1 FEBRUARY 1930, Page 2

The decisive factor was not so much the latent dis-

content in the Army as the proved .failure of the mer- cantilist economic policy-7-protection of profiteering industrialists ad absurdum, which itself made nonsense of the Dictator's attempts to control the exchange value of the peseta. The fall of the peseta to 89 to the pound sterling, the lowest since the Cuban disaster, was the surest evidence of the country's plight. Perhaps only some broad-minded and respected figure such as Senor Francisco Cam's() can retrieve the situation. And would he, a Catalan, have the courage to place the interests of Spain before those of the powerful indus- trialists of Catalonia, whose instrument he was, as Finance Minister in 1922, when the present tariff basis was established ?