German Ascendancy.
If you ask what is the best history of Portugal, the answer is that of Heinrich Schaefer, a German; there is not even an English translation of it, although a considerable portion of it is English history. English readers must read this in German or in the French translation. If you inquire for the best history of Portuguese literature, if you wish to consult important works on the Portuguese language, if you wish to read all the works of Portugal’s chief poet in a translation, the language necessary for your purpose is still not English, but German. It is not a creditable fact, for England, and it may be that one result of the World War will be to broaden England’s outlook: if so, it is to be hoped that she will, especially, bestow more attention on the life and character, literature, and history of the oldest of her allies.
CHAPTER XIV
PORTUGAL OF THE FUTURE
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.
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.
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.