The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-02-02
THE SALT LAKE HERALD: SUNDAY FEBRUARY . 1908

stated that after seven months of par
liamentary strife he had found 1t inn
possible to govern with a parliament
and to carry out his executive and leg
islative program which included
policy of social and economic reforms.
and efficient party control of the I'd
ministration. In this he established
veritable dictatorship, and since then
has governed with an iron hand.
Reports emanating from many parts
of Portugal and through Madrid in
Spain, within the last few months
have indicated that trouble was brew
ing for Portugal, and that revolution
lists were at work. After numerous
minor risings had been put down, the
police, on Jan. %, came upon wide
spread plot to overthrow the mon
archy and proclaim Portugal a repub-
lie. The plot was organized by a small
group of advanced republicans, and
the original intention was to assassi-
nate Premier Franco, and depend upon
the secret, republican and labor or,
CARNATIONS, armed with bombs and
revolvers, to complete the work of re-
voiution in the country.
RevoIutionsts Arrested.
But the police raided the meeting
place of the conspirators and made a
number of arrests. Selling quantities
of bombs and other weapons, and since
then other raids have been made in
Lisbon, with the result that the police
believed they had the revofutionaries
well in hand. Each day, however,
brought new evidences of the ramifica
tiOns of the plot to remove the heads
of the state.
A treaty with England, however, not
only provides for assistance from that
country in event of foreign invasion
of Portugal, but is also designed to
safeguard the crown against demon
stratiOns from revolutionists.
Pretender to Throne.
Dom Miguel d'Braganza. head of the
house of the line of BraganZa. which
! formerly reigned over Portugal, the
pretender to the throne, is apt to come
| to the front again because of the death
of King Carlos and the crown prince.
| The father of Dom Miguel was the
late King Miguel I, Duke of Braganza,
who seized the throne from his niece
| Queen Maria II, daughter of Emperor
Pedro l of Brazil, and was king of
| Portugal from 1928 to 1884, at which
latter date Queen Maria was restored
| to the throne. There have been snu-
merous rumors of a rebellion with the
| object of placing Dom Miguel on the
throne, but recently these were not
| given serious consideration.
Last June Dom Miguel. through the
medium of the newspapers of Vienna,
| announced his readiness to fill any va
| cancy in the Portuguese throne arising
from the dispute in that country.
Republican Opportunity
1t was long ago stated that the re-
| suit of the political crises in Portugal
might not only determine whether a
new and better order of administra-
| ton would prevail. but whether mon
/ archical rule should not give way to
a republican form of government The
republicans believe that Franco, by ex-
| posing the practices of the monarchist
parties, administered a severe blow to
| the prestige of the king and the mon
archy from which they could never re-
| cover, and had made a republic a prob
| ability.
/ The republicans had Francois avowal
that the country for years had been
the football of the monarchist parties
with the sole object of distributing
graft to their Clients" the scandal of
the advances made secretly from the
public treasury to the royal family and
an admission of the arbitrary manner
in which these advances have been Ii
quidated by decree.
No one. however, was more severe in
his criticism of the practice of advanc-
ing money to the royal family than
Franco himself, and he pledged him.
self to make it impossible in the flu
ture for the king to obtain anything
! beyond the royal allowance and to in
troduce a system of public accounta-
| bility that would reveal the destina-
ton of every dollar that left the treas
ury.
Premier Kept His Promise.
He kept his promise, but he had also
to pay the back debts of the king. which
amounted to a large sum and which he
] liquidated by decree.
| Premier Franco promised also to hold
the elections at an early date if condi-
| lions in the country would permit, but
the recent revolutionary tactics of the