The Spanish Crisis
IT seemed at one moment on Monday that King Alfonso had put the future of the Monarchy in the hands of his people. Probably things had come to such a pass that he could do nothing else just then ; but whatever one may think of the tardiness of himself and the Dictators in meeting popular wishes one cannot but admire the " courtly Spanish grace " with which the King has been conducting hazardous consultations with possible Prime Ministers.
It may be said that a King by training and inherited experience ought to know how to manage these things. But King Alfonso even so manages them on the surface exceptionally well. No one had spoken more bitterly about him than Senor Sanchez Guerra, who on Monday, to the general surprise, was invited by the King to form a Cabinet. Senor Guerra, leader of the Conservatives and a former Prime Minister, was the organizer of the rising against the Dictator-General, Primo de Rivera. He went so far as to accuse the King of having dishonoured his Constitutional pledges by consenting to the Dictatorship. Yet all the accounts say that on Monday the King showed an unreserved friendliness to Senor Guerra and a graceful absence of embarrassment.
Certainly there is an art in such things. We are reminded of the famous meetings between Deak, the leader of the Hungarian rebels, and the Emperor Francis Joseph. According to one account the Emperor, having been persuaded that he must yield to the demand for Hun- garian autonomy, and having agreed to give an inter- view to DCA, waited for his guest at the end of a corridor in the Palace at Vienna. As Deak approached the Emperor remained looking out of a window and had his back turned towards him. A struggle must have been going on in the Emperor's mind. But when at last he turned he took Deak's hand quite simply and exclaimed " Well, Doak ? " It is another matter whether King Alfonso's happy manners will get for him so efficient a bridge between the Monarchy and the people as Deak proved to be. Senor Guerra cannot be that bridge. He tried desperately for a day to form a Nationalist Government of all parties, but he failed.
Let us now look back a little. The Dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera lasted for about six years and that of his successor, General Berenguer, for a little more than a year. The King's influence may not have been decisive in the creation of the first Dictatorship, but it is generally believed that he suggested the Berenguer Dictatorship. It is true that General Berenguer took office with the declared purpose of restoring Constitutional government as soon as possible. The preparation for restoring it, however, was sadly unconvincing. It was arranged that a General Election should take place next month, but under conditions which gave the electors little fnedom of choice. To begin with, very short notice was given to the electors, and all the parties which had been in a state of suspended animation felt that they would not have time to find themselves before the General Election was upon them. It is the Constitutional rule in Spain for Provincial and Municipal elections to precede the elections to the Cortes, but no arrangement had been made for these. As a concession it was proposed that new Mayors should be elected, but this did not do much to remove public doubts.
Besides, there was much larger game in view. The Cortes is prohibited from introducing changes in the Constitution and, therefore, from bringing the monarchy under discussion—yet the monarchy is the whole point. Most of the parties saw only one clear way of arriving at a true expression of popular opinion on the Republic versus Monarchy controversy, and that was to hold a Constituent Assembly. Then it would be possible to discuss a new Constitution from A to Z. No Republican has the least hope of abolishing the monarchy as long as the Constitution of 1876 remains in existence, for that Constitution is replete with vetos which prevent change.
Until mid-day on Monday the King was refusing to consider the proposal of a Constituent Assembly, just as Louis XVI refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the National Assembly until Mirabeau declared in favour of the revolution and the troops refused to obey the order to disperse the Assembly. King Louis, indeed, yielded, but he was too late ; the train of events which led to the storming of the Bastille was already inevitable. It looks as though " too late " is written across the attempts to placate the angry parties in Spain. They laughed derisively at the recent removal of the censor- ship and other relics of Dictatorship. But it may not be too late. It is conceivable that the King has enough popularity to make him acceptable as a genuinely Constitutional Monarch, deriving his authority from the nation. We hope that it may be so, for such a solution would save much turmoil and the danger of bloodshed. But it must be recognized that many who still call themselves Monarchists have been made impatient by the delay in restoring Constitutional rights. Even Monarchists joined in the general boycott of the promised elections.
When the history of the present crisis is written it will probably be agreed that Count Romanones, the Liberal leader, did more than anyone towards convincing the King that to arrange for an ordinary meeting of the Cortes instead of accepting a Constituent Assembly was a hopeless policy. On Friday, February 13th, he informed General Berenguer, who was still the Dictator Prime Minister, that he and his fellow Liberals, as well as the Catalan Regionalists under Senor Cambo, would simply use a meeting of the Cortes to demand a Constituent Assembly. This startling declaration shattered the doctrine of General Berenguer that the Constitution was merely suspended, and that a meeting of the Cortes would automatically call it back to life.
The Liberals, in fact, joined with the Republicans and the Socialists, who have persistently argued that the Constitution had been abolished by the King himself, and that as there was no Constitution a new one must be created. How could that be done except by a Con- stituent Assembly ? This was the last straw for General Berenguer ; his elections were already boycotted, and he was now told that if by some miracle a Cortes should be elected, even the Liberals, on whom he had confidently relied, would use it as a stepping stone to a Constituent Assembly. He saw that the game was up. He resigned.
The King's invitation to Senor Guerra was surprising enough, but there were more surprises to follow. Madrid could hardly believe its eyes when it saw Senor Guerra visiting the prison, where the leaders of the recent rebellion were awaiting trial, to offer them portfolios. There we must leave matters in the confusion caused by Senor Guerra's failure. The King may take a backward step politically, relying on the Army, or he may prove that, in Senor Guerra's words, " Royalty has been subordinated to reality."
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