Partial Elections.
The partial election of members of the Chamber of Deputies, rendered necessary by the vacancies due to deaths, resignations, and diplomatic and other appointments, were held on the 16th of November, and resulted, as had been foreseen, in the return of Democrats for all but two constituencies. Dr. Affonso Costa thus had a good working majority in the Lower House, which enabled him to dispense with the support of the Unionists, by which he had been kept in office during the earlier part of the year.
DOORWAY OF THE UNFINISHED CHAPELS, BATALHA
Parliamentary Deadlock.
The majority in the Senate was, however, anti-Democrat. Thus a difficult situation arose which in the beginning of the following year led to a deadlock between the Government and Parliament. A senator, Snr. João de Freitas, had made certain accusations against the Premier, Dr. Affonso Costa, and the Premier, instead of attending in the Senate to refute the charges, answered by a letter which the acting President of the Senate considered lacking in respect to that House, and therefore refused to read. The Government thereupon in its turn refused to have anything to do with the sittings of the Senate, and it therefore became impossible to carry through certain necessary business such as the passing of the Budget. At the same time the Government was threatened with another general strike, and to avert this it adopted the old method of surrounding the building in which the strikers held their meetings and arresting hundreds of workmen. This did not add to the popularity of the Government, which was already hated owing to the arrest of hundreds of Republicans after the April and July disturbances. The prisoners had been sent partly to Elvas and partly to Angra do Heroisno, since the prisons of the capital were insufficient. The Lisbon Republican Press, which had kept silence concerning the sufferings and ill-treatment of the Royalist prisoners and the condition of the prisons, now told of the sufferings and ill-treatment of the Republican prisoners, of the insanitary state of the prisons, and the badness and insufficiency of the food. A demonstration was actually held in Lisbon against the Government of Dr. Affonso Costa, and a large crowd, organised by Snr. Machado Santos, proceeded to the palace of Belem, where the President of the Republic lives, to show their wish for an amnesty, which the Democrat Government had declared unnecessary and inopportune.
President Arriaga’s Letter.
It was evident that Dr. Costa’s days as Premier were numbered, and when the President addressed to him a letter proposing that a government of concentration should be formed in order to grant an amnesty, revise in a more moderate sense the Law of Separation between Church and State, pass the Budget and hold the General Election, the Government resigned (25th January, 1914). A crisis of over a fortnight ensued. The Democrat Government had fallen because it was in opposition to the President of the Republic, to the majority in the Senate, and to public opinion. The President had been on the point of resigning more than once during the last two years as he saw his moderate policy ruthlessly cast aside by the extremists. His definite resolution to resign unless his conciliatory policy were now adopted, produced its effect. But the Democrats still had a strong majority in the Chamber of Deputies, which made it impossible for the Evolutionists or Unionists to form a Ministry. The attempt to constitute a non-party Government also failed. One of the most significant features of the crisis was the extreme unwillingness of the abler Republican politicians to take office. It was not till the 9th of February that Snr. Bernardino Machado was able to constitute a Cabinet, all the new Ministers, with the exception of the Premier, holding office for the first time. The Premier took the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, as in 1910-11, and retained it during three months, until Snr. Freire de Andrade was appointed.
The Amnesty.