Evening star., 1923-09-23
BY r. CoNLIFFE-owEN. c. d. f.

1
! Spaniards relate that when their
patron saint, James of Compostella.
| died and entered heaven the Almighty
| offered to grant any petition that he
| might make. st. James entreated
that Spain might always be known as
! liest women, the healthiest climate,
the most fertile soil and the most
| perfect government.
stop" exclaimed the Almighty, "alI
your wishes shall be granted but the
| last. Were I to accord to you that
one also all my angels would leave
heaven and take up their abode in
| SPAIN
| History backs up this popular leg
end. For no matter how good or
how bad the rulers, or how enlight-
| ened, progressive. honest and unself-
| ishly patriotic many of the individual
| statesmen, the government as a whole
| has always been inefficient and cor
rupt. Since the great war the indus
try OF Spain has received an enor-
! nous impetus. She has found new
| markets abroad. especially in Latin
America. Thousands of new trading
concerns have sprung into life The
! manufacturing and mining of the
country have increased well nigh
| tenfold.
Business Is Hindered.
The government has done every
thing possible to hamper this COM
! merce and industry through prohib-
Itive duties, oppressive taxation and
| withdrawal of thousands of young
men from the manufacturing centers,
rather than from the farms, to waste
the best years of their life in the
army in northern Africa under com
manders distinguished for incompe-
! tence.
Popular evaporation had reached
| such stage that a revolution ap-
peared imminent. This danger has
! been averted by the pronunciamento
of Gen. Primo di Rivera, MARQUIS of
| Estella, and by his establishment of
! a dictatorship. The coup d'etat came,
almost day for day. on the centennial
anniversary of another pronuncia-
mento of the same kind dissolving
the cortes, which emancipated King
| Ferdinand from subjection by a. small
! faction OF his subjects, and brought
to close an era which caused the
/ loss, to Spain, of her American
Radical Change Needed.
King Alphonso and his people realize
that both the conservative and liberal
cabinets which have succeeded one
another with such startling rapidity
had reached the end of their tether
and had forfeited the confidence of
the nation. A radical and revolution
ary change was needed.
Those who know Spain best would
have preferred that the savior had
some other name than Primo di
/ Rivera. The name has been unpleas-
antly associated throughout two gen.
erations with stories of coups d. etat
and of pronunciamentos. and with
those acts of military insubordina-
tion, indiScipline and mutiny which,
for hundred years or more, have
been the bane of the Spanish army.
Much of the responsibility for the
! misgovernment of Spain has been
due to the military risings, and to
| the juntas of the officers of high
and low ranks, and especially of the
unions of non-commissioned officers.
| Assured of their power to dominate
the situation by force of arms, they
were forever seeking to improve their
collective viii on the cabinet of the
day, and to bend it TO their demands
whenever statesman showed any
signs of independence, the iuntas in
sisted on his dismissal. They stood
in the way of most of their liberal
reforms.
One would have wished that the
rescue of the country had come in
some other form than a pronuncia-
mento and had been headed by some
other general than Primo di Rivera
| who, just thirty years ago was dis
missed in a most sensational manner
by the late Gen. Cassola, then min
lister of war, from his command in
the army and from his director gen.
eralship of infantry at the war de-
partment, for bitterly attacking the
| government.
; Indeed. Senior Sagasta. one of the
boldest statesmen to have ever held
! office as premier at Madrid, threaten
| ed Rivera at the time to strip hin
| of his uniform and to dismiss hin
from the army in disgrace if he dared
to open his lips again. After Sagasta's
death Primo di Rivere recovered hi:
| freedom of speech and has always
| been known as a political general
| Indeed, only two years ago. he wa:
dismissed from the governor general.
ship of Cadiz for a speech before the
! iSpanish-American Academy of Science
! of intense bitterness against the gov.
, ernment of the day which kept hin
under virtual arrest at Madrid. Ht
was assigned to the command OF
Barcelona in the expectation that thi.
difficult post would break his neck
In some respects he may be saiC
to have made a good beginning a.
dictator by dissolving the cortes an(
depriving the members of their pay
on the ground that they spent al
their time in talk without accom-.
plishing anything. He likewise gave
orders for the suspension of all civil.