The House of Deputies, as regulated by the law of August 8, 1901, was composed of 155 members, of whom 148 represented the 26 electoral circles of Portugal, the Azores, and Madeira,[879] and 7 represented the colonies. By amendment of 1885 provision was made for the representation of minorities, and of the 155 members in 1910, 35 sat as minority representatives. This result was attained through an arrangement whereby in circles which elected more than one deputy each elector voted for one or two fewer than the number of seats to be filled. Deputies were chosen by direct election, and in the choice all male citizens twenty-one years of age were entitled to participate, provided they paid taxes aggregating 500 reis (about 56 cents) annually or were able to read and write. Convicts, beggars, bankrupts, domestic servants, workingmen permanently employed by the state, and soldiers and sailors below the rank of commissioned officer were disqualified. In point of fact, the prevalence of poverty and of illiteracy operated to confine the franchise within very narrow limits. Peers, naturalized aliens, persons not qualified to vote, and certain employees of the state were ineligible for election, and deputies were required to possess an income of not less than 400 milreis ($425) annually, or to be graduates of a professional, secondary, or higher school. After 1892 no deputies, save those representing the colonies, were paid salaries.
Sessions of the Cortes were required to be opened by the crown on the second day of January of each year. According to the amendment of July 24, 1885, a regular session lasted three months and each Cortes, unless sooner dissolved, lasted three years. The president and vice-president of the House of Peers were appointed by the crown; likewise the corresponding officials of the House of Deputies, from a list of five nominees presented by that body. Each chamber was authorized to choose its own secretaries, to pass upon the qualifications of its members, and to frame its rules of procedure. Except at times when the welfare of the state demanded secrecy, sessions were required to be public. To the lower chamber was committed the initiative in all matters pertaining to taxation, the recruiting of troops, the investigation of the administrative offices, and the consideration of propositions submitted by the executive. Upon it, likewise, was conferred exclusive power to impeach ministers and councillors of state. The right to initiate measures in general was vested in each of the two houses, as well as in the Government. Ministers were privileged to attend legislative sessions and to participate in debate. It was required that the sovereign should give or refuse his approval of every measure within a month after it should have been presented to him.[880]
704. The Judiciary and Local Government.—The judicial hierarchy consisted of 193 courts of first instance, one in each of an equal number of comarcas, or districts; three courts of appeal, sitting at Lisbon, Oporto, and Ponta Delgada (in the Azores); and a Supreme Court at Lisbon. Judges were appointed by the crown, and were irremovable save in consequence of judicial sentence. In the trial of criminal cases the English jury system was in vogue, although it operated but indifferently. The functions of the Supreme Court were those of hearing appeals from the inferior tribunals, trying cases involving judges of the appellate courts and members of the diplomatic corps, and deciding conflicts of jurisdiction.[881]
Early in the nineteenth century continental Portugal was divided for administrative purposes into six provinces, delimited in a large measure in accordance with the physical configuration of the country. In 1836 the province ceased to be an administrative unit and, after a period of readjustment, there was established by law of March 18, 1842, an administrative hierarchy which in its more important aspects has survived to the present day. Under that measure the realm was divided into 21 districts (17 continental and 4 insular), 292 concelhos, or communes (263 continental and 29 insular), and 3,690 freguezias, or parishes (3,788 continental and 172 insular). Until 1910 the government of the district was vested in a commission consisting of two members appointed by the central authorities and three elected triennially by delegates from the communal councils. Of the two centrally appointed members, one, the governor, presided over the commission; the other was an administrative auditor. Among the functions of the commission was that of sitting as an administrative court. The commune was governed by a mayor, appointed by the central authorities on nomination of the governor of the district, and a council of five to fifteen members elected on a single ticket by the communal voters. The council was presided over, not by the mayor, but by one of its own members. The governing agencies of the parish were an elected council (junta de parochia), presided over by the parish priest, and the regidor, named by the district governor to represent the interests of the central government. Throughout the entire system the preponderating fact was the thoroughgoing centralization which, through the governors, mayors, and regadores, the authorities at Lisbon were able to maintain.
III. The Revolution of 1910
705. Political Unsettlement, 1908-1910.—The period of two and a half years which elapsed between the accession of Manoel II., in February, 1908, and his deposition, in October, 1910, was one of continued political stress. The sovereign was youthful, inexperienced, and lacking in political training. His advisers were divided in their counsels and impelled largely by selfish motives, and in the teeth of rapidly spreading republican and socialist propaganda the old dynastic parties kept up unremittingly their unseemly recriminations. In February, 1909, the king called into consultation the leaders of the various monarchist groups and sought to impress upon them the necessity of co-operation, and when the Cortes was convened, March 1, the Speech from the Throne announced optimistically a programme of constructive legislation, embracing, among other things, the enactment of more liberal press laws, a reform of primary education, and a readjustment of taxation. Within the Cortes, however, it was found impossible to carry any one of the measures proposed and, March 29, the Henriquez ministry, after only three months in office, resigned. During the remainder of the year three successive ministries were set up: that of General Sebastiano Telles, which lasted only from April 11 until May 4; that of Wencelao de Lima, extending from May 4 to December 21; and that of Beirao, which continued from December 21 to early June of the following year. The De Lima cabinet was formed from elements which stood largely outside the swirl of party politics, but the Republican and Regenerador opposition was so intense that nothing could be accomplished by it. The Beirao government by which it was succeeded was composed entirely of Progressives. The Speech from the Throne at the convening of the Cortes, January 2, 1910, ignored completely the grim realities of the political situation. Ostensibly to afford the Beirao ministry an opportunity to formulate a programme, the session was adjourned until March 3, at which time the members reassembled, only to be sent back again to their homes until June 1. At the second reassembling the ministry was opposed with such virulence that it at once retired and, after some delay, the Regeneradors came into power under Teixeira de Sousa. The Cortes was dissolved and a national election, accompanied by grave disorders, was held, August 28. At the election the Regeneradors obtained 80 seats, the Progressives 43, the Republicans 14 (twice as many as they had ever obtained before), and the Independents 2.[882] The new Cortes assembled September 23; but two days later it was adjourned until December 12, and, in point of fact, it never sat again.
706. Overthrow of the Monarchy.—During many months a plot had been ripening in Republican circles looking toward the deposition of the king, the overthrow of the monarchy, and the proclamation of a republic. By reason of the confusion and repression which prevailed perennially in Portuguese politics, the actual strength, numerically and otherwise, of republicanism in the kingdom in 1910 cannot be known. But it is sufficiently clear that the propaganda of the past thirty years had borne much fruit and that among the artisan, trader, and small burgher classes, and especially in the ranks of the army and the navy, the enemies of the monarchy had come to be numerous and influential. The leaders of the republican movement represented, on the whole, the best educated and most progressive elements of the country—largely lawyers, physicians, journalists and other men of the professions and of business. In the later summer of 1910 various intimations of a far-reaching revolutionary plot were received by the Government and the date (September 14) which was at one time fixed for the insurrection proved an impracticable one because the authorities became aware of the project and subverted the republican plans by ordering the warships on that day to quit the Tagus. Within official circles it was generally assumed that the revolutionists, balked once, would return to the project. The crash came, however, at a moment when the Government was entirely off its guard, and its effects were unexpectedly summary. The immediate incident by which it was precipitated was the assassination in Lisbon, October 3, of a distinguished Republican member of the Cortes, Dr. Miguel Bombarda. Whether justly or not, the assassination was interpreted by the populace as a political crime, and to the disaffected elements of the army and navy the occasion seemed ripe for the execution of the contemplated coup. October 4 open revolt broke out among the national troops, and during the ensuing forty-eight hours a handful of soldiers and sailors, aided by armed civilians, acquired the mastery of the capital, put the king to flight, won over the country to their cause, and proclaimed the establishment of a republican form of government. The revolutionists were organized, the royalists were not, and the defeat of the latter was complete. It was also substantially bloodless. King Manoel, and the queen-mother Amelia, contriving an escape from the royal palace, made their way to Eraceira, and thence to Gibraltar. Subsequently they were conveyed to England.
707. Measures of the Provisional Government.—Meanwhile, October 5, there was established at Lisbon a provisional government composed of nine ministers and presided over by the scholar and litterateur, Theophile Braga. The members of this government were drawn principally from the group of Republican deputies representing the Lisbon constituencies. A few had held high office under the monarchy, but most of them, including Braga, were men of little or no experience in administrative work. The flight of the king and the collapse of the monarchist cause cleared the way for a speedy establishment of the new order, and without awaiting a formal remodelling of the constitution, the Braga government proceeded to carry into execution a number of features of the Republican programme. October 7 it promised amnesty to political and press exiles, the revocation of various illiberal press and judicial laws, the suppression of summary magisterial powers, and a long list of other administrative and judicial reforms. October 18 it abolished the monarchy and proscribed forever the royal house of Braganza. On the same day it abolished likewise the Council of State and the House of Peers, together with all hereditary titles and privileges. In the course of further measures of reform relating to public finance, agriculture, education, religion, and social welfare, it issued a new electoral law and effected arrangements for the convening of a national assembly to which should be committed the task of framing a republican constitution. The electoral decree of March 15, 1911, conferred the franchise upon all Portuguese citizens of the age of twenty-one who under the monarchy were entitled to its exercise, and upon all, in addition, who were able to read and write, barring soldiers, bankrupts, and ex-convicts. The two cities, Lisbon, and Oporto, were created electoral districts in each of which eight members were to be chosen by scrutin de liste after the Belgian, or d'Hondt, plan of proportional representation, and the remainder of the country (including the colonies) was divided into districts in each of which four members were to be chosen, also with provision for the representation of minorities.
708. The Constitution Framed and the Government Organized.—The elections to the Constituent Assembly took place May 28, 1911. There were no monarchist candidates and, there having been neither time nor occasion for the appearance of serious differences among the Republicans, the event was attended by little excitement and by no disorder. In many districts the candidates approved by the Provisional Government were unopposed. The Assembly was convened June 19. By unanimous vote of its 192 members the decree by which the monarchy had been abolished and the Braganza dynasty banished was enacted into law, whereupon the body addressed itself to the framing of a budget and the adoption of organic laws relating to the nature and manner of exercise of the political powers of the republic. A draft of the constitution, framed by the Republican leaders, was read to the delegates July 3, and August 18 it was voted, amid general acclamations, almost without modification. The presidential election was fixed for August 23. Of the two principal candidates, Dr. Manoel Arriaga represented the more moderate wing of the Republican element, Dr. Machado Santos (the provisional president) the more radical. Dr. Arriaga was elected by a vote of 121 to 86. August 24 the Assembly terminated its proceedings and the new constitution was put in operation. The first cabinet, presided over by João Chagas, was announced at the beginning of September. It was at this point that France, Spain, and a number of other European powers for the first time recognized officially the republic's existence. The difficulties encountered by the new régime—royalist invasions, outbreaks of disaffection, strikes, lack of funds—were numerous. Not the least serious was the inevitable rise of differences among the Republicans themselves. During the autumn of 1911 the Moderates split into two rival groups, and the more important of them, led by Dr. Almeida, definitely withdrew its support from the Government. The result was a ministerial crisis, and November 7 the Chagas cabinet resigned. The new "ministry of concentration" formed by the radical Vasconcellos was composed of eight members divided almost equally between the Moderates and the Democrats. In more recent days the lines of party cleavage have tended to be accentuated and the stability, if not the existence, of the republic to be increasingly menaced. In June, 1912, a new ministry was constituted under Leite, in which all of the groups in the lower chamber were represented. There is reason to apprehend that, in the event of the survival of the republic, the outcome will be at best but the resuscitation, under other names and forms, of the long-endured rotativist régime.