The Times special correspondent in Portugal contributes an article in
the issue of Tuesday on the Anarchist element in Portugal. Making every allowance for the difficulties of the Provisional Government, he strongly condemns their com-
plaisance in encouraging public opinion to condone and even applaud "the national pastime of bomb-making." The political assassin has been held up to admiration in the Press on the ground that "any act committed in the name and for the glory of the Republic becomes in itself not only justi- fiable but highly meritorious." The Seculo, the most popular journal in Lisbon, publishes a series of articles describing the leading dynamiters of the capital and their exploits. Diplomatic remonstrances and the pressure of the better elements in Portuguese society have at last moved the Government to action. They have announced their intention of dismantling the " Museum of Revolution," of forbidding the continuance of the articles in the Seculo, and they have taken steps to secure the return into Govern- ment stores of the large number of bombs distributed to private individuals during the October Revolution. But these are but half-measures, "taken without enthusiasm or conviction," and the correspondent urges the Powers to unite in securing the passage of a decree rendering the manufacture, possession, or use of bombs an offence punishable with the utmost rigour of the law. " By this means only can Lisbon be prevented from becoming a centre for the propagation of Anarchy."
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