DICTATORSHIP AT ITS BEST
By MAJOR C. E. WAKEHAM
THE strains and stress of this war between the champions of freedom and decency and the protagonists of im- posed serfdom impinge ever more forcibly on the Iberian peninsula, on Portugal, and the greatest statesman she has produced for centuries. How does this self-abnegating, deeply religious, university-professor turned leader view his task? It would be simple to say, as some in their misapprehension do say, "Just another dictator, with a dictator's views." The label has an ominous sound to the ears of all freedom-loving peoples. But the generally accepted implications of that label are not a whit less repugnant to Dr. Salazar, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, War and Foreign Affairs of a country he has rescued from the edge of the abyss, and he would very rightly resent their application to him.
The youthful Antonio Oliveira Salazar, playing in the pre- cincts of his fathers rural inn at Santa Comba Dao, dreamed no grandiose dreams, heard no voices calling him to political activity, leadership of the State, or domination of his own and other peoples. His bent was religious, his first intention to enter the Church. But the field of economics claimed him. The brilliant student of that Oxford .of Portugal towering above the banks of the Mondego remained as a professor of econo- mics in the cloistered calm of Coimbra University. Mean- while his country was seething with political intrigue, corrup- tion and even bloodshed. Portugal was slipping with accele- rated momentum down the slopes of chaos, anarchy and bank- ruptcy. Eighteen revolutions and over forty changes of government since the fall of the monarchy in„1910 did nothing to diminish the rate of descent. All the abuses of misapplied and misdirected party government flourished. Politicians fought for the spoils of office and budgeted merely for their own brief tenure. Nation-building services were practically non- existent, communications bad and sparse ; the fourth largest Colonial Empire in the world, stretching from Cape Verde, Angola and Mozambique to Goa, Macao and Timor in the China seas, lay derelict, detached, ignored except as a field of exploitation for metropolitan nepotism.
Such was the state of affairs when General Oscar Carmona took charge of the State after the bloodless military coup cretat of 1926, by which the Army ousted the politicians. Suppress- ing armed revolt in Lisbon and Oporto the following year, General Carmona established order in an ill-disciplined State. No instructions for attacking the parlous financial state of the country, however, were to be found in military text-books. Finances worsened ; bankruptcy was imminent. Thus it was that General Carmona in April, 1928, turned to the young professor of economics at Coimbra.
It is popularly affirmed that Dr. Salazar spent the night in prayer before accepting the Presidential invitation. Certain it is that he refused office until conditions which precluded all possibility of reform were removed. Armed finally with full control of all State and Departmental expenditure, the new Finance Minister concentrated his almost fanatical sense of duty to the task. Portugal, as his President hid once said, was sick. No mere palliatives would cure her. Only drastic overhaul of State machinery, general sacrifice, and patient, stern endeavour over a long period could effect a cure. Dr. Salazar propounded this sound doctrine to his countrymen, and, knowing full well that prolonged sacrifice could not be popular, enforced the cure under threat of resignation. Within the year Portugal achieved her third balanced budget since 1854, and the first for fourteen years. From that date to this Portugal has never failed not merely to make ends meet but to attain successively increasing surpluses.
These surpluses have been put to good use. Roads, which before were mere tracks on which ox-carts creaked or mules pattered, now carry motor-traffic to all parts of the country. Telegraph and telephone communications have greatly in- creased. Modern housing for workers' families has in places been provided by the Government. More schools than were dreamed of in the past have sprung up all over a land which possessed the highest percentage of illiteracy in Europe. A vast Colonial Empire has been integrated and bound by close ties to the home-land. Within modest financial limits an endeavour has been made to re-equip and modernise the armed forces of Portugal. All this has been achieved in the last twelve years, during a time of strife and uncertainty in Europe, with civil war in Spain.
In 1933 a corporative constitution was evolved. By it con- tinuity of the executive to carry out essential reforms was pre- served ; employees and employers had their interests safe- guarded by the State, and heads of families were enfran- chised. These last are represented through the parish, muni- cipal and provincial councils in the Chamber of Corporations, which though merely a consultative body, elects half the mem- bers of the National Assembly, the other half of whom are elected by direct vote under electoral law. The Assembly cannot dismiss Ministers, who are responsible to the President of the Republic alone. The system is avowedly a melange of what the Portuguese consider the best extracted from the old and the new, attuned, as they claim, to their own needs and temperament. The Portuguese, highly critical and meticulous in distinctions, maintain that their regime, though fully authoritarian, is not totalitarian. Unlike the Reichstag, the National Assembly of Portugal sits regularly, and critical speeches are not banned. Unlike the inhabitants of the Greater Reich and those of its subjugated territories, the Portuguese may twirl the knobs of their radio sets to their hearts' content and listen to any station in the world. Freedom of worship is sacrosanct. It has been stated publicly that there is One higher than all States. Freedom of speech, inviolability of domicile, etc., are guaranteed by the Constitution, provided these are not abused to the danger of the State. Regimes preaching class war and hatred, as also those pagan doctrines which sup- press the legitimate liberties of man and pursue the exclusive cult of race or nation, have more than once been denounced in scathing terms in Portugal. The most severe critics, if honest and objective, must grant the astonishing recovery and pro- gress of Portugal under the guidance of Dr. Salazar. Jf dictatorship this be, it is assuredly dictatorship with a striking difference—instituted and carried forward in high faith, with the ultimate aim and ideals of international peace and general prosperity.
Today this selfless, ascetic, absolute patriot, to whom nothing matters but the welfare of his country, faces a new danger. German infiltration has been unobtrusive but persistent in the Iberian peninsula in the last few years. Now the marled fist is on the borders of Spain, at a moment when Portugal has been celebrating three centuries of independence. Never has there been so great an opportunity for collaboration between the two great Iberian peoples to resist all external attempts to undermine their mutual, passionate desire for peace. Signs are not lacking that Dr. Salazar is seizing this opportunity and asserting all his friendly influence in this Christian cause. If Dr. Salazar can successfully withstand the present menace, his name will be inscribed on the roll of fame not only of his own country but of that of the whole civilised world.
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