Northern Weekly Gazette. — 1908-02-15 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

FEARLESS RULER.  A foul deed regarded with execration everywhere; a mad and revolting crime which has roused the horror and indignation of the civilised world.. These words of the Leader of the House of Commons thoroughly express the feelings with which the news of the horrible tragedy at Lisbon was received in this country. The murdered monarch, shot under such merciless circumstances, Wati not only an ally but a friend; and the crime which has robbed Portugal of an honest and fearless ruler, has also deprived our King of a beloved cousin, whom he delighted to honour.  For 20 years King Carlos ably guided the destinies of his people. His reign had been fruitful of much good, and, when the great strength of the corrupt officialism arrayed against him is considered, the reforms accomplished during his regime clearly testify that he had at heart the wel fare of his overtaxed people. But the octopus corruption had spread its tentacles into all national services, and the effort to throw off this incubus and purify the Legislature and administration aroused the antagonism of so many despoilers, tha to attempt to carry through reforms in the usual constitutional method became impossible. Heaioe the Dictatorship, and the subsequent outburst oi fanaticism, which has deprived Portugal of a King and a Prince whose only offence was that they endeavoured, perhaps too quiokly, to realise their ideal of an incorrupt Fatherland.  Now the King, whose ambition was to establish a healthier order of .things in the State, is no more, the people of Portugal recall many actions by which Dom Carlos had endeared himself to them. It is recounted that when financial embarrassment threatened the country the King readily gave .up large revenues to the State. In SO doing the King set a splendid example, and arguing therefrom many of his subjects regarded the recent suppres sien of Parliamentary Government as the necessary preliminary towards the establishment of a more stable and less corrupt administration. Others there were who doubted the honesty of the King's intentions, and who regarded with keen enmity any interference with things as they were. From these reactionaries King Carlos had ever met strenuous opposition. And behind that opposition was established corruption. "For a long time,' says a correspondent in the "Westminster Gazette," King Carlos tried by moral suasion to improve the principles as well as the methods of his Government, and it was only after repeated failure that he courted disaster by a decree which forbade any traffic in official preferment. A little later this strenuous measure was followed by a complete investigation into departmental cegienditare, when it was disclosed that an immense army Of unemployed dependents were battening on the Public revenues. Officers of rank, ladies of title, and people of loss exalted dignity were drawing the emoluments of offices into which they never entered, for work which they Des-ex performed. In many cases, too, these people had, in their turn, I.Publet for valuable consideration the right to posts In the lower grades of service  That Dom Carlos fonght a good fight against an gystera which existed prior to his accession to the throne is shogna by a ietter to one of his friends which appeared in " The In this _..66-1Q14M444-1