Decrees.
Apart from the activity of the Carbonarios, the first months of the Republic were marked by an almost equal number of decrees and strikes. Every day the Diario do Governo came out bursting with new decrees, the Provisional Government being determined to make hay before the slower procedure of Parliamentary forms came to check progress.
Strikes.
And nearly every day one or several classes of workmen, taking advantage of the new permission to strike, struck. The strikes were the reality, the decrees were too often theoretical,[63] although some of them, such as that of agricultural credit, 2nd February, 1911, were excellent in principle. O Seculo might speak with complacency of “the evident identification of the people with the Government,” of “the close union between the people and the Government,” but all these decrees and the new Constitution provided by the Constituent Assembly left the people cold. The salaries voted to themselves by its representatives in Parliament did not fill it with enthusiasm: it would have preferred cheaper bacalhau. The octroi duty on certain articles was remitted, but it was soon discovered that while the State lost several hundred contos the price of the articles did not diminish.
The Constitution.
The people found but small compensation in the clauses of the Constitution which declared that “The sovereignty belongs essentially to the nation,” or “Members of the Congress are representatives of the nation and not of the clubs which elect them.” Each Parliament was to last three years, and each year was to have one session of four months, from 2nd December to 2nd April. Parliament cannot be dissolved before the end of three years (the result being that the frequent changes of government are not even in appearance connected with the people). Senators are elected for six years, half their number being renewed at the elections to the Chamber of Deputies every three years.
President Arriaga.
The President of the Republic must be of Portuguese nationality and over thirty-five years of age. He is elected for four years, and cannot be President twice in succession.[64] For the first term of the Presidency (August, 1911, to August, 1915) Dr. Manoel de Arriaga was elected.[65] Ten days after the election of the President, Snr. João Chagas, since the Revolution Portuguese Minister in Paris, formed the first regular Government of the Republic (3rd September, 1911).
First Royalist Incursion.
It did not last ten weeks; a period which included the first Royalist incursion under Captain Paiva Conceiro. The expedition was not of great importance. The danger to the Republic lay in the possibility of the whole of the North of Portugal rising in favour of the Monarchy; but, although there were many isolated disturbances they just failed to break into a general conflagration. The organisation of Carbonario spies throughout the country and the municipal authorities appointed by the Republicans undoubtedly acted as a powerful check on the inhabitants.