DON SEGISMUNDO MORET.
Leader of the Liberal-Monarchists.
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CHAPTER XII
POLITICS
The apparently purposeless and kaleidoscopic changes in Spanish politics are very apt to puzzle foreign observers, who cannot understand what has happened to bring about the resignation of a Minister or an entire Cabinet, for which the cause, if any, alleged in the papers seems wholly inadequate. Internal and external affairs appear to be pursuing a tranquil course: no disputed question is agitating the country or the Cortes, when suddenly comes a bolt from the blue in the shape of an announcement of a Ministerial crisis, and the Government is changed. Thus, early in the year 1910, Señor Moret, who after overthrowing the Government of Maura in the previous October, seemed to be pretty firmly seated in the saddle, suddenly resigned, in spite of the fact that at the municipal elections a month or so before his policy had been endorsed by overwhelming majorities all over the country. One of the English newspapers, in commenting on this seemingly inexplicable change of Ministry, frankly confessed that it was useless for foreigners to attempt to understand Spanish politics.
Generally speaking, Ministerial changes in Spain are the outcome of a tacit arrangement made some thirty years ago between Canovas and Sagasta, the then leaders of the two main parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, and continued by their successors, that each side should have its fair share of the loaves and fishes. After one party had been in office three or four years it was agreed by common consent that the time had come for the other side to have a turn. Thus, as Major Martin Hume says:[21] “Dishonest Governments are faced in sham battle by dishonest Oppositions, and parliamentary institutions, instead of being a public check upon abuses, are simply a mask behind which a large number of politicians may carry on their nefarious trade with impunity.”
But sometimes, though more rarely, another cause operates to upset Governments, and that is the underground intrigues of disappointed place-hunters. If the Premier in his distribution of appointments happens to omit any important person or section of people who think themselves entitled to a share in the plums of office, they will not hesitate to join with political opponents and turn out their own nominal leader, if circumstances happen to make this possible.
It is often said by foreign critics that the people—the mass of the nation—are to blame for the sins of their Governments. They have the franchise: if they are not satisfied, why do they not elect better men?
This criticism proceeds from ignorance of an important factor in Spanish politics—one of the tentacles of the octopus of corruption which holds the whole country in its grip.