THE ROYALIST PRISONERS IN PORTUGAL.
WHEN we wrote last April about the fine and courageous efforts of Adeline Duchess of Bedford on behalf of the Royalist prisoners in Portugal we re- called the noble letters which Gladstone as a young man wrote to Lord Aberdeen on behalf of the Sicilian prisoners at Naples. We showed how exact was the parallel between the sufferings of the wretched Sicilians under Bomba and the not less wretched political prisoners who are now im- prisoned in Portugal without trial. In April we wrote : • ' VPe trust that Liberals and Liberal newspapers will remember the pride they have often confessed in the splendid labours of Gladstone for oppressed peoples, and will echo his great voice now and not be backward to help suffering because the only available method will require co-operation with their political opponents. . . . A united voice of indignation from Great Britain will alone nerve reputable Portuguese Republicans to defy the Carbonarios." No doubt all English Liberal news- papers have recorded their detestation of the treatment which the Royalist prisoners have been receiving, but we have been unable to avoid a feeling that their indignation would have been more powerfully and more continuously expressed if the prisoners had not been called Royalists, and if the lady who, with such high personal courage, voluntarily laid upon herself the duty of visiting the Portuguese prisoners had not been a duchess. We may say again here that in writing frequently on this subject we have only had in mind the hope of helping to relieve a terrible weight of human suffering. We do not plead the cause of the prisoners because they are Royalists. We are certain that if the majority of the Portuguese people desire a Republic that is the best form of government for them. In any country in the world, indeed, we would rather see a merely tolerably efficient Republic than an effete Monarchy. After what we have said about Liberal newspapers it is a pleasure to draw attention to the action of the Daily Chronicle in sending a special correspondent to inquire into the condition and treatment of the Portuguese prisoners. We trust that the Daily Chronicle, which has unfolded a truly terrible tale of injustice, will not stay its hand. If both political parties in Great Britain speak with equal conviction there will be a. fair prospect that the lot of the prisoners will be improved. Portugal, as our ally, cannot afford to ignore the universal feeling of the British people. The special correspondent of the Daily Chronicle attributes certain minor ameliorations which have already appeared in the treatment of the prisoners to the influence of British opinion. What is required now is a general amnesty. At all events there should be a cessation of indefinite imprisonment without trial. Partial amnesty has been promised, but we cannot gather from Mr. Philip Gibbs's narrative that it has been in any recognizable degree put into effect.
Mr. Gibbs found a remarkable contrast between the urbane assurances of the Portuguese Ministers and the superficial appearance of normal and contented life on the one hand, and the tragic suffering hidden away from public view and the vast system of spying and informing on the other. He bad a premonitory hint of the realities of Republican government as it is now practised when, on his arrival in Portugal, his dressing-gown was mistaken for a monk's habit, and was accordingly regarded with much suspicion. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senhor Macieira, begged him to see everything for himself, and added, " The Portuguese Republic is founded securely upon the will of the people, and has guaranteed liberty and justice to all." Such assurance (in every sense of the word) might be disarming if one did not know that in other countries—Turkey, for example—the regular formula and procedure are to invite inquirers to see everything for themselves, and then to take care that their researches are guided into the proper channels. Mr. Gibbs, however, took the precaution of visiting several prisons without permission, where he passed in with other visitors and had to he searched for concealed weapons. He convinced himself that honest and intelligent voters are simply removed from the electorate as " illiterates " if they criticize the Govern- ment, and that the Carbonarios (whose organization shall be explained presently) are the supreme rulers of the country. Meanwhile, after three years of so-called Republican government, the prisons are so overcrowded that new prisons are being rapidly built, and convents and bishops' palaces, from which the original inhabitants have been evicted, have been transformed into prisons. As for the inmates of these prisons, the correspondent's ex- perience coincided exactly with that of the Duchess of Bedford. He talked with men who had been imprisoned for months without having had any charge formulated against them, and who had no prospect of being brought to trial :—
" Although by a law of the Republic itself no man may be im- prisoned for more than eight days without trial, I spoke with men who have been imprisoned for fifteen months without even being charged by a formal accusation. Although by another law of the Republic no person may be kept • incommunicavel ' (isolated) for more than forty-eight hours before trial, and even during that time must be permitted to receive close relations, like parents, wives, and children, I found prisoners who had been kept before trial for more than forty days in solitary confinement. I found the prisons filled not only with Royalists but Republicans. In April of this year there was a meeting of Syndicalists in Lisbon to pro- test against a government which had done nothing to alleviate the misery of the working people in spite of their promises. The Government, which has a quick way with critics, arrested the Syndicalists, nearly three hundred of them. Many—a hundred and thirty-three of them—were sent off to an underground prism" called the Forte de Elvas, and others were shipped off, secretly one night, to the prison of Agra in the Azores. They have remained there ever since—without trial."
Thearrests are made by theCarbonarios, or on their authority. The Carbonaria is highly organized throughout Portugal, and the members are bound to leave their occupations at a moment's notice to serve the State. But most of the spying and informing is not done by the ordinary Carbonarios, but by a special class of them, some hundreds in number, who are known as the Formiga Branca, or White Ants. These men are solely in the Government service, and are paid about six shillings a day. They find their job highly agreeable, as they frequent cafes, search private houses, spy on barracks, and lord it over the uniformed police :— " Their most formidable power is the' buses,' or search. Hardly a day passes in Lisbon or Oporto without a busca ' being made in the houses of suspected Royalists or suspected Republicans. No one is safe from this inquisition. There is a knock at the door, a little gang of men enters, papers are seized, drawers turned inside out, the house is ransacked, and the owner is lucky if he escapes arrest. Generally he is not so lucky."
We may quote the following example of a visit from the White Ants :- " A gang of Carbonarios attacked the offices of the Dia news- paper, and hurled the furniture and type out of the windows. It was only a few doors away from a police barracks, but the work went on unchecked. The editor, Sr. Moreida d'Alineida, who had dared to criticize Sr. Affonso Costa, the Prime Minister, for his financial dealings in San Thome, took refuge with his son on a ship called the Texas.' But on the following day the vessel had to put back into port on account of rough weather, the father and son were arrested by Carbonarios, who had been savage at this escape, and when I visited the prison of the Aljube, in Oporto, they had been there for more than a month—without trial."
In the prisons of Oporto many of the prisoners were the victims of one informer called Homero de Lencastre, the natural son of a lady-in-waiting. The Government desired to discover a Royalist plot for the purpose of removing enemies and ensuring the results of the elections. Accord- ingly Lencastre invented a plot :— "He used his knowledge of Royalist families to obtain a list of names of those who were prepared to support a monarchical movement. He obtained three thousand names, some actually signed by incautious Royalists, others written down by the spy himself. He went to certain houses with supplies of pistols which he asked various gentlemen to hide under their floors until 'the great day.' He also asked for loans of money. Some refused
point-blank, others fell into the trap. It made but little difference either way, for they were denounced whether they accepted or refused."
In the Aljube prison at Oporto Mr. Gibbs talked with Dr. Constancio Roque de Castro, who was formerly Portuguese Minister in the Argentine. Lencastre had tried to persuade him to subscribe money, but had failed. The victim was denounced, nevertheless. He was confined for eight days in a military prison in Lisbon in a cell only large enough for a bed and through the bars of which came a pestilential stench:-
" After this week of torture he was removed to the Aljube in Oporto, where, against the law of the Republic, he was kept 'incommunicavel,' or isolated, for thirty-six days in his cell, unable to communicate with relatives, friends, or lawyers. For forty days he was not questioned regarding the charge against him, and when I sat on the side of his bed, in his iron-clad cell, a week or two ago, he was still awaiting trial for his alleged 'conspiracy.'"
The correspondent admits that the Lisbon prison, the Limoeiro, which he visited with official sanction, was much better than the provincial prisons. It was clean, and the prisoners, who enjoyed the sort of freedom that used to be allowed in the debtors' prison in the Fleet, did not complain of physical ill-treatment. But many of them here also had bad no trial, and hardly expected one, although some of them had been shut up for more than a year. The correspondent was also officially authorized to visit the Penitenciaria in Lisbon, where were the prisoners who had been actually tried and condemned— tried by courts martial, since the civil courts have ceased to try political charges. Here the prisoners are normally kept in solitary confinement for six years or more :-
"The ordinary criminal who comes to this first-class prison works alone in his cell at wood-carving or bookmaking; he exercises alone in a little strip of ground about twice as long as himself, in which he has no company but his own shadow which follows him np and down the high wall; and his solitude is intense and perpetual until his sentence expires, or his senses give
way."
In this prison certain concessions had, however, quite recently been granted which Mr. Gibbs traced to British representations. The political prisoners were allowed to meet and talk occasionally, to smoke, and to receive visitors. On the other hand, he relates some terrib le experiences suffered by political prisoners who were immured in " black holes " in the prison at Coimbra.
To end such diabolical suffering as these poor people undergo is a matter above politics. True, Portugal as an independent couutry has the liberty to do wrong as well as to do right. But it is well known that British opinion is listened to with respect. The more earnestly that opinion is expressed the better chance there will be for the unhappy prisoners. If they are guilty of conspiring against the Republic, by all means let them be punished as severely as the laws of their country require. What is intolerable is that they should be tortured without trial. We congratulate the Daily Chronicle on taking up the truly Liberal task of coming to their aid. And the British Government have a real hold upon the conduct of Portugal by reason of the ancient Anglo-Portuguese Treaty. They have a right to say that they will not remain pledged to defend Portugal in the event of her being attacked, when defence means freedom to continue such a Terror as is described above.
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