The visitor to Spain is frequently struck with the number of persons whom he meets on all sides clad in various uniforms and armed, some with cutlasses alone, others with revolvers in addition. If he asks who they are, he is told that they are the police, and then he is perplexed to find such a large number of distinct bodies, all apparently performing much the same duties. A few words of explanation as to the various police-forces of the country and their different functions may not be out of place.

In the first place, every town has its body of municipal police, under the orders of the Alcalde. Their chief duty is to regulate the traffic, to maintain order in the streets, and to report to the Town Council any infraction of the municipal by-laws, and to another body of police anything or any person whom they may regard as suspicious or a possible danger to the public security. They do not themselves, as a rule, arrest malefactors, though no doubt they are empowered to do so on emergency.

These policemen are well-intentioned, but on the whole ineffective, not from any fault of their own so much as from the conditions of their appointment and tenure of place. In Spain anything can be done by influence, and it is practically impossible to enforce the by-laws against a person in high place who chooses to break them. Not long ago I was at an exhibition, which a very great number of people had gone to see on that particular day. The municipal police were doing their best to make the crowd “pass along,” but at one point there was a block, caused by one or two well-dressed men who refused to move. I asked the policeman why he did not make them, and he replied that one of them was So-and-so (a person of local importance) and that if he said anything to him he would find himself dismissed the next day![20] In a certain town not long ago a body of police inspectors was established, whose duty it was to supervise the municipal police and report derelictions of duty, and as far as I could learn they were doing useful work. After about three months they all disappeared. On inquiry I was told that the reason of their suppression was that one of them had reported the carriage of some duke or marquis for obstructing the traffic, and that the indignant nobleman had insisted on and obtained the abolition of the force.

The municipal police go off duty about 8 p.m., and are replaced by the serenos or night-watchmen, who patrol the streets all night carrying a pike and a lantern, and in some towns still cry the hours. Hence their name, from their not unmusical cry, “Las doce han dado y sereno” (“twelve o’clock”—or whatever the hour is—“and a fine night.”)

Alongside of the municipal police is what is known as the Vigilancia. It is they who have to deal with criminals of all sorts within their own districts, arrest pickpockets and other offenders, investigate thefts, murders, &c., and catch the guilty. To them the hotels report the arrival and departure of guests, and it is their business to find any persons who are wanted on extradition warrants. In short, they perform most of the ordinary police duties except those assigned to the municipal police.

There is also a body of rural police, whose duty it is to patrol the country districts; they are few in number and not particularly effective. It is not often that one runs across any of them, even in their own districts.

The most important and by far the finest body of men in Spain is the Civil Guard, popularly known as the Benemerita (well-deserving). This force is one which, both in physique and morale, would do credit to any country in the world. They are under very strict discipline, and are prevented as far as possible from associating with any one outside of their own body—for instance, with the ordinary police-forces. Even the officers are under stricter regulations than those of the regular Army. I was told of one case where a junior officer, after due warning, was broke for gambling. The force is officered from the regular Army, and so highly is the service esteemed that an officer who obtains a commission in the Civil Guard ipso facto loses a step. Very great care is exercised both in their selection and in recruiting the rank and file.

They are something in the nature of a military police, and may be generally compared to the Irish Constabulary; they do not perform ordinary police duties, but in case of anything serious, such as a riot, they would act, and they are expected to hunt down and catch malefactors who are escaping from justice—which, indeed, they usually succeed in doing. They practically have power of life and death, as if, in the execution of their duty, they think it necessary to shoot, no questions are asked. They always go about in couples, a young man accompanying an older one, sometimes on foot, generally on horseback. They are the terror of evildoers, and some years ago entirely stamped out the brigandage which was then rife in the South of Spain, by the simple expedient of shooting down the brigands wherever they caught them. But I have never heard it suggested that they abuse their powers, and every one, foreigners as well as Spaniards, speaks well of them. Moreover—and this is rare in Spain—they are said, I believe with truth, to be incorruptible, and everybody has the utmost confidence in them.

I have already referred to this force being called on to protect the nervous nuns and the ostensibly non-militant clergy during the anticlericalist demonstrations in November, 1909. It may be interesting to show how they regarded the political situation at that time, premising that as they are in daily contact with the people, no body in the kingdom has its finger more closely pressed on the public pulse.

“You seem to have had your work for nothing,” I remarked to a couple of my friends at their barracks on the evening after one of the demonstrations. “I never saw a more orderly crowd.”

“What did you expect?” they replied. “These are political matters in which we take no part beyond going where we are ordered. It seems to be the fashion to talk about the prevalence of anarchical ideas in our country, so presumably it suits some persons that the public should think our people are anarchists. But we see no symptoms of it. No doubt it is right for the authorities to take precautions if they believe there are fellows of that sort about. It is not our place to inquire why they believe in a condition of affairs which we know does not exist. The Civil Governor naturally does not ask for our opinion on matters connected with politics. If he did we could tell him that he need not be nervous, for anarchy is a disease which does not progress in our nation, at any rate in any part of the districts we have to travel over.”

Remarks of this tenour have been made to me by members of the force in many times and in many places. A couple of Civil Guards accompany every train, and detachments of them are stationed in every town and village, in addition to mounted men charged with the care of the rural districts. They are continually changed from place to place, to prevent any danger of becoming too friendly with those they are intended to control, and the result is that they have an exhaustive knowledge of the feeling of the people. A Government genuinely desirous of gauging the popular point of view at any crisis need only apply to the Benemerita for information. But so long as the Civil Governors who command the Civil Guard are appointed for party purposes and changed with every change in the Government, this means of contact between the Government and the governed will be neglected in the interests of party.

It must not be supposed that the Civil Guard talk in public about the duty with which they are entrusted. On the contrary, their non-committal attitude is always honourably maintained before their fellow-countrymen. But when I travel alone with them—for I frequently take a second-class ticket merely for the sake of their company—they are not unwilling to express an opinion on affairs in general, feeling secure that I, as an Englishman, can be trusted not to turn anything they may say to their disadvantage. Before Spaniards they are extremely reserved, but when the compartment is empty save for myself and them conversation runs easily.

I was struck by this one day when a hot-headed individual shouted his vehemently Radical views to a friend at the opposite end of the carriage. The second-class carriages in many parts of the country are only divided half-way up, so that it is not unusual to talk from one end to the other on country lines where simple manners prevail. The Radical knelt on his seat and his opponent stood up on his, and the passengers sitting between them chimed in at intervals. The Constitution was suspended at the time, and SeÑor Maura would certainly have had the whole company clapped into prison had he heard what was said. But the Civil Guards turned a deaf ear, affecting to be entirely absorbed in their cigarettes. Later on I took an opportunity of asking what they thought of the oratorical exhibition we had been favoured with.

“We think nothing at all, and that is just how much it is worth,” they said. “We know that gentleman very well, and he would no more commit an act of violence or an offence against the law than we would ourselves. But all Spaniards love talking, and if he could not relieve himself by that sort of gabble he might become a danger to the public peace. There are a fair number of his kidney scattered about the country, though they are chiefly to be found in the big northern cities. They revel in the nonsense spouted at Republican meetings and love to read out violent articles from the Pais and the Motin, but they are quite satisfied with talking. Very few indeed of them would fire a shot for what they call their principles. That is why we never take any notice of what they say before us in the trains or elsewhere. We know it means nothing and is an excellent safety-valve. If Maura had done as we always do—let them talk and take no notice—there would have been no riots in Barcelona. But Spaniards have hot tempers, and if you make them angry, trouble begins. What harm does their talk do to any one? You have only to reflect that they are pretty nearly all fathers of families, who know very well that any such revolution as they romance about would only make it ten times harder for them to earn a living for their children, and God knows it is hard enough already to live in our country. We have to eat beans and bread, and often don’t get enough even of that. Do you imagine that any working man wants civil war in the country to make his food dearer still? Ca! Let them talk! It amuses them and it makes no difference to the Government. Whichever party is in power the poor have the same difficulty in bringing up their families.”

The Civil Guards had to shut their ears to a good deal of conversation which the Ultramontane Government would have found it desirable to suppress, during the three months after the “Red Week” in CataluÑa; for the attitude of the people towards the priests and Religious Orders, not only in the North of Spain, but all over the country, became daily more aggressive, and I have frequently admired the tact and good temper with which members of that force contrived to do their duty and yet avoid fanning the embers of discontent into a blaze of passion.

It has been sometimes remarked to me that it is the Civil Guard who really govern Spain, and that without them anarchy would shortly ensue. So far as the maintenance of public order is concerned, there is a good deal of truth in this remark. They go quietly about their business, never interfering with any one unless there is need, but if there is, their intervention is immediately and conclusively efficacious. They are at once feared and respected, and it is only in extreme cases that resistance to them is ever attempted.