they would attack and, if possible, bring to book those who palm off on the people sandals made of blotting-paper and bread made of sawdust. In a word, they would be concerned with the concrete, leaving abstract problems for philosophers of the study. And since most other parties are engaged in importing high-sounding programmes from abroad, this new party might well call itself the Portuguese Party, and its newspaper the Portuguese People. The peasants of Portugal, witty, intelligent, eager to learn, will respond to words that mean something to their daily lives, and are not merely pompous polysyllables and the beating of the big political drum. The future of Portugal lies with them, and the party which succeeds in improving the people’s health in body and soul will have paved the way for better times. In this, indeed, all parties are agreed, but their favourite method is to make a great sound and fury of words, and to promise the people that if it will but follow that party only some decree will be passed which, before the new moon, will have changed them from black to white, from lean kine into fat kine. Yet a party which really had the people’s interests at heart would go to work much more gradually, not through the abstract People but through the individual and the family, and would make it clear that the people had nothing to expect of the party, and the party asked nothing of the people. By such obvious sincerity the people would be brought to listen to this party, and to learn to live their own lives—each family its life in health and independence. How far removed this creed from Liberty, Humanity, and other such stereotyped catchwords, yet how infinitely more conducive to a prosperous future for Portugal!

[Sidenote: Conciliatory Methods.]

It cannot be too often repeated that such strident questions as anti-clericalism are to a great extent factitious in Portugal, and not of natural growth. The more conciliatory and apparently weaker policy of Dr. Arriaga, the President, and Snr. Antonio José de Almeida, has really been less far removed from the realities of Portuguese life than the policy of Dr. Affonso Costa, who is considered the clever practical politician among his more idealist colleagues. The more tolerant attitude towards priests and Royalists has proved to be not only the kindlier but the wiser policy. This attitude became a fact in the hands of General Pimenta de Castro. His wise and moderate government made it more doubtful than ever if Portugal, which gained nothing by one revolution, would be the gainer by a second.

[Sidenote: The Royalists.]

The Restoration must be peaceful and gradual if it is to be permanently successful. The extreme usefulness to the Republic of Royalist conspiracies has been fully recognised by the “White Ants” and _Carbonarios_, and the Royalists themselves are now convinced that it is not by incursion or conspiracy that they will advance their interests. They realise that without any such methods Royalism is likely to gain strength, has indeed already done so. No doubt many distrust the idea of the accession of Dom Miguel because of the reactionary traditions of the Miguelist party, a distrust antiquated but not unnatural. On the other hand, the Manuelist cause is weak because King Manoel, being then in his teens and brought suddenly to the throne by the murder of his father and brother, had not time to show that he possessed the qualities of a strong ruler. Strangely enough, some Portuguese who profess and call themselves Portuguese, have no hesitation in saying that the best solution would be a foreign prince, English or Italian, imposed by foreign intervention.

[Sidenote: Longing for Peace and Stability.]

The real inference is that they desire above all things a strong and stable Government, and are heartily tired of a state of affairs which seems to make a continuity of policy or any long period of order and quiet alike impossible. A Restoration in a few years’ time may best secure such continuity, and if there is a single fair and practical reform opposed by the Royalists the Republicans will do well to name it.

[Sidenote: Monarchy and Empire.]

Not that a Restoration need be considered of any very great importance: if the moderate Republicans can provide a stable Government sensible Royalists would no doubt cease from all opposition to the Republic. But, of course, a Monarchy is in accordance with the old traditions of Portugal, and has value with regard to the colonial empire, in which unrest has increased, and very naturally, since the Revolution: the natives more readily yield obeisance to a king than to an abstraction. And there would be no danger of the Royalists setting themselves to persecute in their turn after a Restoration, since they are well aware how great would be the outcry throughout Europe. A few political careers, certainly, would be cut short, but perhaps the country would not be greatly the loser. The Monarchy has value, too, in international relations, and the Republicans do not attach sufficient importance, for instance, to King Carlos’ foreign visits and to the visits of foreign princes to Lisbon during his reign. They class them among the extravagances of the Monarchy. These advantages will probably be thrown into even greater relief by another five years of Republic.

[Sidenote: Labels.]

If the adversaries of the Republic will but refrain from all movement of rebellion or incursion, the next five years will show with sufficient clearness whether the permanent tranquillity ardently desired by the Portuguese people is to be labelled Monarchy or Republic. It is after all little more than a label (the label “Monarchy” being more useful in an Empire); the _thing_ required is a Government willing and able to employ the services of all Portuguese in the work of making Portugal once more great and prosperous, to give free scope to individual energies under a _régime_ of true liberty and toleration.

[Sidenote: Trifles.]

It has been the folly of the Republicans not to yield on small, unessential questions. They have laid stress on such secondary matters as the new flag (the loud and ugly colours of which will never be readily accepted by the Portuguese nation, or so affirm those who know the Portuguese intimately), on the alteration of names of streets and squares throughout the country. They have made a parade of much legislation. A new heaven and a new earth. Yet it would have been a wiser policy on their part not to make so much of these little harassing novelties, but more quietly to work at necessary essential changes.

[Sidenote: Internal Floating Debt.]

A writer in 1908 remarked that “If only the Government could cease to have recourse to the floating debt agriculture in Portugal would be able to obtain the cheap capital which it needs.” But the Republic has added thousands of _contos_ yearly to the internal floating debt, and capital has greater inducement than ever to flee from agriculture in order to provide State loans. Here a radical change was required. Nor will Dr. Costa’s property-tax benefit agriculture. It is more likely to increase emigration. The docile peasants of Portugal, if they find the conditions of their life becoming harder and more precarious, do not think of protesting. A few conflicts have occurred between peasants and the Republican Guard, and the villagers have armed themselves with scythes and pitchforks to protect their churches in the North. But mostly they emigrate, leaving the political parties at Lisbon to devise and squabble over intricate and theoretical measures of legislation.

[Sidenote: Facts of Twofold Import.]

But there is a reverse and more promising side to all this. That Lisbon politics are Lisbon politics, and are not genuinely Portuguese politics, but a foreign froth on the surface of the sleeping nation, that the majority of Portuguese cannot read or write, that many of those who can read and write are perfectly indifferent to politics, are all facts of twofold import, since, however deplorable in themselves, they imply that the Portuguese people has not yet had fair trial, and that it may well have a future before it. The character of the peasants outside the immediate influence of Lisbon has many sterling qualities. The problem consists in educating them without depriving them of their qualities, in civilisation without the demoralising effect of great cities; and indeed in the coming age of rapid communications city life will no doubt be largely a thing of the past. The educated Portuguese of Lisbon, far gone in introspective analysis and pessimism, is inclined readily to believe that the Portuguese are a dying and decadent race; but the truer view is that the Portuguese nation is still unborn. It may make its mark on history in future centuries as a few individual Portuguese did in the fifteenth and sixteenth. The future of the nation is, perhaps fortunately, not bound up with that of the Democrats, as the Democrats would have us believe, for the Portuguese nation with a future is precisely all that part of the population which has remained indifferent to the Republican creed, and has not been affected by Republican promises.

[Sidenote: Natural Reaction.]

It appears even that the educated youth (as at Coimbra), in a natural reaction, is now more inclined to turn to religious and other serious questions than it was a generation ago, and it is thus doubtful whether the Republic will be able to renovate itself and whether new politicians will come forward to take the place of the three or four now in evidence.

[Sidenote: “Un Petit Moyen.”]

Talleyrand would say in a serious political crisis that there was still “un petit moyen,” meaning Talleyrand. Under the Portuguese Republic the “petit moyen” in exactly the same way has been Dr. Affonso Costa, who has Talleyrand’s presumption although he lacks his ability. Dr. Almeida and Dr. Camacho have never had the strength to take office, nor the good sense permanently to unite their parties. But since Dr. Costa has not the will or has not the courage or has not the power to do without, and indeed to crush Snr. França Borges and his _Mundo_, and the _Carbonario_ satellites organised by the Democrat party since the Revolution, the outlook for the Republic is not very promising.

[Sidenote: The Lisbon Republic.]

The Republicans have become a shrinking circle. At Oporto, where the Republicans were always few, they have not increased since 1910. This is admitted sincere Republicans. For instance, _A Republica_ of 7th March, 1914: “Oporto is not sensibly more Republican to-day than it was on the 5th of October, 1910. The Republican party then at Oporto was so plainly in a minority that it was unable even to win the municipal elections.” Able men such as Dr. Duarte Leite and Snr. Bazilio Telles tend more and more to hold aloof from politics. Only at Lisbon a great part, probably the larger half of the inhabitants, in quantity if not in quality, is enthusiastically Republican. It is likely to remain so for several years. The Lisbon shopkeepers have accepted with all the simple want of faith of the half-educated the assertion that all the evils of Portugal came from religion and the Jesuits. For the present they are kept in expectation of the golden age that was to follow the expulsion of the religious orders by a multitude of projects. Every day _O Seculo_, the most widely-read Republican newspaper, appears with some new proposition, the reorganisation of the Army, the construction of a fleet, the acquisition of aeroplanes, the extension of railways, roads, a bridge across the Tagus, and so forth. Of course nothing is done, but the illusion of a new age is maintained. If in a few more years it is seen that nothing of all this has been accomplished, that deficits continue, and taxes increase, probably the Lisbon world of industry and commerce will reconsider its political opinions. There have been too many projects and too much self-analysis at Lisbon. It may be seen from the quotations given in this book that the Portuguese Republic has had a few bitter and outspoken critics in its midst.

[Sidenote: Impunity for Outrages.]

The difficulty has been to translate their words into action. They have called for the punishment of the authors of various outrages, but have succeeded at the most in bringing about—an additional outrage. Thus, when Snr. Pimenta, a member of the Evolutionist party, placed on his programme at a recent election the punishment of the delators and of the promoters of public disorder, he was set upon at Barreiro for his pains, and had some difficulty in escaping from the mob. And the same class of scoundrels who wrecked the offices of all the Royalist newspapers at Lisbon and in the provinces, are waiting to return to their nefarious practices should occasion offer. But indeed if the moderate Republicans realise that by every feigned indifference, every timid acquiescence in the excesses of the minority, they are driving a nail into the coffin of Portugal, or at least into the coffin of the Republic, they will have the courage to unite in restraining the actions of this minority, not only for a few months, but for ever, and they will find that the country is on their side. So far the Portuguese might paraphrase the words of Thiers, and say that “the Republic is the form of government which divides us _most_.” The one idea of saving the State or improving the situation is to split up into more parties, to initiate a new movement, to form a new group of defence, a band of spies and delators, such as the “White Ants,” or a party of vague idealists. But the nation will become more and more convinced that the road to prosperity does not lie through politics.

[Sidenote: “A Tolerant Progressive Republic.”]

“A violent change of Government at present,” wrote _O Socialista_ (14th July, 1913), (now _A Vanguarda_, organ of the Socialists), “may be welcomed by those honest Republicans and sincere patriots who desire a modern, tolerant, progressive Republic, and a period of tranquillity and careful work for their country.” A modern, tolerant, progressive Government would unite all but the merest handful of extremists in the common cause of Portugal. Only it is necessary to emphasise the fact that the Government must not be tolerant of crimes and indiscipline, since this appears to have been constantly overlooked by Republican Governments. The punishment of one crime will save many. It is extremely improbable that the second and far worse Gymnasio Theatre outrage would have occurred had the authors of the first been punished. But low as the Republic has sunk by thus winking at these iniquities, it is not too late for it to consolidate and retrieve itself because the longing for peace and tranquillity is so prevalent in the country, and the fear of another political upheaval so great.

[Sidenote: Docility of the People.]

If the Republic proved itself not necessarily a very able or a very original or a very attractive _régime_, but merely fair and conciliatory, it could win over all the quiet, docile inhabitants of Portugal, that is, over 90 per cent. of the population. Portugal should not be a difficult country to govern if it is once made clear that those who get out of hand and go from words (which no wise ruler in Portugal would ever attempt to check) to deeds, will be exemplarily punished. Docility is the rule, and acquiescence, so long as the acquiescent are allowed the right of perpetual sarcasm and ridicule, which are, indeed, the safety-valve of Portuguese politics. The occasional movements of a more serious nature might be curbed more efficaciously by shooting one or two ringleaders than by imprisoning hundreds of men for months and then trying and acquitting them. They leave the prisons with a sense of injustice suffered and are henceforth confirmed enemies of the Government. But the Democrat Republicans have shown the strangest determination to turn the indifferent into enemies and to alienate friends.

[Sidenote: The New Inquisition.]

There is scarcely a politician or newspaper outside the Democrat party which has not been attacked and insulted. Under the searching action of this party the Republic been in danger of being limited to a few thousands, of convinced Democrats and ardent Republicans no doubt, but a few isolated thousands. And so inquisitorial have been their methods that they have in fact a right to consider themselves lineal descendants of the Portuguese Inquisition, which so vigilantly sought out and punished “new Christians” and heretics. They are thus disciples of the very body of men whom they least admire, but extremes meet. (The pity is that the extremists meet also, as the streets of Lisbon have reason to remember.) They have been in too great a hurry. Fresh adherents to the Republic can only come gradually if they come at all. And gradually must come the benefits, if any, that the Republic is to confer upon Portugal. The evils are four hundred years old, and it is absurd to attribute them to Dom Luiz or Dom Carlos, or Snr. João Franco; and still more absurd to pretend to end them by drawing up a hundred or so new laws.

[Sidenote: Confused Rhetoric.]

The work of the Provisional Government was “gigantic, marvellous, superb,” declared the Republican deputy, Snr. Alexandre Braga. “Never again,” he said in a dithyrambic speech, typical of the muddy thinking of the day, “never again will the family in Portugal return to the state demoralising hypocrisy to which it was nailed by the rigid dogma that forbade divorce. Never again will woman’s dignity be bespattered by lies and disloyalty and treachery through having to hide as a disgrace the pure flame of her true love [_i.e._, for some one not her husband]. Never again will the children be poisoned by the lethal infiltration of a Jesuit education. No more cloisters, no more superstition, no more showy and mercenary charity....”

[Sidenote: Discipline.]

Yet it was more not less discipline that Portuguese society required. Fatal to Portugal is likely to prove the policy which seeks deliberately to undermine all authority—of the family (by new facilities given to divorce); of the priest (by instituting public worship societies); of the landowner (by taxing him to a fourth or more of his income), of the Army (by subjecting it to the _Carbonarios_), of the police (by encouraging “White Ants” and mob to take the law into their own hands), of justice (by dismissing and banishing those judges who refuse to be influenced by politics), of the law (by shaping it entirely to party ends).

[Sidenote: The Constitution.]

Some clauses of the present Constitution are excellent, but they are dead letters. In Chapter II (concerning the rights and guarantees of individuals), for instance, clause 4 decrees that “Liberty of conscience and belief is inviolable.” So “No one can be persecuted on the ground of religion” (clause 6); “Expression of thought in whatever form is completely free, without previous censure” (clause 13; but, proceeds this clause, the abuse of this right is liable to punishment); “The right of meeting and association is free” (clause 14); “The inviolability of private houses is guaranteed” (clause 15); “No one can be arrested without a warrant” (clause 18); “The secrecy of the post is inviolable” (clause 28); “Citizens may resist any order which infringes the guarantees of the individual, unless these guarantees have been suspended by law” (clause 37). It is certainly time to put these excellent precepts into practice.

[Sidenote: The Tyranny of a Minority.]

“_Paz ponen los omes entre si á las vezes_,” said King Alfonso X some seven centuries ago: “men sometimes make peace with one another”; and this is still occasionally the case. There is no reason why all moderate and patriotic Portuguese should not unite to eliminate the extremists. It ill befits Portugal’s dignity that a body of some six thousand should tyrannize over a population of six millions. There is scope for the activities of all Portuguese, room for the interests of all, in Portugal and in the Portuguese colonies.

[Sidenote: Foreigners and Portugal.]

But so long as this small minority dominates and systematically stifles the voice of the majority of the Portuguese and gags the Portuguese Press, foreign criticism will be legitimate and necessary. The Democrats constantly misrepresent all such criticism as hostility towards Portugal (instead of hostility towards the _Carbonarios_ and Democrats), a misrepresentation which excites much amusement among those who know that nine-tenths of the inhabitants of Portugal detest and fear their despotism. Foreign critics must be few and ignorant indeed who are animated by dislike of Portugal or the Portuguese. Most foreigners after a sojourn in Portugal take away the most pleasant impressions of the land and people, and they deplore the fact that it should be possible to say of Portugal, as was once said of Spain, that it has been given every blessing except that of a good Government. Rich in its sea and soil, and subsoil and climate, rich in buildings, traditions and literature from a glorious past, fortunate in the intelligent and progressive character of the inhabitants, Portugal possesses splendid advantages.

[Sidenote: Individual Enterprise.]