DON SEGISMUNDO MORET.Leader of the Liberal-Monarchists.[To face page227.
DON SEGISMUNDO MORET.Leader of the Liberal-Monarchists.[To face page227.
DON SEGISMUNDO MORET.
Leader of the Liberal-Monarchists.
[To face page227.
Theapparently purposeless and kaleidoscopic changes in Spanish politics are very apt to puzzle foreign observers, who cannot understand what has happened to bring about the resignation of a Minister or an entire Cabinet, for which the cause, if any, alleged in the papers seems wholly inadequate. Internal and external affairs appear to be pursuing a tranquil course: no disputed question is agitating the country or the Cortes, when suddenly comes a bolt from the blue in the shape of an announcement of a Ministerial crisis, and the Government is changed. Thus, early in the year 1910, Señor Moret, who after overthrowing the Government of Maura in the previous October, seemed to be pretty firmly seated in the saddle, suddenly resigned, in spite of the fact that at the municipal elections a month or so before his policy had been endorsed by overwhelming majorities all over the country. One of the English newspapers, in commenting on this seemingly inexplicable change of Ministry, frankly confessed that it was useless for foreigners to attempt to understand Spanish politics.
Generally speaking, Ministerial changes in Spain are the outcome of a tacit arrangement made some thirty years ago between Canovas and Sagasta, the then leaders of the two main parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, and continued by their successors, that each side should have its fair share of the loaves and fishes. After one party had been in office three or four years it was agreed by common consent that the time had come for the other side to have a turn. Thus, as Major Martin Hume says:[21]“Dishonest Governments are faced in sham battle by dishonest Oppositions, and parliamentary institutions, instead of being a public check upon abuses, are simply a mask behind which a large number of politicians may carry on their nefarious trade with impunity.”
But sometimes, though more rarely, another cause operates to upset Governments, and that is the underground intrigues of disappointed place-hunters. If the Premier in his distribution of appointments happens to omit any important person or section of people who thinkthemselves entitled to a share in the plums of office, they will not hesitate to join with political opponents and turn out their own nominal leader, if circumstances happen to make this possible.
It is often said by foreign critics that the people—the mass of the nation—are to blame for the sins of their Governments. They have the franchise: if they are not satisfied, why do they not elect better men?
This criticism proceeds from ignorance of an important factor in Spanish politics—one of the tentacles of the octopus of corruption which holds the whole country in its grip.
The simple fact is that the great mass of the people have no voice at all in the election of their representatives. Nominally voting is free: actually it is not.[22]
The whole administrative system is centralisedin Madrid, and the various Government offices interfere in local affairs to an extent inconceivable to an Englishman, accustomed for generations to manage his own affairs his own way. One result of this is that the elections to the Cortes are, in fact if not in theory, conducted from Madrid. In every small town and rural district there is a person known as theCacique, usually a large employer of labour or a moneylender, to whom most of the working population of the district look for employment, or in whose debt they are. So enormous is the usury that once a loan has been raised, many a borrower has been unable to free himself from debt for the rest of his life. I have known cases where as much as 75 per cent. per annum has been paid for a trifling loan. Thus theCacique, whether as employer or moneylender, or both, has the majority of the constituency under his thumb. He receives his instructions from Madrid, and issues his orders accordingly. If by chance the voting goes wrong, the returns are falsified; but this does not often happen, for the voters are so convinced that the exercise of their legal right of choice, if in opposition to the wish of the authorities, will result in loss of employment, that either they abstain or they vote as they are ordered.
The existence of theCaciqueis one of the great obstacles to any effective decentralisation. If the villages and rural districts were given the management of their own affairs, theCaciquewould be more absolute than ever. One can hardly open a paper without finding a report of some case of his arbitrary interference with local matters. If he is, as he usually is, the friend or creature of the Civil Governor of the Province, who is the nominee of the Ministry, he does what he likes and there is no redress against his illegal and oppressive action.
The following stories illustrate the method of conducting elections in Spain.
One man complained that a Conservative had given him a dollar for his vote, and after he had voted he found that the dollar was bad. “Had I not already voted, how gladly would I have given you gentlemen the advantage!” he said to a group of Liberals. “But you see I am left without my vote in exchange for a bad dollar. Never again will I sell my vote to the Conservatives!”
Another rascal went to the office of a Liberal paper to complain that “a thief” had contracted with him to engage some twenty fellow-roguesto vote to order. He fulfilled his part of the contract and took his twenty to the poll, but when he went to claim his pay the contractor had disappeared.
“And here I am many pesetas out of pocket,” he lamented; “for not only have I lost the large profit the thief offered me, but I had to pay my friends two reals apiece before they would stir out of the wine-shop.”
In one district the Liberals boasted that for years they had never bought a vote. “Partly,” as my informant ingenuously said, “because we have always had a safe majority, but partly also because we prefer to be honest. But,” he continued, “we learnt this time that a party of Conservatives intended to interfere with us, so we prepared a party of the same kind to receive them. ‘Do not begin to fight,’ said my father, ‘but if they begin, hit hard.’ They did begin, and our leader obeyed orders. He hit the leader of the other side so hard that he knocked out four of his front teeth, and that was the end of the fighting in our district.”
All these incidents are said to have occurred in the municipal elections of 1909. One more is worth mentioning.
In a town of some twenty thousand inhabitants, where for many years past an UltramontaneCaciquehas been supreme, that gentleman rose early on the polling-day and personally roused the dwellers in the gipsy quarters—mostly the biggest ruffians in the place—out of their beds.
“Get up, my sons,” he said, “and go and vote, and there will be a dollar apiece for you when you leave the polling-booth.”
“They said they would go and vote,” said my informant, “and they got their dollars. But the Republicans came out at the head of the poll, and the Liberals next, and theCaciqueand his Conservatives were nowhere.”
I happen to be aware that theCaciquein this instance is a man of great wealth and high social position, whose clericalist leanings are well known. If, indeed, it be the fact that the working classes have gained courage to defy men like him, the rising in Cataluña, the Maura regime of repression, and the campaign led against Spain by Ultramontanes and Socialists abroad will have borne fruit.
There is, however, one political leader in Spain who stands for purity of election and is the lifelong foe of the “caciquism” and corruptionwhich paralyse any and every effort at political regeneration. Don Segismundo Moret has thrice been Premier of Spain. Each time he could have retained office had he consented to purchase the favour of the place-hunters by giving posts in the Ministry, not to those best qualified for the work, but to those who could command the largest following among the “Liberal mercenaries” who, as long as the system of “caciquism” continues, can make or mar electoral majorities. This he has never consented to do. So it has happened that each time that he has been in office he has had to sacrifice place and power rather than pander to an evil system.
The story of his late short tenure of the Premiership, and of the intrigues by which he was ousted is worth telling at some little length, because it throws light on the workings of the political machine, and on some of the difficulties with which a reformer has to contend in Spain.
Moret took office in 1909 against his own better judgment, for he would have preferred that the Conservatives should bear the responsibility of their own misdeeds, and solve the many difficulties resulting from Maura’s “policy of repression.” But the country had been brought to such a pitch of irritation and unrest by thereactionaries that the situation was becoming dangerous. The Riff question was attracting the unfriendly attention of foreign diplomatists; Barcelona was impatient under a rigid application of martial law, and the Ferrer incident had called forth a storm of condemnation from all the countries where the assumption that a prisoner is innocent until he has been proved guilty is an axiom of criminal law, while the advanced parties in the State were getting out of hand and had begun to defy the Government, as,e.g., in the matter of the demonstrations already referred to.
From the moment that Moret accepted office he was assailed by a stream of the most virulent abuse, not only by the Carlist but also by the Conservative and Ultramontane newspapers. He was “the destruction of Spain,” “the ruin of the nation,” “the arch-priest of irreligion and immorality,” and not only was his policy attacked in terms of unmeasured vilification, but the editors of these papers, which are owned and supported by some of the best born and wealthiest men in the country, did not hesitate to descend to vulgar personal abuse. His “grey hair,” for instance, was a favourite subject of their ridicule, and his “vacillation,” “infirmity of purpose,” and “inability to keep his partytogether” were accounted for by jeers at his “senile decay,” his “failing intellect,” his “body bent double by the weight of years,” and so forth, while the party led by him are usually spoken of in the clericalist organs ascanaille.
But on his acceptance of the Premiership the aspect of affairs underwent a complete and immediate change. The political horizon began to clear. Terms of peace were arrived at in Morocco. Foreign susceptibilities were soothed. Cataluña was immediately relieved from the burden of martial law, and the constitutional rights were restored in Barcelona. The troops began to return from the war and were received with the greatest enthusiasm; the trials of persons arrested in connection with the disorders in Cataluña, who had been kept in prison on suspicion for four or five months, were pushed forward, and numbers of them were released for want of any evidence against them. Most of the lay schools were reopened, on showing that nothing seditious had been taught in them. The depleted treasury was replenished, and means were found to provide three months’ pay for the Melilla forces, which the outgoing Ministry had left out of account. A great project of irrigation was vigorously promoted by Moret’s Minister of Public Works, Gasset, who has devoted practically the whole of his political life to this subject, and has produced a scheme which would convert vast tracts, now arid waste, into fertile land. And the municipal elections, which took place about six weeks after the change of Government, were conducted, so far as time had permitted any modification of existing conditions, according to law, with the result that the Liberal-Monarchists swept the board all over the country. The official figures were as follows: Liberal-Monarchists, 2,961; Conservatives, 1,213; Carlists, 185; Republicans, 193; Socialists, 4. Thus Moret’s party nearly doubled the Conservatives, Carlists, and Republicans put together. The smallness of the Socialist vote should be noticed.
In any other country it would have been certain that a leader who could so well and so quickly convert popular indignation into contentment and hope was in for a long term of office. Not so in Spain.
During his four months of office, from October, 1909, to February, 1910, Moret tried hard to obtain the decree of dissolution of the Conservative Cortes, in order that the nation might have an opportunity of expressing its opinion on recent events. At first it almost seemed as if he would obtain the King’s consentto dissolve. But the place-hunters were afraid, and the Ultramontanes were more afraid. They played so successfully into each other’s hands that the decree of dissolution was postponed day after day, while all his enemies proclaimed the incapacity of a Premier who was “afraid” to go to the country.
The first attempt to upset him was a so-called “military demonstration” in front of the offices of theEjercito Español, a military paper which had been confiscated for publishing an article written by a Carlist, accusing the Premier of unjust favouritism in the distribution of rewards for good service in Melilla. The demonstration was described by the Conservative papers as of “overwhelming importance,” and the number of demonstrators was placed by some of them at two thousand. The truth is that it was confined to a few officers well known for their Carlist leanings, and the rank and file of their regiments stood resolutely aloof. Moret and his Minister of War, General Luque, retired the Captain-General of Madrid and the colonels of the regiments in question for failure to maintain discipline, and ordered the actual participants a couple of months’ arrest—a proceeding which called forth general applause from all except the reactionaries. The small significance of theaffair was made manifest when it came out that these arrests did not exceed half a dozen, including the editor (also an officer) responsible for the publication of the seditious article.
The result of this fiasco was still more to strengthen Moret’s influence with the nation, and it became evident that he would sweep the country should he obtain the long-deferred decree of dissolution. All the ingenuity of the Church was therefore exercised to secure his fall before this could take place, and the cupidity of a cabal of disappointed candidates for place was skilfully used to bring about—the catastrophe, I was going to say, but the triumph of morality would be a truer expression.
At the municipal elections in December, 1909, an endeavour had been made by Moret to secure something in the direction of freedom of voting for the working classes, and the result, as I have shown, was a triumph for the Liberal-Monarchists. The Republicans—to their honour be it said, for they did not do as well in these elections as they had expected—worked harder than ever after this to secure to the electors the free exercise of their legal privileges, and Moret accepted their programme, so far as it was designed to help in cleansing the Augean stable of corruption by limiting the powers of the localCaciques. Thisgave an opportunity to those who live by political immorality, and the intrigue which followed is typical of Spanish politics.
In the December elections Madrid returned a Republican majority to the Town Council. The Alcalde, Señor Aguilera, an old and staunch ally of Señor Moret’s, although himself a Monarchist, ranged himself on the side of the Republicans by supporting their demand for the limitation of the Alcalde’s power to appoint and thus control the votes of the very numerous municipal employees. It was proposed that the Alcalde, instead of being, as now, nominated by the Government, should be elected by the Councillors, who in their turn have been elected by the popular vote, and that the posts under the Council should be filled by open competition.
Most of the Alcaldes, even in the small towns, enter office poor and leave rich. But it is admitted even by his opponents that Señor Aguilera, a man with but small private means, who has twice been Alcalde of Madrid under Moret, has each time gone out of office as poor as when he came in.
A crisis was deliberately provoked by the President of the so-called “Liberal” election committees of Madrid, Count Romanones, a man who held office under Moret in a former Cabinet,and has long been suspected of aspiring to the Premiership of the party to which he belongs. The election committees, represented by Count Romanones, although nominally Liberal, objected to the proposed limitation of the power of the Alcalde, and finding Moret firm on the point, went so far as to hand him an ultimatum. Briefly, their terms were, “Leave to the Alcaldes” (often theCaciques) “throughout Spain the appointment of the municipal employees, or we will refuse to act, and leave you without any electoral organisation at all when the Cortes are dissolved.” It is not denied that this resolution was handed to the Premier by Count Romanones a day or two before his resignation. Meanwhile other opponents took advantage of Aguilera’s temporary alliance with the Republicans, and represented that if a programme of electoral reform supported by that party were carried out, the Throne would be endangered by a Republican majority in the new Cortes. This danger was imaginary, for there is no doubt that both the numerical strength of the Republicans and their hostility to the reigning House have always been greatly exaggerated by all the various factions desirous of clogging the wheels of reform.
Señor Moret of course declined to compromisewith Count Romanones on any terms, which in a man of his recognised probity was a certainty, doubtless counted upon by the “Liberal” cabal and by the Ultramontanes. He then once more asked the King for the decree of dissolution, that he might place his programme of reform before those whom it most concerned. Exactly what passed at this interview was not divulged, but at its conclusion he placed his resignation in Don Alfonso’s hands. It was accepted, and the veteran Liberal-Monarchist, after forty years’ service to the Throne and the country, found himself dismissed at a moment’s notice, through the machinations of the opponents of electoral reform.
No plausible reason was given for the dismissal of Moret. It was reported that “the representative men of the party,” when applied to by the King for advice, recommended the appointment of Canalejas, on the ground that Moret had lost their confidence. But it was not stated who these representative men were. TheDaily Mailgave half a dozen names, which had been telegraphed by its correspondent in Madrid, but that list was obviously untrustworthy because Montero Rios figured in it, and it is well known that the leader of the Radical group sets the unity of the party above every other consideration, and has always urged loyalty to Moret upon Liberals of all shades.
The circumstances were calculated to embitter the most even temper; nevertheless Moret’s first thought was for the welfare of the nation, whose whole governmental machinery was thrown out of gear. Some of his followers wanted to make a complete split with Canalejas, and one or two articles were published in the heat of the moment, expressed in terms tending to a final division in the Liberal camp. But in his own utterances for the Press Moret showed himself true to his ideal—the good of the country before personal ambition.
“The most serious feature in this crisis,” he said, “is that both the event and its solution were foretold by the reactionary newspapers, proving the intervention of the reactionary party in the intrigue. They interfered because they wish to prevent my conducting the elections in accordance with my programme of electoral reform.”
Moret’s assertion that the intrigue which brought about his fall was engineered by the Ultramontanes received confirmation from theCorreo Catalan, a Carlist paper, which committed itself to the following prophecy:
“Canalejas will govern without altering theCabinet until the autumn. Before the re-opening of the Cortes there will be ministerial changes. And in order to make compensation to Señor Moret a couple of unconditional friends of his will enter the Government. In the autumn Maura will have become tired of acting as guardian to Canalejas, who will fall irremediably. The Maurist restoration will be inaugurated next year.”
Working-class opinion on the situation was quite definite. For a day or two satisfaction was expressed, because Canalejas was reputed to be devoted to the interests of the people. But no sooner was suspicion aroused that his elevation to the Premiership had been engineered by the Ultramontanes than the poor were up in arms: the mere suggestion that the Jesuits were at work being sufficient to revive all the irritation and anxiety that Moret had succeeded in allaying.
“Canalejas talks a great deal, and we have long looked upon him as our friend,” a journeyman mason remarked to me. “But here we are again with everything in a state of confusion, and work in every direction waiting while our employers are busy with their politics. We shall get nothing done now till things have quieted down, so I don’t see what advantage it is to us to have Canalejas in power.”
GENERAL MARINA.SEÑOR CANALEJAS.Commander-in-Chief at Melilla.Leader of the Liberal Democrats.[To face page244.
GENERAL MARINA.SEÑOR CANALEJAS.Commander-in-Chief at Melilla.Leader of the Liberal Democrats.[To face page244.
[To face page244.
“If it is true that Canalejas is in league with the Jesuits to bring Maura back, there will be trouble,” said another man. “We will not have Maura ruining the country again just when it was beginning to pick up. I would rather shoot him myself. The poor can’t live under Maura, so I should lose nothing by killing him, even if I paid for it with my life.”
A woman burst out crying when she heard her husband talking about Maura.
“Why does the good God let that man live?” she sobbed. “If it is true that he is coming into power again, all our sons will be sent to Melilla to be killed. And we have been so contented because we thought we had got rid of him!”
The hope of the Ultramontanes was that the downfall of Moret would bring about a final and irremediable split in the Liberal party, which would facilitate the overthrow of Canalejas when the time came. And at first it seemed probable that this hope would be realised, for practically the whole of Moret’s Cabinet resigned with him, and refused to take office under Canalejas, while Canalejas himself at first acted as though he desired a permanent breach, by claiming that his appointment as Premier necessarily carried with it the leadership of the party—a propositionto which the party was by no means disposed to agree. But in time better counsels prevailed, and an interview between the Premier and his predecessor has lately been reported in the Press, in the course of which Canalejas frankly admitted the obligations of the party to Moret and the need that exists for his co-operation and advice—which Moret for his part professed himself quite ready to give, as indeed he had done ever since his resignation. So that it looks as though the danger of a breach had been avoided, at any rate for the present.
It is worth noting that the Government of Spain can be carried on for an indefinite time without the sessions of the Cortes. The Cortes adjourned for the summer recess in June, 1909, before the troubles began in Barcelona, and never met again. Throughout his tenure of office Moret tried without success to obtain the Royal decree for a dissolution. Canalejas was in office two months before he could get the decree signed, but at length, in April, 1910, it was announced that the General Election would definitely be held in May. The outgoing Cortes has a Conservative majority: what the next will be no man can say, although, having regard to the fact that a Liberal Ministry is in power, the presumption is that a Liberal majority will bereturned. There is, however, no shadow of doubt that if the elections were conducted fairly and freely and the people could vote in accordance with their convictions, a Cortes would be returned with an overwhelming majority in favour of the Constitutional Monarchy, reform of abuses, and the destruction of the political influence and privileges of the Church.
Itmust not be supposed that the whole of the Conservative party shares the Carlist and Ultramontane views of the majority. The old school of Conservatives, led by Canovas, supported the Constitutional Monarchy as strongly as do the Liberals, and even now a contingent of strong constitutional Conservatives exists, although it is not easy to detect their influence on the general policy of the party with which they act. Their existence, however, was proved in October, 1909, when some of the leading men of Señor Maura’s party withdrew their adhesion to his leadership upon his declaration of “implacable hostility” towards the whole of the Liberal party. They saw, as did every one else, that the reactionary policy of the Ultramontane Premier was imperilling the existence of the Constitutional Monarchy.
To appreciate the disinterestedness of men who thus cut themselves off from the acknowledged leader of their party, whether in office or inopposition, the unwritten law of an alternate share of the spoils must be borne in mind. Thus a politician who deliberately deserts his party, from whatever motive, loses all chances of a salaried appointment when that party again has power to confer these political plums.
I make no apology for putting the facts thus plainly. They are spoken of with cynical frankness by all Spaniards, and it is considered a matter of course that any statesman who refuses to sell his favours to the highest bidder will be removed from place at the earliest opportunity by the intrigues of the many who live by political corruption.
It will be seen that once the rule of alternating office by mutual arrangement be broken, the end of the whole system of gerrymandering the elections would be brought within sight, for any Government which enjoyed the confidence of the nation would remain in office year after year, once the people were permitted to make their voice heard in the elections.
Señor Maura, or those who inspired him, of course foresaw this after the fall of his Cabinet in October, 1909, and his address to his party on that occasion marks an epoch in the history of political reform in Spain, although perhaps not precisely on the lines he intended.
His party, he said, must fight without truce against the Liberals, “ex-Ministers and ex-Presidents of Council who reach office in collaboration with anarchists.” Nor must his own party stand alone, he said, for it would be necessary to seek the alliance of all, no matter how different their political ideals, who desired to check the advance of revolution. From that moment all relations between Liberals and Conservatives must cease. Any other course would be treachery, for only thus could the nation be saved from the reproach and the ruin with which it was threatened.
In the opinion of Señor Maura, the party against which he thus proclaimed war to the knife includes every shade of Liberalism in Spain, from the most loyal Monarchists down to the rioters in Cataluña, while his right-hand man, Señor La Cierva, Minister of the Interior in the Ultramontane Cabinet, went so far as to accuse Señor Moret of being at “one end of a chain which linked Liberals, Radicals, Democrats, Republicans, and Socialists with the persons who fired the Religious Houses in Barcelona and scattered anarchy broadcast by encouraging the abominable sedition taught in the lay schools.”
When Señor Maura declared that all relations between the two parties must cease, he no doubt expected that the party to obtain power and keepit would be his own. But the dissatisfaction caused in his own party by his violent speech showed that they did not all share his views, and for a time it looked as though there might be a split in the camp. The Clericalists foresaw days of leanness, for if Maura’s calculations went wrong and Moret was able to carry out his project of electoral reform, their occupation and their livelihood would be gone. How the dissentients were brought into line we need not inquire. But the occasion forced one of the most statesmanlike of the Conservatives to make a public confession of his faith, and it then became manifest that in Señor Sanchez Toca, ex-Minister and ex-Alcalde of Madrid, the spirit of Canovas and Silvela still survives, although he with one or two more seem to stand almost alone among their party against the tide of reaction.
After three years of loyal support, said Sanchez Toca, in an interview with the representative of the ConservativeCorrespondencia de España—the organ of all that is left of the old Conservative policy—Señor Maura should have consulted his Cabinet before taking a resolution which completely alters the normal course of national politics. “I stood aghast,” said he, “at the thought of the incalculable results that must spring from those furious voices convoking the whole Christian world to a holy war against Ministers holding office under the Crown, to whom even the name of Liberals was denied, and shouting with anathemas that he was no true Conservative who held other relations than those of implacable hostility with men appointed to office by the King.” And he concluded by pointing out that the true Conservative faith irresistibly impels those who hold it towards conciliation instead of provocation, and that if this reason for its existence failed, the Conservative party must disappear.
Whether Sanchez Toca could have formed a party under his own leadership on the old Conservative lines it is not possible to guess; for after making the protest of which the above is a brief abstract, he left Madrid, and it was announced that he intended to make a protracted sojourn abroad, so that no one was able to accuse him of self-seeking in his secession from the Ultramontane party. The dignity of his position, as compared with that taken up by the supporters of the “implacable hostility” which has become a byword among the scoffers, needs no emphasis.
I have dwelt at perhaps undue length upon his part in the affair, because it is assumed abroad that Señor Maura represents an unitedConservative party, which, as the above declaration proves, is by no means the case.
How completely this was misunderstood by many of the English journalists who wrote about Spain in 1909 was shown by their comments upon the strength displayed by Maura in holding the whole “Conservative” forces together, and their complete misapprehension of the real causes of the dissensions which have always prevailed in the Liberal camp.
The modern Conservatives and the modern Liberals are so nearly alike in their policy as regards the Crown and the Constitution, that they might almost be classed as one party, under the general name of Monarchists. In the matter of electoral reform there seems hardly anything to choose between them, although on the question of the Religious Orders Moret’s views are perhaps rather more advanced than those of Sanchez Toca, Dato, or Gonzalez Besada, the three most prominent Conservative-Monarchists of to-day. Unfortunately, the popular distrust of the very name of Conservative is so great that it would be difficult for any one thus labelled to convince the people that he meant fairly by them. Even Moret’s policy of conciliation is taken by the masses to indicate fear of the Jesuits, rather than as a calculated avoidance of action which might lead to disturbances.
The constant commendation given by the Conservative and even by the Liberal Press of England to the strength and unity of the “Conservative” party under Señor Maura, and their adverse comments on the dissensions in the Liberal camp, have materially added to the difficulties, already serious enough, which block the path of Moret and those of his creed, and have strengthened the party of clerical reaction and absolutism.
TheHeraldo, in an article on the benefits to the nation to be expected from Moret’s support of Canalejas’ Government, spoke as follows of the influence of England upon Spanish affairs:
“It now appears probable that the democratic Government will be consolidated by the disappearance of the danger to which we have referred [the split with Moret’s party]. If this proves the case, all Europe will recognise with satisfaction how the personal convictions of the monarch, strengthened perhaps by the healthy influence of his illustrious connections by marriage, are leading Spain along the paths of prosperity and gradually relieving us of the nightmare of reaction which has weighed so heavily upon our nation during the minority of Don Alfonso and the early years of his manhood.”
Centuries of government by the rich for the rich, and by the Church for the Church, have contributed to make reform exceedingly difficult, but at length the issues between political morality and the maintenance of the old abuses have been clearly set before the nation, in the struggle which ended with the dismissal of Señor Moret. He determined to have the country freed from the tyranny of theCacique. His opponents desired to maintain the system. That was the whole point at issue.
At the moment it seemed as if those interested in the maintenance of a corrupt system had won a signal victory, and the men who are working for the moralising of political life would have been more than human had they spoken no word of the bitterness they felt at seeing, as it seemed, their work undone and their hopes frustrated. But there are apparent defeats which mark a stage on the road to final victory, and such a stage was marked, for the people of Spain, by the fall of Moret in February, 1910.
Turning to the other main body of political opinion, the Liberal party, with its offshoot, the Republicans, it is worth noting that many of these, including several of their most prominent and influential leaders, although professing republican opinions, are in reality staunchupholders of the constitutional Monarchy, their republicanism being more in the nature of a political counsel of perfection than a policy that they are actively forwarding. Thus Montero Rios, the leader of the Radical wing of the Liberals, who, if not avowedly a Republican, is closely allied to that party, recently said,à proposof the split in the Liberal camp which seemed imminent after the resignation of Moret, “I have always urged that our group should submit to the leadership of Moret, because he alone can hold the party together.” Melquiades Alvarez, one of the acknowledged leaders of the Republicans, made in October, 1909, an important speech in which he offered “a final truce” with the Monarchy, and Republican support to a programme of liberty of worship, restriction of the power of the Religious Orders, neutral schools, and social reform. “With the adoption of this programme permanent stability would be afforded to the Throne on the model of the English dynasty—a crowned Republic.” And Soriano, another prominent man in that party, said about the same time “The Republican revolution should be spiritual, not material.We do not desire to overthrow the Monarchy, but to implant education and progress” (italics mine). The term “Republican,” as used by the menof this school of thought, seems to connote a social and political Utopia rather than a particular form of government, and “republican” principles are quite compatible with an undeviating support of the Constitutional Monarchy.
These “idealist” Republicans would not thus group their party with the supporters of the Monarchy if they believed that the existence of the Throne were prejudicial to the nation. Nor would the Liberal-Monarchists accept without protest such an association with themselves, did they believe that these men were working to overthrow the Monarchy.
The truth is that all Spanish politicians who have the good of their country at heart recognise, even though they may disapprove, the traditional respect for the kingly office which is implanted in the mind of most peoples who have lived from childhood under the Monarchical system. In Spain, where the King who united Castile with Leon and expelled the Moslems from nearly the whole of the South is venerated as a saint, the tradition exists more strongly and has greater weight in determining the action of the masses at any given moment than in any other country except perhaps Russia.
A STREET HAWKER DESCRIBING BATTLE SCENES TO AN ILLITERATE AUDIENCE.[To face page263.
A STREET HAWKER DESCRIBING BATTLE SCENES TO AN ILLITERATE AUDIENCE.[To face page263.
A STREET HAWKER DESCRIBING BATTLE SCENES TO AN ILLITERATE AUDIENCE.
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Ofthe many evils that afflict Spain, one of the gravest, for it lies at the root of most of the others, is the deplorably backward state of education. It is commonly said that 75 per cent. of the population cannot read or write. This figure may or may not be exaggerated, but it is certainly the exception to find a member of the working classes who can do either. And this ignorance is not confined to the working classes, but extends, in a relative degree, throughout all social ranks. People of good position, presumably educated, frequently cannot write and spell their own language correctly. I have even been told as a fact that there are, or were until quite recently, grandees of Spain who could not sign their names. And ignorance of the commonest facts of geography and history is astonishingly prevalent even in the middle classes. It would not in the least surprise any one who knows Spanish society to be asked whether Germanylies to the south of Switzerland, or if Berlin is the capital of London. Even in the universities things are no better. The course of study in any subject consists in the scholar getting up a textbook writtenad hocby the professor of that subject, in which alone he is examined for his certificate or diploma, and outside of which he is not expected to travel. Indeed, in some of the universities the students are actively discouraged from reading anything except the prescribed textbook of the subject they are studying, and the natural consequence is that a young man who has passed through the University with credit may be, and often is in fact, quite illiterate.
The administrative educational system in Spain is as follows:
At the head is the Minister of Public Instruction, assisted by a consultative Council, which includes the Rectors of the universities. Certain of the functions of the Minister are delegated to the sub-secretary, who is the second authority in the department.
The local administration is complicated. The whole country is divided into ten university districts, at the head of each of which is the Rector of the university. He,inter alia, exercises a general supervision over all the schools in hisdistrict, appoints teachers whose salary is below 1,000 pesetas per annum, and proposes to the Minister of Education the appointment of those of higher grade or salary. He is assisted by a consultative Council. The teachers are appointed after some sort of competitive examination.
The Civil Governor of each province is responsible for the fulfilment of all the obligations imposed by the law, but has no voice in the internal management, teaching, &c., of the schools and colleges. He, too, is assisted by a provincial consultative Council. Lastly, in the municipality, the Alcalde, the President of theAyuntamiento, has the same functions in his district as those of the Civil Governor in the province.[23]The Alcalde also has his local consultative committee, whose functions are not unlike those of school managers in England.
The inspection of all schools except the elementary is the duty of the Rector of the university. The inspection of elementary schools is committed to an Inspector-General, under the immediate orders of the sub-Secretary of State, and forty-nine inspectors, one for each province.
Elementary education in Spain has been compulsory since 1857, and free, since 1901, to children whose parents “are unable to pay.” The compulsory school age is from 6 to 12. The provision of schools and the upkeep of the buildings is the duty of theAyuntamiento, and a small sum is set aside in the annual Budget of the kingdom for grants in aid to poor districts.
The system under which the teachers are paid is peculiar. The locality finds the money and hands it to the Ministry of Education, which pays the salaries. The reason for this arrangement is characteristic. It was made because of the irregularities in the payment of the teachers which frequently occurred when the local authority administered the funds. The salaries of the teachers in the Elementary schools are from 500 to 3,000 pesetas—say £20 to £120 a year, with a house, and they are entitled after twenty years’ service or upwards, to a pension of from 50 to 80 per cent. of their salary. They also have a right to the fees of “children who can pay them.”
It is easy to see that this system of overlapping authorities and divided responsibility must necessarily lead to waste of time and general inefficiency, even assuming that every one concerned is genuinely anxious to do his duty and to work for the good of education, an assumption which it would be very rash to make.
The teachers in the Government schools have to hold a Government certificate, which is obtained after a two years’ course in a normal school. In the higher-grade schools a superior certificate is required, involving an additional two years’ training. Private schools are reckoned as part of the school supply, in a proportion to the total which varies with the population of the school district. The school supply is calculated, not on the basis of school places but of teachers; roughly speaking, one master and one mistress are allowed to each thousand of population. The total number of qualified teachers of both sexes is eventually to be brought up to 30,000. The private schools have to satisfy the inspector as to sanitary requirements only: no control seems to be exercised over the instruction, nor is any certificate of competence demanded of the teacher.
In addition to the elementary schools, the law provides for the establishment of infant and night schools, schools for the deaf and dumb, and all the machinery of a complete and comprehensive system of secondary and higher education.
So much for the theory: the practice is another matter.
In the universities all the elements of university education are lacking. The professors in many cases are ignorant and incompetent, and those who are properly qualified for their work—and some of them are men of scholastic and scientific attainments of no mean order, often acquired abroad—are isolated, working in unsympathetic and even hostile surroundings, and their knowledge is almost useless in the lecture-room, owing to the fact that the students are absolutely destitute of the grounding necessary in order to benefit by proper teaching. When by chance a group of professors with real knowledge and enthusiasm happens to be formed in an university, the results are surprising. This has occurred at Oviedo, where, thanks to the existence of such a teaching staff, an educational atmosphere was formed, the students were educated and not merely crammed with a few useless facts, and extension lectures were established with extraordinary success, especially among the working classes.
In addition to a body of competent professors, the universities, if they are to fulfil their function, need (a) a certain amount of autonomy—at present they are merely bureaus for conducting examinations and issuing diplomas; (b) reorganisation of studies, with some liberty of choice to the student; (c) reform of the examination system in the direction of substituting for the present examination by subjects either a certificate based on attendance and general proficiency or a final examination on leaving; (d) in scientific subjects, a good deal more practical work; and in all branches of study the abolition of the textbook, the committing of which to memory is now the sole demand made on the candidate for examination.
A professor at one of the universities has summed up to me the present state of these centres of learning in the following words:
“There is an absolute lack of any educational spirit, of any contact between teachers and pupils, of any feeling of solidarity among the students, of any organisation of games, excursions, &c., of any artistic refinement, and of any organised effort to raise the moral standard, to-day perhaps the most degraded in the world.”
When we turn to the administration of the elementary schools, the part of the educational system which more directly and immediately affects the working classes, we find the same general state of inefficiency and neglect.
A volume of school statistics was officiallyissued not long ago, of which a useful summary was published in theHeraldo de Madridin November, 1909.
From this it appears that while four provinces have the full complement of Elementary schools required by the law, the supply in all the remaining 45 is deficient, the shortage per province being from 772 schools downwards, and the total deficiency amounting to 9,505 schools. The total increase of school supply between 1870 and 1908 is 2,150 schools, or an average of about 56 schools per year. At this rate it would take over 150 years to catch up even to the school provision required by the school law of 1857, without allowing for any increase of population.
But in another way, about two-thirds of the school districts of Spain, or some thirty thousand towns and villages, have no Government school. In Madrid about half the schools required by law are wanting. Barcelona has a somewhat similar deficiency. And be it remembered that the school supply is calculated in accordance with the law of 1857, the requirements of which are far below those which obtain in any other country in Europe, so that even in the very few districts where there is nominally sufficient school accommodation there is actually a seriousdeficiency according to modern standards of what is necessary. The consequence, as theHeraldoobserves, is that some 12,000,000 of the population do not know their letters.
But the towns where there is a school are not really much better off, educationally, than those that have none. Save in very exceptional cases, no attempt is made to enforce school attendance, and though some of the parents send their children to school, the careless and indifferent do not. The Alcalde, whose business it is to see that the law is carried out, probably is—except in the larger towns—entirely uneducated himself, and is not going to stir up possible ill-feeling by enforcing a law which does not benefit him personally, and of which he does not see the necessity. The Civil Governor, who is over the Alcalde, and whose duty it is to see that the education laws are carried out, probably is equally indifferent, and in any case has not the time to supervise all the Alcaldes of the scores of towns and villages in his province. The schoolmaster naturally does not trouble himself; his salary does not depend on the number of his pupils, but on the population of the school district. And, lastly, any attempt to enforce the attendance required by law, were it made, must necessarily fail, simply for lackof school accommodation, for already most if not all of the elementary schools have many more children on the register than there is room for. Thus school attendance, although nominally compulsory, is in fact purely voluntary, with the usual results.
The supply of school material is the duty of the Central Government, as already stated. This duty the Government delegates, not to the local authority, but to the schoolmaster, who receives, in addition to his salary, an allowance to scale for providing books, &c. The natural result is that he looks on this allowance as an augmentation of salary, and reduces the supply of books to the barest minimum, or to zero. It is not to be expected that the schools should be liberally or even decently supplied with these necessaries when every penny that can be saved on them is so much clear profit to the teacher. The consequence—seeing that books cannot be altogether dispensed with—is that the children have to pay for them, and the intention of the law, that schooling should be free to the poor, is frustrated.
The working classes, who, as has been said, honestly desire that their children may receive some rudiments of education, do not as a rule like the Government schools, because, they say, nothing is taught in them. It is not at all uncommon for the teacher to absent himself altogether from school during school hours. He may or may not set the children some lesson—for instance, a passage to repeat over and over again—and he may or may not lock the door after him when he goes away, but very often the children are left entirely alone during the hours when the school is open and they are supposed to be receiving instruction. Parents say, and no doubt with truth, that the moral consequences of this lack of supervision are exceedingly bad, and that a great deal of harm is done to the majority by uncontrolled association with a few demoralised children. A working man in a small provincial town complained to me that a whole school had been corrupted by the evil influence of one boy older than the rest.
It will naturally be asked why such a state of things is tolerated. The answer is easy. It is the duty of the Alcalde to see that the schoolmaster does his work and does not absent himself without leave. But the Alcalde may be a friend or relative of the schoolmaster, or may have other reasons for not worrying him by pedantically insisting that he do his duty. Besides which, it is quite probable that the schoolmaster is not being paid. His salary may not have been sent to theAyuntamiento, or if sent may not havereached him. According to the article in theHeraldoabove referred to, theAyuntamientosare now in debt to the school teachers for arrears of salary amounting to 7,000,000 pesetas—say £280,000. Therefore the negligent schoolmaster is not unlikely to have a conclusive answer to any remonstrance that the Alcalde might be inclined to make: “Pay me my wages and I’ll do my work.”
The parents dare not complain. The Alcalde or the teacher, or both of them, would make things unpleasant for the audacious parent who hinted that either of them was not doing all he should, and there is further the tradition of hopeless submission to misrule of all kinds, from long experience of the uselessness and danger of protesting, which in itself makes the working man reluctant to take any steps against those in authority.
As far as can be gathered, the working classes seem on the whole to prefer the private schools, in spite of the fee charged, on the ground that in these schools the children are under some sort of supervision and do learn something, if only, a little. But the fee, even where quite low, is a serious obstacle to a labourer with a large family, who is only earning some ten or twelve pesetas a week, and, as has been already said,it often happens that only one child can be sent, who in the evenings passes on what he has learnt to the rest of the family. But in these schools it is the custom for the children to bring presents to the master on certain occasions, and it is said that a child who does not bring his present is neglected. “Only the children of those who have money get any teaching,” the parents say.
In many towns most of the private schools are kept by nuns. These schools, generally speaking, have not a good name. It is said that the children who attend them are taught nothing but catechism and needlework, and that the punishments given are often cruel and sometimes disgusting. There was a great scandal lately in a town in the south, on account of a punishment of a nature impossible to describe, inflicted on a little girl in one of these schools. The father took steps to bring an action against the convent in question, but the Civil Governor interfered, and compensation was paid in order to have the matter hushed up.
There are schools, both public and private, where a better state of things prevails, where the master is more or less of an enthusiast, and where in consequence the children get decent elementary teaching; indeed, in one village I was told that “the master of the Governmentschool taught very well, when he was sober.” Nevertheless it is a fact that most of those few of the working classes who can read and write do so badly; indeed, to decipher a letter, say from a domestic servant, or a workman or small tradesman, is a labour of great difficulty, not only owing to the bad writing, but to the extraordinary spelling, although Spanish is the easiest of languages to spell correctly.
Still, in spite of all the obstacles created by administrative incompetence, neglect, and corruption, some progress is being made—enough at least to prove that the people would take immediate advantage of a decently efficient school system. If any members of a family can read, it is usually the children. I have often seen little groups of older people seated round some child who reads the paper to them.
The desire of the working classes for education has brought about a remarkable change in their attitude towards the conscription. This change is the growth of recent years, and is the result of personal efforts on the part of certain distinguished officers. Their feeling in the matter may be summed up in the words of Colonel Ibañez Marin, who met his death in the early days of the Melilla War: “My ambition is that no conscript shall return to his home, afterserving his first three years, without being able at least to read and write.”
I am continually asked about the education of the working classes in England.
“They say that in your country every one is taught to read. Is it possible that that is true? But you have a different kind of Government from ours. Over there it seems that they attend to the interests of the poor. Here you must be able to pay if you wish to learn anything.
“England must do something for us now that our King has married your King’s daughter. If things here were conducted as they are over there, Spain would be the happiest country in the world. But England will take our part in everything now, so matters will improve.”
If the connection between King Edward and the Queen of Spain is explained, and it is observed that one nation cannot interfere with the internal affairs of another on the sole ground of relationship between their respective rulers, the speaker will reply:
“You say that because Governments talk in that way, but we know better. Are not kings human beings like ourselves? And if the Spanish Government knows that Don Alfonso asks the King of England for advice, will theynot have to respect the advice he gives? It is not possible that England should take no interest in our affairs when our Queen is your King’s niece.”
Perhaps one ought to explain that the only influence that England could exert in their favour is that of public opinion, and that England is too busy with her own affairs to have time to form an opinion about those of Spain, far less to express it in a convincing manner. But it would be cruel to deprive these people of the gleam of hope which has come to them through the King’s marriage, so perhaps I say, “In the meantime here are a few little reals for teaching,” and get the reply: “May God repay you! My second boy can go to the night school for a month for seven reals.”
A movement which has in it great promise for the future was started a few years ago by certain able young university professors, who fully realise how much of the backwardness of their country is due to lack of education, with its resultant narrowness of mind and outlook, and ignorance of the modes of life and thought of other nations.
The fundamental idea of this movement, as described to me by its originator, is to create an organic body, independent of politicalchanges, which shall endeavour little by little to promote contact between the teachers of all grades in Spain and their foreign colleagues, and to form within the country small nuclei of workers to diffuse in Spain the ideas brought from abroad, and to create an atmosphere of sympathy and enthusiasm, without which scientific work cannot flourish. On these lines two Committees were formed by Royal Decree in January, 1907. One of these was charged with reforms in elementary teaching, to be carried out by the establishment of classes for teachers, by school inspection on modern lines, by sending selected teachers abroad (the Government gives a grant for this purpose, the administration of which was entrusted to the committee) and by grouping and grading the schools, and encouraging and supervising holiday resorts for teachers, school games, &c.—the whole of the reforms to be introduced gradually, as circumstances might permit. To the other body then created, a “Committee for the development of studies and scientific research,” was entrusted the gradual formation of a staff of competent teachers and professors for higher education generally and for scientific studies.
But the work of these Committees, which, if steadily pursued, offers the best hope for theintellectual regeneration of Spain, was paralysed in the first year by Government interference. Between the formation of the Committees and the issue of their first Annual Report a change of Government took place, and the Ministry of Señor Maura, true to the traditions of Clericalism, did their best to bring all effective work to an end. They suppressed altogether the Committee charged with reforms in elementary education, and set up in its place a mere official bureau, powerless and useless. And though they did not actually abolish the Committee for Higher Education, they succeeded in putting an end to all effective work, by overriding its statutory constitution and curtailing its freedom of action, by stopping supplies, and by delaying or refusing the necessary official consent to measures proposed by the Committee. For instance, whereas the Committee had made arrangements with the French Ministry of Public Instruction for the disposal of the teachers who held grants for study abroad, the Government refused to recognise these arrangements unless they were made officially through the ambassadors, with the result that in the year 1908 none of these teachers were sent abroad. In the Budget for that year the sum set aside for foreign study was reduced by 110,000 pesetas (about £4,400), althoughin the previous year a quite exceptional number of applicants for these grants had come forward. These instances are sufficient to show the attitude of the Clericalists towards education, but the whole Report of the Committee shows how at every turn their work was checked and hampered after Señor Maura took office. With the return of a Liberal Ministry to power it is hoped that the work will be once more effectively taken up.
Since the above chapter was written a Report on the present condition of education, addressed to the Cortes, has been prepared by the Minister of Education, and summarised in the Spanish Press. The following quotations from this summary throw a lurid light on the actual state of affairs.
“More than 10,000 schools are on hired premises, and many of these are absolutely destitute of hygienic conditions. There are schools mixed up with hospitals, with cemeteries, with slaughterhouses, with stables. One school forms the entrance to a cemetery, and the corpses are placed on the master’s table while the last responses are being said. There is a school into which the children cannot enter until the animals have been taken out and sent to pasture. Some are so small that as soon as the warm weatherbegins the boys faint for want of air and ventilation. One school is a manure-heap in process of fermentation, (sic) and one of the local authorities has said that in this way the children are warmer in the winter. One school in Cataluña adjoins the prison. Another, in Andalusia, is turned into an enclosure for the bulls when there is a bullfight in the town.
“The school premises are bad, but most of the Town Councils do not pay the rent, for which reason the proprietors refuse to let their houses. Ninety per cent. of the buildings in which the schools are held are the worst dwellings in the town.
“In Lucena the salary of a mistress is held back because she guaranteed the school rent. The Municipality did not pay it, the school was going to be evicted and the teaching to be interrupted, and that mistress, in order to prevent this, pledged her miserable pay.”
Comment is needless: the facts, vouched for by the Minister of Education, speak for themselves.