The Barcelona riots have ended for the moment, and though
there have been disturbances in some of the smaller
cities, the troops have been successful in all, though not until General Weyler had obtained permission from the Queen. Regentto call out the Reserves and declare martial law throughout the whole of Spain. That would have made him Dictator, and his precise politics are still unknown. The most serious features of the imeutes have been the daring shown by the strikers, who have in more than one instance attacked barracks, and the fact that the insurgents are not avowedly either Carlists or Republicans. Apparently the actual work- men are in distress, and strike blindly. at every kind of authority, including, we note with some surprise, that of the clergy. All revolutionary movements, too, are favoured by the disenchantment and deep disgust with which all Spaniards have witnessed the loss of their Colonial Empire. That is set down to imbecility in all the administrative powers. The Italian Government has also had to meet a serious labour movement, the railway workmen having organised a general strike. So imminent was the danger that, as they were all Reservists, they were all called out by decree, and thus placed under military law, a novel and rather desperate expedient, which, however, appears to have been successful.
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