Portugal of the Portuguese

by Aubrey F. G. Bell

Murder of the King and of the Crown Prince.

Like lightning the news spread through Lisbon, exaggerated into the announcement that all the Republican leaders were to be deported to Africa. King Carlos was, with the Queen and the Crown Prince, at Villa Viçosa, to the south of the Tagus, but was returning to Lisbon on the following day. The report was diligently circulated that he was coming in order to sign a decree deporting Snr. Affonso Costa and the other leaders. The King was met at the quay of the Terreiro do Paço, or “Black Horse Square,” by Prince Manoel, and the Premier, Snr. Franco, and entered an open carriage with Queen Amélie, the Crown Prince, and Prince Manoel. The carriage was about to leave the spacious Terreiro do Paço when several men sprang towards it, and in an instant Dom Carlos and the Crown Prince fell back mortally wounded by several bullets. The Queen was seen standing up in the carriage waving her bouquet of flowers in order to deflect the aim of the assassins. The Infante Manoel was slightly wounded in the arm. The first words spoken by Queen Amélie and Queen Maria Pia, mother of Dom Carlos, when they met, have been thus recorded: “They have killed my son”—“And mine.” The murder was followed in Lisbon by no wave of generous feeling, and if sadness was felt by many it was in the words of Camões, an apagada e vil tristeza.

Republican Heroes.

Was this peculiarly hideous and dastardly crime the work of the Republicans? They denied it at first for the sake of foreign opinion, but subsequently they have accepted it as one of the glorious deeds of Portuguese history. Thousands of Republicans defiled past the graves of the murderers, Buiça and Costa, who had been cut down by the police, and the procession to their graves has been continued on each anniversary of this cowardly deed. The Democrats have now erected a costly mausoleum in honour of its authors. On the first anniversary of the Republic their names appeared written up in one of the principal streets of Lisbon among the heroes of the nation. Even while King Manoel was still on the throne Snr. João Chagas addressed one of his Cartas politicas to the shade of Manoel Buiça: “You did something great,” he says, “very great. You rehabilitated, you dignified the people.” Yet a people so “rehabilitated” could only be a despicable rabble. It will be seen that the Republicans, or at least the Democrats, have accepted and glory in this crime as their own. If at the time they repudiated it for the sake of appearances (since it was evident that a Republic ostensibly based on a deed of the kind could have little chance of winning the sympathy of foreign nations), in fact the Republican leaders and the Lisbon shopkeepers who supported them gave it their hearty approval, with that strange callousness which appears more repulsive when combined with sentimentalism and vague humanity. The more enlightened Republicans knew, of course, that the King was not responsible for the dishonesty or incapacity prevailing in Portuguese politics, and that his interference in politics was strictly defined and limited by the Constitution. There was no reason why honest and able men should not rise to a prominent place in politics, and if the Republicans held a monopoly of such men they would have been well advised to reform the Monarchy from within, by pocketing their Republicanism and rising to high office under the Monarchy. The very fact that the King chose and stuck to Snr. Franco in the face of all opposition shows that he was far from being anxious to encourage corruption and incompetence.

King Manoel’s Reign.

No sensible critic has accused Snr. Franco of either incompetence or corruption. But the King’s death naturally caused the fall of Snr. Franco, and the Monarchy was left to attempt to carry out reforms, but without the only politician disinterested enough or of firm enough character to make the attempt successful. The situation in the new reign, especially during its last Ministry, with its sincere programme of reform, was similar to that under Snr. Franco’s dictatorship, except that the strong will had departed. The weakness and lenience displayed towards the Republicans did not for a moment disarm them; the reforms proposed only served to infuriate them. It was considered that the strong hand had been tried and failed, and an opposite policy was adopted. Almost the new king might have been expected to go and lay a wreath on the tombs of the assassins, so conciliatory was the Government. The Republican leaders were released, the basest insults and calumnies and active conspiracies were allowed to go on unchecked. “Conspiracy proceeded on all sides” (“Conspiravase por toda a parte”), says Snr. João Chagas, and he ought to know. The Republicans looked forward to a Portugal so different from that of the Monarchy that it would scarcely be recognised. They had no reforms to offer other than those advocated by the Royalists and they were finally reduced to saying that what they wanted was—a revolution. “Only a revolution could satisfy the thirst for justice of Portuguese society: a revolution to punish the crimes of the dictatorship and definitely expel the old politicians from power.”[60] But it was not yet too late for the velhos politicos to stave off the revolution. Unhappily, however, after the death of Dom Carlos they appeared in all their worst faults, with no strong directing hand to restrain them. Dom Manoel, thus at the age of eighteen suddenly raised to the throne beyond all expectation, was in an extraordinarily difficult position. His tastes inclined rather to letters and music than to the art of government. He soon found, moreover, that the party leaders were thinking not of his interests, or the interests of Portugal, but of their own.

Rotativism in Action.

The Ministers rose and fell at intervals of a few weeks. At first Admiral Ferreira do Amaral formed a coalition ministry, which naturally pleased nobody, while its weakness towards the Republicans excited criticism. Had the Republicans been as unconnected with the murder of the King as for the sake of appearances they at the time pretended, they would have been the first to demand an instant and searching inquiry; as it was, the government, in order to conciliate the Republicans, allowed the investigations to be rather a matter of form than anything else, and the exact truth will now never be established, although the inference is clear. Admiral Ferreira do Amaral was succeeded by Snr. Campos Henriques, who, however, had the support of neither the Vilhenistas (Snr. Julio de Vilhena had succeeded to the leadership of the Regenerador party on the death of Snr. Hintze Ribeiro), nor of the Progressistas. Snr. José Luciano de Castro, although himself in retirement, continued to command the situation and pull the political wires, occupying much the same rôle of Cabinet-maker as Señor Montero Rios in Spain. Snr. Campos Henriques was speedily succeeded in the Premiership by his War Minister, Snr. Sebastião Telles, whose ministry did not last a month, and who was in turn succeeded by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the preceding Cabinet, Snr. Wenceslao de Lima. Snr. Wenceslao de Lima occupied a somewhat similar position to that of a Republican Premier, Dr. Bernardino Machado, four years later. His Ministry was formed with the support of the Regeneradores or Vilhenistas and the Progressistas dissidentes or Alpoimistas (whose leader, Dr. José d’Alpoim, was the personal enemy of the veteran Snr. José Luciano de Castro). But he wished to please also Snr. Castro’s Progressistas by maintaining the Civil Governors and Mayors appointed by them. This is, of course, an all-important matter after the constitution of a Portuguese Ministry, for as these officials will make the elections it is a bone of contention to which party they shall belong. The difficulty of a non-party Ministry of Concentration or Coalition is to find a sufficient number of non-party persons to fill these posts. In 1914 Snr. Bernardino Machado was accused of favouring the officials of Dr. Affonso Costa as in 1909 Snr. Wenceslao de Lima was accused of favouring those of Snr. Castro. And, like the Almeidistas and Camachistas of the later day, the Alpoimistas and Vilhenistas combined to overthrow the Government. On 21st December (1909) a new Cabinet was formed under Snr. Francisco Beirão. It lasted for six months. It was a Progressista Ministry, and had to face the unflagging opposition of both Alpoimistas and Vilhenistas, and of the Republicans. No stone was left unturned to discredit the Government. The sugar monopoly “scandal” was exploited to the utmost, and Dr. Affonso Costa sought to implicate persons of the Court in it. It seemed indeed that honesty was only dear to Portuguese politicians when they were able to unearth something damaging to their opponents. The Ministry fell on the 19th of June, and after a crisis lasting a fortnight Snr. Teixeira de Sousa agreed to form a Regenerador Ministry.

The Last Ministry of the Monarchy.