Confused Rhetoric.
The work of the Provisional Government was “gigantic, marvellous, superb,” declared the Republican deputy, Snr. Alexandre Braga. “Never again,” he said in a dithyrambic speech, typical of the muddy thinking of the day, “never again will the family in Portugal return to the state demoralising hypocrisy to which it was nailed by the rigid dogma that forbade divorce. Never again will woman’s dignity be bespattered by lies and disloyalty and treachery through having to hide as a disgrace the pure flame of her true love [i.e., for some one not her husband]. Never again will the children be poisoned by the lethal infiltration of a Jesuit education. No more cloisters, no more superstition, no more showy and mercenary charity....”
Discipline.
Yet it was more not less discipline that Portuguese society required. Fatal to Portugal is likely to prove the policy which seeks deliberately to undermine all authority—of the family (by new facilities given to divorce); of the priest (by instituting public worship societies); of the landowner (by taxing him to a fourth or more of his income), of the Army (by subjecting it to the Carbonarios), of the police (by encouraging “White Ants” and mob to take the law into their own hands), of justice (by dismissing and banishing those judges who refuse to be influenced by politics), of the law (by shaping it entirely to party ends).
The Constitution.
Some clauses of the present Constitution are excellent, but they are dead letters. In Chapter II (concerning the rights and guarantees of individuals), for instance, clause 4 decrees that “Liberty of conscience and belief is inviolable.” So “No one can be persecuted on the ground of religion” (clause 6); “Expression of thought in whatever form is completely free, without previous censure” (clause 13; but, proceeds this clause, the abuse of this right is liable to punishment); “The right of meeting and association is free” (clause 14); “The inviolability of private houses is guaranteed” (clause 15); “No one can be arrested without a warrant” (clause 18); “The secrecy of the post is inviolable” (clause 28); “Citizens may resist any order which infringes the guarantees of the individual, unless these guarantees have been suspended by law” (clause 37). It is certainly time to put these excellent precepts into practice.
The Tyranny of a Minority.
“Paz ponen los omes entre si á las vezes,” said King Alfonso X some seven centuries ago: “men sometimes make peace with one another”; and this is still occasionally the case. There is no reason why all moderate and patriotic Portuguese should not unite to eliminate the extremists. It ill befits Portugal’s dignity that a body of some six thousand should tyrannize over a population of six millions. There is scope for the activities of all Portuguese, room for the interests of all, in Portugal and in the Portuguese colonies.
Foreigners and Portugal.
But so long as this small minority dominates and systematically stifles the voice of the majority of the Portuguese and gags the Portuguese Press, foreign criticism will be legitimate and necessary. The Democrats constantly misrepresent all such criticism as hostility towards Portugal (instead of hostility towards the Carbonarios and Democrats), a misrepresentation which excites much amusement among those who know that nine-tenths of the inhabitants of Portugal detest and fear their despotism. Foreign critics must be few and ignorant indeed who are animated by dislike of Portugal or the Portuguese. Most foreigners after a sojourn in Portugal take away the most pleasant impressions of the land and people, and they deplore the fact that it should be possible to say of Portugal, as was once said of Spain, that it has been given every blessing except that of a good Government. Rich in its sea and soil, and subsoil and climate, rich in buildings, traditions and literature from a glorious past, fortunate in the intelligent and progressive character of the inhabitants, Portugal possesses splendid advantages.