F RIENDLY observers of Portugal's internal affairs since the Revolution of
1910 have often spoken of a new spirit discernible. They were mistaken because the essential condition, Ole overthrow of a party which, in the name of the people, had set up an autocracy, had not been accomplished. Portugal's relations with other nations suffered because the latter believed that the words and deeds of a small party were those of the Portuguese people. Before the war the men who had ruled Portugal during seven years were not notoriously Anglophile. Neither in their earlier history, nor in their recent acts and sayings, had they shown any understanding of, or friendship for, the British people. It may be remembered that when the Duchess of Bedford went out to Portugal to inquire personally into the condition of the political prisoners, she was denounced and insulted in what was then the official Lisbon Press. If it believed that she had been misinformed, it might have called her a misguided philanthropist ; but no—she was a Jesuit, a hypocrite, an enemy of Portugal. Dr. Affonso Costa, the Premier, announced in Parliament, on the authority of " an Italian book that he had been reading," that prisoners were worse treated in England. When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle took the matter up, it was asked what could be his motive unless he was well paid. A Democrat official said : " Why do you not also interest yourselves in the criminal prisoners, since they are in even worse plight than the political 1 " When there was an outcry against certain forms of labour in the Portuguese colonies, it was said : " See now these English chocolate- sellers, how they wish to supplant us." It is worth recalling these cynical remarks as signs of a total failure to understand the British people, and as showing how the Democrats had erected themselves into a barrier between the British people and the Portuguese, while they give some faint idea of how the Democrats treated their Portuguese critics who were more immediately in their power.
When war was declared the Democrat leaders saw, of course, that Portugal could only be pro-Ally, and they realized the vital importance to their party and to the Republic of fastening an accusation of pro-Germanism on their opponents in Portugal, regardless of the fact that this meant the majority of the Portuguese people. Therefore they raised such a pro-Ally clamour in their ranks as effectually to drown the voice of those who attempted to show that the vast majority of the whole Portuguese people, and not merely the small section of Democrats, was pro-Ally. It was not probable that the cause of the Allies would gain ultimately thereby, since the Democrats were the best-hated party in Portugal. But as to immediate results, the need felt on the part of the Democrats to cover their volte-face towards Great Britain proved of service to the Allies, for the zeal of these converted Anglophobes was great, so great as to be sometimes positively embarrassing to the British Government. Perhaps a more valuable, if quieter, service to the cause of the Allies would have been to promote a union aerie in Portugal, and this the Democrats might have achieved had they modified their anti-clericalism and adopted a more conciliatory attitude towards their political opponents, or at least ceased to persecute them. It was only, however, after conquering Lisbon in the fighting of May, 1915, that the Democrats spoke of union. To impose a union eacr4e with the cannon of the Fleet, and not to yield an inch to the convictions, religious and political, of nine-tenths of their fellow-countrymen, seemed a very German proceeding, carried through as it was in the name of the Allies and of liberty. Even during the year 1917 four Bishops, including the aged Archbishop of Lisbon, had been arbitrarily banished, while every independent official—even Judges and Professors—lived in constant expectation of dismissal. It must be realized that every one of those so threatened or dismissed could scarcely fail to feel a certain bitterness towards the British Alliance, under cover of which the Democrats during the last three years had ensconced themselves so securely. They had the further security of having made the Constitution, elected the Parliament, and nominated the President of the Republic (an ardent'Democrat). It thus became abundantly clear that unless they were violently dispossessed, and unless the Constitution were revised, Portugal might continue indefinitely to be misrepresented by a party which neither respected her religion nor understood her ideals. Portugal has long suffered from a grievous surfeit of politics, and this evil has increased since 1910 to an unparalleled extent. Politics have invaded education, religion, justice, and every department of life, while the behaviour of a Jacobin minority has tended to transform the Republic into a sect and the British Alliance into a cold political formula. The object of the revolu- tionaries of December 5th-8th, 1917, was to -elimirude the extremists, to nationalize the Republic, and so to revise the Constitution that Portugal might not again come under the absolute control of a single party. That the cause of true democracy and the relations between the British and Portuguese peoples will benefit by this change is surely not open to doubt. The sympathy of the British people will go out to a people which, like the British, has always valued independence and freedom above all other earthly possessions, and which is as resolute now as ever in the fight against the German oppressors of small peoples and national liberty.
Let it not be thought for a moment that those who are now rejoicing over the fall of the Democrats are a political party or small section of the Portuguese people. Peasants and landowners, officers and soldiers, professors, officials, small shopkeepers, trades. men, men of business, priests, even the Royalists, whose prospects do not gain by the change, are all expressing their relief and their approval of the patriotism of the revolutionaries. The latter have a field more promising even than that of the Republic after the 1910 Revolution. Their conduct has so far been marked by great moderation, well in keeping with that of the Cadets, who took so prominent a part in the Revolution and refused all rewards, even that of more rapid promotion. Apart from arrests necessary to save the new regime from being stabbed in the back, the decrees of the Revolutionary Committee were mainly directed to annul arbitrary acts of the deposed Government, exiled Bishops, priests, officials, politicians, journalists, being allowed to return, regard- less of party. No one wishes for a vindictive treatment of the fallen party. Official changes throughout the country are necessary, since the Democrats had rooted themselves not in the hearts of the people but in the administrative machinery—Government offices, Provincial Governors, Mayors, municipal bodies. But only the changes strictly required to obtain security are contemplated. Vindictiveness breeds vindictiveness; the treatment of Liberals in the " thirties " of last century was still bearing fruit eighty years later in the treatment of Royalists. The victor who proves himself strong enough to let bygones be bygones will have gone far to -establish a united PortugaL But, as may readily be imagined, the responsibility does not lie with the victorious side alone. When the Democrat leaders were deriving every kind of profit and advantage from their advocacy of the Allies' cause—honours abroad, prolonged tenure of office, and security at home—theirs was a comparatively easy devotion. If Dr. Bernardino Machado, Dr. Affonso Costa, and the rest wish to prove the sincerity of their pro-Ally sentiments, they can beat do so now by refraining from attack or conspiracy against their successors till the end of the. war.
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