The apparently 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 think themselves 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 centralised in 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 the Cacique, 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 the Cacique, 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 the Cacique is one of the great obstacles to any effective decentralisation. If the villages and rural districts were given the management of their own affairs, the Cacique would 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-rogues to 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 Ultramontane Cacique has 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 the Cacique and his Conservatives were nowhere.”

I happen to be aware that the Cacique in 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 corruption which 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 the reactionaries 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 party together” 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 as canaille.

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 consent to 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 the Ejercito 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 the affair 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 local Caciques. This gave 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 the Caciques) “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 compromise with 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. The Daily Mail gave 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 the Correo Catalan, a Carlist paper, which committed itself to the following prophecy:

“Canalejas will govern without altering the Cabinet 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.”

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