Catalan Home Rule The Catalans struggling for freedom from Madrid
were in Queen Anne's reign supported by our Whigs and deserted by our Tories. To-day we can all agree in hoping that the Catalan Statute, passed by the Cortes last week and accepted by President Macia and his colleagues at Barcelona, will satisfy their centuries-old demand for self-government.. The Statute, like the new Spanish constitution, provides for a sort of Home Rule that is not in the text-books. Spain is not a Federal Republic, and Catalonia with its " politico-administra- tive autonomy " is midway between a member-state of a federation and a mere county or county borough. The President elected by the Catalan Parliament will represent the Spanish Republic in Catalonia. He and his council will control the local police and the social services, carry out the laws of the - Cortes in regard to agriculture, railways and the Press, appoint Catalan judges and collect the central and local taxes. On the other hand, the Republic as well as the Catalan Generalitat will main- tain schools, and the Republic " has the right -to intervene in questions of public order." It is easy to see how an Irish Free State theorist could upset this very elaborate compromise in five minutes. Indeed it can only work if there is the utmost good will on both sides—in Madrid and in Barcelona. But it may succeed for all that. President Macia, unlike former Catalan leaders, has the workmen on his side, and the- Republican Government needs a contented Catalonia.
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