While this book was in the press, the Spanish Government took a step, the ultimate consequences of which may be of the utmost moment for the country. In June, 1910, SeÑor Canalejas resolved to take definite action in the matter of the Religious Orders.

The immediate cause of his determination appears to have been the general discontent created by the numerous cases of clerical corruption and intimidation alleged to have occurred in the recent elections to the Cortes. A great meeting of protest was held at Madrid, in which both Republicans and Socialists took part, and SeÑor Melquiades Alvarez, the Republican leader, who not many months before had expressed his willingness to compromise with the Monarchists on the lines of a democratic Monarchy like that of England, deliberately went over to the Socialists. This important volte face, coupled with the fact that at the elections Madrid returned an overwhelming majority of Republicans, seems to have spurred Canalejas to action.

This action consisted of a modest Royal Order requiring the fulfilment of an edict of 1902, which compels the registration of all Religious Orders established in the country since that date, and the payment of the industrial tax on the trades they carry on. This was followed by a decree permitting members of other than the State religion to display emblems and notices outside their places of worship, and to hold funeral processions, in accordance with the provision made by the law of the land for liberty of conscience.

These two decrees hardly strike one as revolutionary; but they have been enough to set the whole of the Church party in an uproar; and the Primate, the Archbishop of Toledo, has thrown down the gauntlet, defying the Government to put the decrees in force, on the ground that the Church owes obedience to Rome alone, and that the State has no power to interfere with it. At the moment of writing the Vatican is trying to bully the Government by threatening to break off relations, the Catholic Associations have telegraphed their grief and distress at the outrage inflicted upon the Pope by these Royal Orders, the ladies of the Ultramontane aristocracy have petitioned the Premier to reconsider his determination to destroy the national Church and drag Spain’s religion in the dust, and the whole clerical party are preparing a furious campaign against the Government, which, needless to say, is warmly supported by all the Liberal elements in the country. The working classes are naturally delighted, and several of them have congratulated themselves in my hearing on this excellent result of the King’s marriage.

“He has seen what religious liberty means in England, and that has given him courage to defy the Jesuits. Viva Alfonsito!”