23 SEPTEMBER 1911, Page 2

There has been much disorder in Spain during the week.

Last Sunday a revolutionary plot was checked at Barcelona by the arrest of numerous ringleaders. A general strike has been threatened at all the principal towns of Spain, and on Tuesday the Government suspended the Constitutional Guarantees. At Barcelona last Sunday a revolutionary com- mittee visited the newspaper offices threatening their destruc- tion if the papers were published. The intention was evidently to deprive the town of information, so as to carry out the plot in semi-secrecy. The police, however, had been warned, and most of the members of the committee were arrested. Meanwhile the general strike, which appears to have been revolutionary in origin, everywhere hang fire. The stores of dynamite were not used, and the telegraph and tele- phone wires remained intact. On Tuesday night nearly three hundred arrests were made in Madrid, among those arrested being the Vice-President of the General Labour Union. It seems that the Government is inclined to recognize the legality of a strike if it does not interfere with the public services and if proper notice—which is required by law—is given by the strikers of their intention to cease work. If the strike, which is still an inert affair, shows any signs of developing into a revolt the troops will use their arms at once. The Prime Minister, Senor Canalejas, says that he is determined to suppress the revolutionary movement once for all