PORTUGAL AND BRAZIL By LIEUT.-COL. F. C. C. EGERTON T HE
generous declaration of "moral solidarity" which the Portuguese Government made immediately upon the entry of Brazil into the war may well suggest some consideration of the situation of our own oldest ally. We do not understand Portugal as well as we should ; we sometimes fail to realise that the little country facing the Atlantic in the south-west corner of Europe has maintained a degree of what may be called national chivalry which, in these mechanical and matter-of-fact days, it is hard to parallel. The Portuguese, in all circumstances and throughout his country's long history, has always regarded honour as the supreme consideration.
Eight hundred years ago, when a body of rather turbulent English crusaders paused on their journey to the Holy Land to help the first King of Portugal to recover Lisbon from the Moors, some of the "men of Cologne" who accompanied them tried to persuade Afonso Henriques to massacre some hostages he had taken. The King was furiously angry at the suggestion, could hardly be per- suaded*to continue his association with the Germans, and declared that rather than sacrifice his honour he would prefer to give up the victory which was already within his grasp. Portuguese history Iris compact of such an attitude and, especially in these days, when our souls seem athirst for the consolation of some spiritual element in a war which tends to become increasingly material and inhuman, Ithose who know something not only of Portuguese history but also of the ideals which animate the Portuguese Government today have never wavered in their confidence in Portuguese integrity or in the loyalty which has been more than once proclaimed to an alliance which has lasted six hundred years.
It is well that we should consider the position of Portugal. We are apt to look with suspicion, and perhaps even a shade of con- tempt, on the few remaining neutrals, and Portugal, as Brazil was yesterday, is a neutral. What else could she be? Sixteen years ago she was on the verge of bankruptcy. For nearly a hundred years she had been politically unstable. She had, it is true, demo-. cratic institutions, but they had been implanted artificially, anct it is difficult for us, with our long democratic tradition, to understand how hopelessly ineffective parliamentary institutions can be when Riley have no roots in the spirit of the people which adopts them. Portugal seemed to be falling to pieces, and covetous eyes were already being cast on the considerable Empire which she had built op so heroically but seemed incapable of maintaining any longer.
Brazil had been one of the main bulwarks of that Empire, and Brazil severed her political connexion with the mother country a hundred and twenty years ago. It cannot, however, be said that Portugal completely lost Brazil. For more than half a century one of her royal family continued to reign over the country, and the otelations between the two people were, and have remained, more than friendly. The Brazilians have always been proud of their Portuguese origin and traditions. The bond which binds the two peoples together, the recognition of which has just been so unequi- vocally expressed by the Portuguese Government, is perhaps more intimate and more consciously felt than that which unites ourselves to the people of the United States. There has been a steady stream of emigrants from Portugal to Brazil, and such is the sense of identity between the two peoples that it has hardly been felt neces- sary for such emigrants to acquire Brazilian nationality. They have moved backwards as well as forwards, and large numbers of them have returned to the land of their birth, just as they might have returned from Angola or Mozambique, to spend their declining days in the home of their childhood.
Even politically the relation between the two countries may be closer than has been realised. Sixteen years ago Portugal seemed
in a hopeless state of financial and political chaos. Brazil, though for different reasons, was not in much better state. At the critical moment both countries found their man. In 1928, Salazar assumed the direction of the Portuguese Government ; in 1930, Vargas became President of Brazil. Each has, literally, been the saviour of his country.
It would be difficult to imagine two men apparently more unlike, but in spite of appearances they have much in common. Both are indefatigable ; both are nationalists in the best sense of the word ; both are personally above the faintest suspicion of corruption. They are both essentially Portuguese, Vargas perhaps in the line of the great Afonso de Albuquerque, Salazar in that of Henry the Navi- gator, the astounding son of a Portuguese King and an English Princess, though the seas over which he plans his voyages are those over which the ship of State must sail, and not the oceans which Portuguese sailors first made known to the world. Salazar, perhaps, is more wholly influenced by intense religious convictions. His conception of the State is based on the profound belief that human personality, as a divine gift, must be preserved and fostered at all costs. Though, from the point of view of its political institu- tions, Portugal, under its Constitution of 1933, cannot be described as democratic in the usual sense of the word, it is the very anti- thesis of totalitarian. It is professedly and essentially Christian.
Portugal and Brazil, always fully conscious of their affinity, have drawn still closer to one another under Salazar and Vargas. There is no doubt whatever that the ruler of Brazil has profited by the experience of the last fourteen years in Portugal. The Brazilians, as is natural, have understood Salazar's character and purposes better perhaps than anyone else. Senhor Carlos Magalhaes de Azevedo, one of their most distinguished diplomats and a convinced democrat, has very well expressed this understanding. "It is clear.' he says, "that this man has nothing to hide, and that he ha, nothing to hide because all that he thinks and does is right and honest ; because his political economy has the same foundations as his domestic economy, and because his morality as a statesman is the straightforward morality of all good men."
What are we to think of Portugal's neutrality in this war? It Portugal is our ally, why is she not fighting at our side? This 1, a natural question to ask, but it is not difficult to find a reply. In the first place, she was not in any position to engage in a war. Her army was small and insufficiently equipped for the needs o: modern warfare. Much had been done to improve its quality since the foundation of the New State, and Portugal had been eager to do more but, as we know from painful experience, the ally te whom she naturally looked for assistance was in no position to ck anything for her. Her navy, though it too had been redeemed from insignificance under the Salazar regime, is minute. In these circumstances Portuguese co-operation in the war might have been rather a liability than an asset, and the British Government had no desire to call upon its old and trusted ally to commit suicide Secondly, Salazar's clear and profound foresight, his fears for the future of Christian civilisation, made him believe in the advantage to Europe and to the world in keeping, if it were possible, one small oasis free from the spiritual desolation of a world war. This, beyond all question, not for any selfish reasons, but so that, when the tumult at last dies down, there may remain one corner of the globe free from the stress of passion which war inevitably engenders, one small nucleus of sanity and common sense.
So, since the war began, Portugal has maintained a strict and irreproachable neutrality. The position has not been easy, but Salazar's loyalty to the alliance with Britain has never faltered, and this implies a great deal. On the One hand he sees his country threatened by the totalitarian avalanche ; on the other he is not without fears lest another danger should threaten from atheistic Communism. Yet, though he may wonder whether he is not in truth between the devil and the deep sea, his faith in God and in his people remains, and he continues to follow the course he marked out at the beginning of the conflict. The Portuguese Government continues to maintain its neutrality. No one who has visited Portugal in the last three years has any doubt about the sympathies of her people. At this moment, when the Government has so courageously made clear its solidarity with the Brazilian people, we, in this country, should do our best to appreciate the difficult position in which Portugal is placed, sympathise with the high and chivalrous ideals of her people, and give whatever help it may be in our power to give.
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