THE YOUNG KING OF PORTUGAL W E suppose that there is
no figure in Europe at tbie moment to whom Englishmen turn with deeper sympathies and kindlier wishes than to the young King Manuel. The immature, untried life which has had a. thousand cares and dangers thrust upon it by a sudden and most horrible crime inspires something like a personal affection. There may have been Kings who at his age faced as many difficulties, but there can hardly have been any Who faced more. Can he hope to succeed in his bewildering task, which calls for steadfastness and intelli- gence as much as for courage ? Let us examine the circumstances in which he has ascended the throne, and define the only policy with which, in our opinion, he will be enabled to remain there with honour to himself and profit to his country.
There are recognisable tendencies of thought among the Portuguese which are both favourable and Unfavourable to the King. First of all may be mentioned the revulsion of feeling in his favour after the double assassination. This revulsion was predicted, and has duly arrived. It was, indeed, inevitable. But of its nature it can be no more than temporary. It is only sentimental. It will lie with the King to fortify or forfeit it. Next, there is the advancing creed of Republicanism, which is the chief political fact. For some Lime the information which reached us from Portugal denied the existence of any organised or widespread anti-dynastic movement; but it is impossible for any one to deny now that the Republican Party has established itself firmly, and means to aim at Republicanism as the ultimate form of government for Portugal. We imagine that the greater number of the Re- publicans have no illwill to the King, and might even be converted to the principles of a Constitutional Monarchy if the alternative were fairly offered to them. On the othet hand, there are very ugly symptoms, in particular the extraordinarily truculent and unfeeling demoestratioes- all of them nominally expressions of sympathy with the Republican cause—at the graves of the dead regicides, and the raising of large sums of money to present to the regicides' families. Of course we have not a word to say against provision for those families ; they are presumably innocent people, and should be helped in their misfortune. But the funds for their benefit are really being used as a sort of political manifesto in a. manner which makes one nearly despair of dealing with some of the Portuguese people through any of the mediums of reason or humanity. The extremists, however, are not gathered about the throne ; and we have to think only of those who are,— of those who are in daily conference with the King, and through whom he May appeal gradually to the outermost fringes of his subjects. The iron-handed Method of Franco has failed, and the policy of the King, whatever it be, must in any case be inspired by an all-rotted spirit of conciliation. Happily he seems to be well aware of this, and a few days ago received the leerier of the Dissident Liberals, Senhor Alpoim, at the Necessi- dades Palace. Senhor Alpoim is precisely in the position to unite a great deal of political thought which lint to the right and left of him, and the King's frank- ness in taking him into his confidence is, we hope, only the first of many similar acts of sagacity. It has been said that if the coming elections are not con- trolled (as they always have been) by the Government, about seventy per cent. of the population will vote Republican. But Republicanism in Portugal probably means no more than the desire for a Constitutional Govern- ment which shall be free from the deplorable and expensive habit of finding luxurious sinecures for its friends and playing ducks and drakes with the finances of the country. We mean that a very large proportion of this seventy per cent. could with absolute certainty be won over to the side of the King if it were known that under his reign there would be as much justice and freedom as there is, let us say, ht Britain. According to the standard of Constitte tional thought in Portugal just now, Britain is an advanced " Republican " country.
Apart from a general bearing of conciliation, what are the points of reform, then, on which the King must fasten hit attention? We would name two. The first, which we have already implied, is the need of governing as though he were the head of a limited Constitutional Monarchy or crowned Republic,—that, and nothing more. The second is that the which is not the less sincere because it is for the most part finances must be rigorously overhauled and set in order unintelligent. It is of the very essence of the science to without delay. We do not suppose that a nation like which it is a contribution that there should be an immense Portugal, which has the preposterous Debt of £179,000,000, apparent disproportion between labour and result. Vast and an annual deficit of £1,279,000 on a quite small arrays of figures go to support very limited conclusions. income, can be endowed at once with a sound system The facts deduced from the statistician's inquiries seem of finance. But we are sure of this : that bad finance, strangely minute by the side of the columns of calculations and the oppressive burdens which it entails, are at the on which they rest. The uninstructed reader does not very root of ninety-nine out of a hundred grievances remember that this want of proportion is inseparable from in every land. The grievances may have an appearance of the processes he is trying to follow. The science of being purely political, even metaphysical, and yet, save for statistics is like a coral reef ; it is built up of in- bad finance, they would never have been heard of. A numerable particles which in themselves are too minute limited Constitutional Monarchy lies along the line of to arrest the untrained eye. The problem which least resistance for Portugal. We quoted only last week, Mr. Mallet proposed to the Society was how to estimate but .must quote again, the saying of Burke, borrowed from the national wealth from the returns of the Estate-duty. Bolingbroke, that it is easier to engraft on a Monarchy the Until lately this question has been approached from advantages of a Republic than to engraft on a Republic a different quarter. English statisticians, indeed, have the advantages of a Monarchy. In Britain the simplicity long been active in tabulating and testing the results and strength of the limited Monarchy are so much yielded by the Income-tax. Perhaps if the taxpayer a matter of course that we perhaps underestimate had realised the benefit he was conferring on economic the audacity and foresight which would be required science by the figures he unwillingly entered in the yellow in a Portuguese King to renounce the many relics forms which he knew so well and abused so roundly, of absolutism which have survived alongside a Con- he might have made his return with a better grace. So stitution that is in theory highly democratic. But long, however, as these were all the inquirer had to help whatever the boldness and effort necessary, we are him, he was still far away from any certain knowledge persuaded that the first thing for the King to do is to of the national wealth. The national income had to be convince the moderate Republicans that they can have capitalised " under the different schedules at a certain in him, if they will, a "President" better suited to number of years' purchase, a method which involved almost his office than any they could possibly elect. The insuperable difficulties in respect to Schedule D." It was King might feel in making his renunciations that left to Sir William Harcourt to open out a new field to everything was slipping away from him ; but in the statistical research. The Death-duties disclosed for the long run he would lose only to gain. It is always open to first time a long array of figures bearing on the national the head of a limited Constitutional Monarchy to aspire capital as distinct from the national income. But to draw to as much power as belongs to the King of England. conclusions from these figures was necessarily a work of Need one desire more ? Moreover, whatever influence time, and though they became available in 1894, it was not King Manuel achieved in the narrower conditions would until 1906 that Mr. W. J. Harris and Mr. Chiozza Money be due, not to the accidents of position, which may bring published any results founded on them. The Death-duties power to any dunce or any bully, but to his own tact and themselves show only the property owned by the persons to the impact of his personality upon moderate oppor- dying in a particular year. How, then, is the property tunity. That, we venture to say, would be a far higher and owned by all the persons living in that year to be ascer- more lasting triumph for him than any which is attainable tamed ? In other words, by what number must the value by a desperate clinging to unpopular rights. of the property becoming liable to the Death-duties in each Our second point is the need for strict financial reform. year be multiplied in order to arrive at the amount of the Senbor Franco was undoubtedly trying to do much in this national capital in that year ?
direction, and we cannot help wishing that he had been It is too early perhaps to expect any agreement among allowed a long enough political life to effect some lasting statisticians on a point of so much importance. Certainly retrenchment. We may even say that we think he will no such agreement exists. In the discussion which be judged more leniently by posterity than by his con- followed a paper read. before the Statistical Society just temporaries in Portugal. However that may be, Franco fourteen months ago the necessary multiplier was fixed by has fallen with so resounding a downfall that we do not one expert at 29, and by another at 65, this latter figure suppose a dictatorship will ever be possible in Portugal being subsequently reduced by its author to 55. Mr. again. Hitherto the two chief parties in Portugal have Chiozza Money in his work " Riches and Poverty " made regarded tenure of office as an opportunity for controlling the multiplier 30. In an appendix to the Report of the and disbursing the spoils. To a large extent there was Income-Tax Commission of 1906 Mr. A. L. Bowley collusion between them. But the limit has been reached, suggested 32. while Sir Henry Primrose, although admitting and if extravagance and corruption do not disappear, the his own preference for 30, qualified it by the prudent Portuguese Monarchy will certainly come to an end, and remark that, in view of the various ratios which had that soon. It seems at first sight as though there were been put forward, the proper multiplier is a " very not much chance of the young King inaugurating a regime doubtful problem." The totals resulting from the use of of integrity and economy through the agency of the very one or other of these figures show what Mr. Mallet parties which have failed again and again to establish it. characterises as " most - disquieting discrepancies." And further insistence on economy will provoke such Thus, with 29 as his multiplier, Mr. Harris puts the bitter personal resentments from sinecurists as will menace accumulated wealth of the country in the year 1905-6 the whole structure of conciliation. Nevertheless, it is at £7,893,015,463. Mr. Bailey, ou the other hand, taking this or nothing. Economy is essential to " save the 55 as his multiplier, gives a total of £14,776,560,000. Monarchy." If any Portuguese Mirabeau visited the If the work of foreign inquirers is taken into account, King to give him sound advice for "saving the Monarchy," we get other figures. In France M. de Foville started he would have to tell him this : that he must begin in his with 36 as his multiplier, which was adopted by the own Court. We hope that the King will set an example Italian economist, Signor Pantaleone. This, however, is himself, and we think that the advice would have a more necessarily arrived at by a different method,—the average auspicious sequel than Mirabeau's. If it became noised interval between transmission of real and personal property, abroad that the King stood for public honesty and just whether at death or by transaction between living persons. finance, and was willing himself to make 'sacrifices in the M. de Foville has now substituted 32 for 36 as his cause, we honestly believe that he might let the elections multiplier. Though Mr. Mallet had at one time accepted take their course on a Republican issue without allowing the first-named figure, by December, 1906, he had come his Ministers to pursue the immemorial expedient of to think that Mr. Harris was right in his choice of manipulating them. 29. But the discussion on Mr. Harris's paper suggested
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