Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-03
SITUATION IN SPAIN
Character Of Alfonso Consid-
cred an Uncertain Quantity.
Special cabieeram to The Star.

Special Cablegram TO The Star
MADRID, December 2.-The political sit
uation in Spain is becoming unusually in
teresting in view OF the fact that the char
aeter of young Alfonso XIII appears to be
an uncertain quantity. The divisions in the
ranks of the liberals are believed to be re-
sponslble for the fact that the young SOW
ereign has drawn no fewer than five sue
cessive cabinets from the conservative
party during the past two years and a half
rather than trust the divided liberal party.
When, like most Spaniards, the dynastfc
liberal perceived that the conservatives
were fast preparing their own fall through
the rivalry between Maura and the late
Senior Viliaverde they came tardily to the
conclusion that they had better close their
ranks around some leader If they wanted to
be in a position to respond to the expected
call of Alfonso XIII. From that moment it
was noticed that. without clearly definlning
the selection of successor to Sagasta,
Senior Montero Rios and Senior Moret be-
gan TO act In concert and to draw up mani
festoes and prospective programs on the
principal questions Of the day in Spain,
Whlle Senior Canalejas and less noted wor-
th1eS OF the party aSsented in principle to
the documents set forth by Senior Montero
Rios after consultation with Senior Moret.
The coalition of the liberal forces was
deemed Indispensable, and it accom-
pl1shed through the dsinterestedness of
Seniors Moret and Canalejas the chiefs of
the two most important groups outside of
Senior Montero Rios. From the moment
that men like Moret and Canalejas waived
their pretensons to the succession of Sa-
gasta, naturally none of the thirty ex-min
listers and ex-presidents of the senate and
congress ventured to object to the idea of
gathering round Don Eugenio Montero
Rios, even before Alfonso XIII sent for
that statesman to ask him to form cab
met.
Relation Of Church and State.
Senior Canalejas had hardly a large
enough following IN the cortes and in the
country to entitle him to take precedence
over Moret and Montero Rios, even If his
very radical inclinations on all of the i'm
portant questions of the day in Spain had
not stood in his way. He and his group
OF less than dozen senators and thirty
deputies represented the advanced tenden-
cies of Spanish liberalism, and they are far
ahead not only of the bulk OF their party
but of the majority of the nation for in
stance, in social questions, in remedial leg
isIatIon, in the relations of capital and
labor, in state intervention generally, and
in the most difficult problem of the time
the relations of the state to the church
the Vatican and the religious orders. The
difference between the program of the
Canalejas group of liberals is not very
great, and the feature of their political diff
ference is to be found in the form of the
institutions they respectively advocate
After the death of Sagasta Senor Montero
Rios and his group of dynastic liberals
styled themselves democratic liberals their
contention being that they Were, quite as
much as Moret and his partisanS entitled
to be considered the successors of Sagasta
and able, therefore, to continue his policy
in its most progressive and modern fea lures,
though not SO much willing the other
liberal faction to play the part of courtiers
and trlmmerS to secure a long tenure OF
office. The democratic liberals are espe-
cially strong in eX-ministers, and they
reckon upon the support of Marshal Lopez,
Dominguez, General Weyler and many gen
erals and admirals, auxiliaries whom all
Castlian parties as of yore consider
precious.
Exposed Democratic Liberals.
Senior Montero Rios has very frankly ex-
posed in manifestoes and interviews the
policy of the democratic liberals, who are
now in a majority In the cabinet He seems
to think that the liberal party and govern
ment need fear no insuperable difficulties
in graphing with the religious question as
1t was fortunately not definitely settled by
the two last conservative cabinets OF
Maura and Ascarraga before Villayerde en-
tered the councils of the crown in January.
Maura had made an agreement with the
Vatican to put the religious orders of both
sexes on q regular legal footing which
the dynastic liberals and the republicans
denounced as opposed to the rights of the
state and civil power. Senior Monte,o Rios
and the liberals held that the Catholic rel-
gion and the church are factors in the life
and the politics of the Spanish people,
which must be taken into account and
never prosecuted but that nevertheless,
neither the church nor the Vatican. and
much less the religious orders must be al
lowed to encroach upon the rights of the
state and the civil power.
Next in Importance for them to the re-
ligious question is the tariff question, the
commerce of Spain with European and
American states, which must be attended
TO this year Senior Montero Rios is of
the opinion that the liberal party in tariffs
and commercial treaties should be oppor-
tunist, and keep equally away from free
trade and prOtectionst exaggerations seek
ing TO develop the trade of the kingdom.