Portugal of the Portuguese

by Aubrey F. G. Bell

The Puff Politician.

The strange paeans of praise in O Mundo, poems to his vulto imortal, the resolve of an admirer to order a life-like silver statue of him, the arrest of persons for speaking ill of him, the arrest of others accused of wishing to assassinate him, as well as his own extraordinary speeches in Parliament and out of Parliament, showing an ignorance of the conditions of life in Portugal almost as profound as his ignorance of the conditions in foreign countries, might well have crushed him beneath a load of ridicule, but have merely served to keep him in the public eye. As to the attempts at assassinating him, these puffs of his political admirers are now quite discredited. One of the supposed murderers arrested at Santarem was found to be armed with nothing more deadly than a small pocket-knife, others arrested at the Praia das Maçãs, in the summer of 1913, were released as innocent after a year and a half’s imprisonment; another, this time a schoolboy, had a pistol put into his hand by Dr. Costa’s puffers, but fired so badly that he did not even succeed in hitting the railway carriage in which Dr. Costa was going to travel. His opponents must be fools indeed if they do not realise how greatly his party would gain were a real attempt made to assassinate him. He would be at once converted from a pleasant nonentity to a martyr, a kind of Portuguese Ferrer. Certainly Dr. Affonso Costa has been the politician most in evidence since the Revolution. It is rumoured that he keeps a large number of dogs and cuts off the tail of one of them Alcibiades-fashion as occasion offers, but this is almost certainly a calumnious invention, cruelty to animals being quite foreign to his nature. But it was almost pathetic to see how, at the advent of a statesman, he withered away politically as if he had met the Snark, and turned to conspiracy and revolution in order to overthrow him. For General Pimenta de Castro,[59] though not a party politician, showed truer statesmanship than all the party-leaders.

The Democrats.

A return of the Democrats to power must be disastrous for many reasons, and the way the country would be thrown into fresh unrest and the prisons filled may be gauged from the fact that the Democrats are wonderfully vindictive, and are already marking out names of persons for arrest and of buildings (of Royalist newspapers, Conservative clubs, etc.) for attack. Vindictiveness in Portugal, especially in political questions, is carried to extraordinary lengths, and the man marked down for political persecution has to be continually on his guard. Perhaps years are allowed to pass, and the victim is given no inkling of hostility; perhaps he had left the country and returns to live peacefully and obscurely; then when he least expects it he will find himself in gaol or stabbed or shot. A foreigner will give far less offence if he adopts a detached, amused, supercilious attitude than if he studies Portuguese politics sincerely from a Portuguese point of view, and considers what is the best remedy for the country. But all who prefer to breathe the sweet air of Heaven rather than that of the prisons of Portugal, would do well to club together, and keep the “Democrats” out of office until they have moderated their inquisitorial ardour.

The Carbonaria.

As to the Carbonarios, it is hoped that if the Royalists refrain from any violent demonstrations these devoted defenders of the Republic in and out of season will gradually disappear. The society was founded as early as 1823 in imitation, or rather in desecration, of the Italians who conspired against the yoke of Austria, and was reorganised in 1848. It was, however, chiefly after the abortive Republican rising of the 31st of January, 1891, that the Carbonarios gained in strength and, organised in small separate groups, in choças, barracas, and vendas, became the most powerful political force in the country. Their numbers in October, 1910, have been variously estimated at 40,000, 32,000, or a much lower figure. It is impossible to say, but it is certain that since the Revolution, while the old Carbonarios were not disbanded, new sets sprang up, organised by the Republican parties “for the defence of the Republic.” The Democrats especially advanced hand in hand with the Carbonarios, forming an army of Carbonario spies in their service, till in 1913 they came into office together. These new bodies of “insolent neo-Carbonarios,” as a Republican newspaper described them, spread distrust and unrest through the country, spying, insulting, arresting. “They allow us not a moment of tranquillity” (A Republica, 12th December, 1912). “There is no corner of the country now without a nest of Carbonarios,” wrote Senhor Machado Santos a year after the Revolution in O Intransigente, 3rd November, 1911. And these nests were not composed, principally, of the old Carbonarios. Thus, it was possible for Dr. Affonso Costa, when Premier, to say in the Chamber of Deputies that he considered the Carbonarios should have been disbanded after the Revolution, referring to the old Carbonarios.

White Antics.

The words naturally did not apply to the post-revolution brands, such as that of the “White Ants,” which at the very time that Dr. Costa spoke thus were being actively organised by his Government. According to the statements made in Parliament by Senhor Alberto Silveira, who during three years after the Revolution of 1910 was head of the Lisbon police, these White Ants (often suitably dressed in antique black, with flowing black ties), organised during Dr. Costa’s Premiership, included “some who gave their services with a view to future employment, others who contented themselves with payment in money.” Some “belonged to Carbonario associations created since the Revolution by individuals of low social and moral status.” “Others came from revolutionary clubs, such as the ‘Radical Club’; some were anarchists openly hostile to the existing régime.” Some used cards with G. Civil printed on them, standing for Grupo Civil, but intended to convey to their victims the official authority of the Governo Civil. Groups (nucleos de vigilancia) had been formed for the defence of the Republic, said Dr. Costa on another occasion, at the meeting of the Republican (Democrat) Party at Aveiro in April, 1913, and had been such a success that they would be continued. But officially, of course, the Carbonaria does not exist, the Government knows nothing about it, and if you ask a Carbonario he will answer that there is no such thing in Portugal.

Delenda est Carbonaria.