PORTUGAL, August 5.
Occastoxartelegraphie references to current events in Portugal have not served to throw much light upon a situation which at any time during the past eighteen months has been almost too complex to be comprehensible to foreigners. Disturbances of greater or less intensity have occurred of late in various parts of the country, and have giv rise to the belief that strong dynastic tendencies are_making headway and that the possibility of areyolution was not too remote to be taken into consideration. Wit the restoration of order, however, sch fears are held for the time to be exaggerated, although it is generally admitted that a section of the nation is in a state of effervescence and unrest. There have been riots and bloodshed in the Capital itself, and it has required prompt action punctuated with no little severity to enable the Government to proclaim itself finally master of the situation. Underlying the unrest there are specific grievances, rightly or wrongly entertained by those of the people concerned, and the Government's claim to power and to general sympathy will depend much on the methods it adopts, after the restoration of tranquillity, to remove as far ax possible these causes of popular outbreaks. Existing circumstances in Portugal, however, have many peculiar features, and not the least antagonistic to measures of "reform" is the fact that any step in this direction entails a personal surrender on the part of the Ministry in power.
It is mainly in the political aspect that the situation in Portugal presents so many peculiarities of its own. For nearly eighteen months the government of the country has been carried on without Parliament. When the present Ministry came into power, it was generally accepted that the times were out of joint and that exceptional measures were required to deal with the problems confronting the Administration. Faced persistent opposition in both Chambers of the Cortes, as well as personal attacks on the King in the Press in connexion with the tobacco monopoly, Senhor Franco, the new Premier, decided upon the dissolution of Parlihment and the suspension. of certain. municipal ities. From that moment the country has been governed by decree, No date has been fixed for the next elections but, according to the Premier, it depends The H.-C. herald and SH. C. & C. Gazette, vaguely on the good behaviour of the Opposition. Naturally the latter is dissatisfied with such an arrangement, and Senhor Franco and the King are roundly denounced for overriding the Constitution and for having established a dictatorship. A number of representative bodies including both Houses of Parliament, the Council of State, and various municipalities have approached King Charles and have pointed out the seriousness the situation. To one and all His Majesty has undertaken to adopt the only constitutional course open to him—to refer the grievances. of the deputations to his Government. As far as can be gathered, popular feeling on the "crisis" has not been roused to any considerable extent, for the nation as a whole is not unwilling to pose as an impartial spectator of its pol quarrels, Personal hostility, however, has been very generally manifested against the Premier, and on a recent railway journey his progress was marked by a series of demonstrations along the line, culminating ina serious riot on his return to Lisbon. These demonstrations for the moment may be devoid of any far-reaching significance, but there is the danger that the country may weary of such ind will then fix the re-pons on the Government to the detriment of Portugal's internal a further element of discord in the general situation is contributed by the students of the only University in Portugal, at Coimbra. The professors and lecturing staff of that institution are deemed by the students to be unworthy of their high calling, and after a series of incidents held to prove this contention a strike was proc! at the University last April. Trae to its reputation for action the Government dealt firmly with the offending undergraduates, and showed its sympathy with the teaching staff, which can be useful to it at elections. The response on the part of the students, who are the mainspring of nearly' all jour-rialism in Portugal, was to carry on a campaign in the Press and with their followers to form politi- sta, cal clubs for the purpose of consolidating opinion against the Government. They have a ready weapon to hand in the need for educational reform in a country which has to admit that sixty per cent. of its population are illiterates. When the Government closed down their Clubs and suspended their newspapers, the students resorted to less constitutional methods of airing their grievances, and it is 305 supposed that most of the victim: in the recent riots belonged to th number. The latest indications, how ever, point to the fact that their campaign is likely to bear fruit, as the Government is more inclined to endeavour to remove the reproach now resting on the country's educational system, than it is to restore to its political opponents opportunity to obstruct its well-meant, though somewhat arbitrary, activities,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.