Portugal of the Portuguese

The difficulty has been to translate their words into action. They have called for the punishment of the authors of various outrages, but have succeeded at the most in bringing about—an additional outrage. Thus, when Snr. Pimenta, a member of the Evolutionist party, placed on his programme at a recent election the punishment of the delators and of the promoters of public disorder, he was set upon at Barreiro for his pains, and had some difficulty in escaping from the mob. And the same class of scoundrels who wrecked the offices of all the Royalist newspapers at Lisbon and in the provinces, are waiting to return to their nefarious practices should occasion offer. But indeed if the moderate Republicans realise that by every feigned indifference, every timid acquiescence in the excesses of the minority, they are driving a nail into the coffin of Portugal, or at least into the coffin of the Republic, they will have the courage to unite in restraining the actions of this minority, not only for a few months, but for ever, and they will find that the country is on their side. So far the Portuguese might paraphrase the words of Thiers, and say that “the Republic is the form of government which divides us most.” The one idea of saving the State or improving the situation is to split up into more parties, to initiate a new movement, to form a new group of defence, a band of spies and delators, such as the “White Ants,” or a party of vague idealists. But the nation will become more and more convinced that the road to prosperity does not lie through politics.

“A violent change of Government at present,” wrote O Socialista (14th July, 1913), (now A Vanguarda, organ of the Socialists), “may be welcomed by those honest Republicans and sincere patriots who desire a modern, tolerant, progressive Republic, and a period of tranquillity and careful work for their country.” A modern, tolerant, progressive Government would unite all but the merest handful of extremists in the common cause of Portugal. Only it is necessary to emphasise the fact that the Government must not be tolerant of crimes and indiscipline, since this appears to have been constantly overlooked by Republican Governments. The punishment of one crime will save many. It is extremely improbable that the second and far worse Gymnasio Theatre outrage would have occurred had the authors of the first been punished. But low as the Republic has sunk by thus winking at these iniquities, it is not too late for it to consolidate and retrieve itself because the longing for peace and tranquillity is so prevalent in the country, and the fear of another political upheaval so great.

If the Republic proved itself not necessarily a very able or a very original or a very attractive régime, but merely fair and conciliatory, it could win over all the quiet, docile inhabitants of Portugal, that is, over 90 per cent. of the population. Portugal should not be a difficult country to govern if it is once made clear that those who get out of hand and go from words (which no wise ruler in Portugal would ever attempt to check) to deeds, will be exemplarily punished. Docility is the rule, and acquiescence, so long as the acquiescent are allowed the right of perpetual sarcasm and ridicule, which are, indeed, the safety-valve of Portuguese politics. The occasional movements of a more serious nature might be curbed more efficaciously by shooting one or two ringleaders than by imprisoning hundreds of men for months and then trying and acquitting them. They leave the prisons with a sense of injustice suffered and are henceforth confirmed enemies of the Government. But the Democrat Republicans have shown the strangest determination to turn the indifferent into enemies and to alienate friends.

There is scarcely a politician or newspaper outside the Democrat party which has not been attacked and insulted. Under the searching action of this party the Republic been in danger of being limited to a few thousands, of convinced Democrats and ardent Republicans no doubt, but a few isolated thousands. And so inquisitorial have been their methods that they have in fact a right to consider themselves lineal descendants of the Portuguese Inquisition, which so vigilantly sought out and punished “new Christians” and heretics. They are thus disciples of the very body of men whom they least admire, but extremes meet. (The pity is that the extremists meet also, as the streets of Lisbon have reason to remember.) They have been in too great a hurry. Fresh adherents to the Republic can only come gradually if they come at all. And gradually must come the benefits, if any, that the Republic is to confer upon Portugal. The evils are four hundred years old, and it is absurd to attribute them to Dom Luiz or Dom Carlos, or Snr. João Franco; and still more absurd to pretend to end them by drawing up a hundred or so new laws.

The work of the Provisional Government was “gigantic, marvellous, superb,” declared the Republican deputy, Snr. Alexandre Braga. “Never again,” he said in a dithyrambic speech, typical of the muddy thinking of the day, “never again will the family in Portugal return to the state demoralising hypocrisy to which it was nailed by the rigid dogma that forbade divorce. Never again will woman’s dignity be bespattered by lies and disloyalty and treachery through having to hide as a disgrace the pure flame of her true love [i.e., for some one not her husband]. Never again will the children be poisoned by the lethal infiltration of a Jesuit education. No more cloisters, no more superstition, no more showy and mercenary charity....”

Yet it was more not less discipline that Portuguese society required. Fatal to Portugal is likely to prove the policy which seeks deliberately to undermine all authority—of the family (by new facilities given to divorce); of the priest (by instituting public worship societies); of the landowner (by taxing him to a fourth or more of his income), of the Army (by subjecting it to the Carbonarios), of the police (by encouraging “White Ants” and mob to take the law into their own hands), of justice (by dismissing and banishing those judges who refuse to be influenced by politics), of the law (by shaping it entirely to party ends).

Some clauses of the present Constitution are excellent, but they are dead letters. In Chapter II (concerning the rights and guarantees of individuals), for instance, clause 4 decrees that “Liberty of conscience and belief is inviolable.” So “No one can be persecuted on the ground of religion” (clause 6); “Expression of thought in whatever form is completely free, without previous censure” (clause 13; but, proceeds this clause, the abuse of this right is liable to punishment); “The right of meeting and association is free” (clause 14); “The inviolability of private houses is guaranteed” (clause 15); “No one can be arrested without a warrant” (clause 18); “The secrecy of the post is inviolable” (clause 28); “Citizens may resist any order which infringes the guarantees of the individual, unless these guarantees have been suspended by law” (clause 37). It is certainly time to put these excellent precepts into practice.

“Paz ponen los omes entre si á las vezes,” said King Alfonso X some seven centuries ago: “men sometimes make peace with one another”; and this is still occasionally the case. There is no reason why all moderate and patriotic Portuguese should not unite to eliminate the extremists. It ill befits Portugal’s dignity that a body of some six thousand should tyrannize over a population of six millions. There is scope for the activities of all Portuguese, room for the interests of all, in Portugal and in the Portuguese colonies.

But so long as this small minority dominates and systematically stifles the voice of the majority of the Portuguese and gags the Portuguese Press, foreign criticism will be legitimate and necessary. The Democrats constantly misrepresent all such criticism as hostility towards Portugal (instead of hostility towards the Carbonarios and Democrats), a misrepresentation which excites much amusement among those who know that nine-tenths of the inhabitants of Portugal detest and fear their despotism. Foreign critics must be few and ignorant indeed who are animated by dislike of Portugal or the Portuguese. Most foreigners after a sojourn in Portugal take away the most pleasant impressions of the land and people, and they deplore the fact that it should be possible to say of Portugal, as was once said of Spain, that it has been given every blessing except that of a good Government. Rich in its sea and soil, and subsoil and climate, rich in buildings, traditions and literature from a glorious past, fortunate in the intelligent and progressive character of the inhabitants, Portugal possesses splendid advantages.

That these advantages should be turned to account depends rather on the individual energy and enterprise of every Portuguese than on politics. All that should be desired of the Government is that it should afford a fair and open field for individual effort. And every Portuguese who lives not in Paris but in Portugal, who devotes himself to hard work instead of some so-called liberal profession, and who in his own immediate sphere of action encourages among the peasants cleanliness and regard for health, and among the educated toleration and discipline, will do more for Portugal than all the wordy warfare of the party politicians.

Gil Vicente, four centuries ago, implored his countrymen “not to be Genoese but very Portuguese,” and, if the Portuguese wish to renew that respect in which, on account of their past history, they are still held abroad, they will make Portugal not less but more Portuguese. And since all the troubles of Portugal during the last hundred years have come from foreign importations, of language, literature, politics, habits, imperfectly adapted to the requirements, customs, and character of Portugal, there are a hundred ways in which this can be done, as for instance, by purifying the language from Gallicisms and empty pomposities (a Lisbon political party has recently declared its programme to be procurar effectivar uma politica de realizações: the gorgeous sound of it stuns an audience, but the words are really as empty as a pod that rattles in the wind after shedding all its seeds); by encouraging regional literature; by living the Portuguese country life which formed a delightful feature in Portugal before the foreign conquests of the sixteenth century drew all men to Lisbon. Even the importation of foreign capital has been a doubtful gain, and has either been squandered with small result or been applied by foreigners. “Our principal railway company is foreign, our electric trams foreign, the gas company is largely constituted by foreign capital, our chief exports, as those of cork, preserves, wine of Oporto and Madeira, copper, etc., are in the hands of foreigners, a great part of our external commerce and transports is carried on by foreigners” (O Seculo, 13th November, 1911). And, worst of all, the political programmes are foreign. Foreigners may be inclined to smile when they see foreign customs and institutions (as the English parliamentary system) distorted and misapplied in Portugal, but for all that is genuinely Portuguese they can have nothing but admiration and respect.

With a population so docile and ready to learn, above all so inclined to prefer some distant uncertainty to the reality before them, it is all-important to have a strong non-political influence in each parish, whether that influence be of priest or professor, doctor or landowner. Without some such nucleus more and more will vagueness and bewilderment drive the peasant in a stream of emigration to Lisbon and Brazil, and Portugal become denationalised.

That “violent change” advocated by A Vanguarda in 1913 was brought about two years later by the movement, without violence, which brought General Pimenta de Castro into power. Snr. Manoel de Arriaga and General Pimenta de Castro deserve the lasting gratitude of their country for having attempted to provide the first indispensable conditions for all those who wish to work for the good of Portugal. A Government of this kind, impartial, conciliatory, and firm, offered to every Portuguese without exception—even Snr. Paiva Conceiro, the leader of the Royalist incursions of 1911 and 1912, was allowed to return—an opportunity to lay politics aside and unite to raise Portugal from her present misery. Every sincere Portuguese will admit that there is much work ready to his hand which has little to say to politics, if it be only the development of an acre of land or the reconciliation between two rival points of view. And another sign of good omen is the more serious outlook on life of the younger generation and the existence of a new party—that of the Integralists—which is inclined to set to work obscurely, gradually, unconventionally, with a view to the actual needs of the people, of the professional working man.

Every great—or small—landowner who takes a personal interest in his property, every non-political politician—the phrase is no contradiction in terms—who studies not rhetoric but reality, every Portuguese, however humble, who cultivates his own garden, whether that garden be the Portuguese language or literature or soil or subsoil or industry, will go a step towards constituting a real Portugal of the Portuguese, and will deserve as many laurels of his country as crown the brows of the old Conquistadores.