THE TROUBLE IN SPAIN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2575, 9 August 1909, Page 5

THE TROUBLE IN SPAIN.

CABLE NEWS.

RIOTERS SUMMARILY DEALT WITH. ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY EXECUTIONS. n N ITICIJ I’ltliHH AhHOOIATION COI’YKIOH'I LONDON, August 5. The “Chronicle’is” correspondent at Barcelona, telegraphing through Cap Cerebere, Southern France, states that there are 1000 prisoners in Montju:ch fortress, Barcelona, mostly dupes of the loaders, and including women and hoys. Since the leading revolutionists escaped a court martial has been sitting all day, and rioters taken redhanded, or smelling of petroleum, or showing traces of gunpowder, are found guilty in a batch. A few hours later the “Daily Express” correspondent reported: One hundred and sixty people have been shot since July 31, by firing squads of 40 infantrymen, in the courtyard of the fortress. The executions took place in the presence of the garrison. The arrests continue, owing to some condemned persons accepting a respite in return for giving the authorities the names of revolutionists. MADRID, August 6.

The Government in Madrid has suspended money payments in lieu of personal service in the army.

The critical position in Spain appears to have developed with surprising rapidity. Little more than a week ago (savs the “Lyttelton Times”) w r e were in ignorance of the fact that the Spanish authorities were experiencing unusual difficulties in Morocco', and now, it seems, Spain is making a regular war against the Kaby’e tribesmen, while the populace in every Spanish city of importance is entering violent protests against the continuance of the campaign.* has held Melilla for more than four centuries, but her position on the Moorish coast has never been comfortable. The present trouble seems to be a repetition of that of 1893. For the better protection of the town from the Riff tribesmen, the Spanish erected a fort on the hills at the back. The tribesmen objected and attacked the engineers. As the Spaniards were enormously untnumbered, the position was serious, and for several months the seaport itself wag in danger. Ihe Spaniards lost heavily in the engagements without gaining ground. By day they shelled the Kabyie position, but by night the tribesmen always crept back again. In one sortie the Spanish commander was killed. After dragging on for nearlv a year, this “little war” was finally settled on a basis that involved no actual punishment of the tribes, and Spain rested content with the occupation of the town, attemoting no development of the hinterland. Lately, however, a railway has been pushed cautiously along the coast. The Kabylos again took up arms, murdered several platelayers and destroyed the railway works. Punitive forces sent out to punish the marauders have been ambushed, and the Spanish, with but 15.000 troops, have suffered severely in the fighting. According to a cable message there are 50,000 well-armed tribesmen in the neighborhood of Melilla. The normal strength of the Soanish garrison is probablv not more than 4000, so that it must have been increased before news of the affair reached the outside world. Now it is intended to send 50,000 troops to Melilla, and, remembering the disasters of 1893, the Spanish people are complaining bitterly of the campaign. As the army is raised by conscription, and the purchase of exemption from service is common, the burden of the service falls upon the poorer people. The southern provinces, of course were drawn upon first, and the unponularity of the war was shown by a riot in Malaga, the port from which the troops were being despatched to Melilla. . The Malaga riot gave the cue to other cities, and the republicans and Carlists, always ready to take advantage of the dimculties of the Government, have created disorders in almost every citv in the country. The strikes and riots of 1902 and 1903 showed how readily the revolutionary elements could be moved to action, and behind the protest against the Melilla campaign now there is doubtless the old revolutionary movement. Thero has been some improvement in the industrial conditions of the country in recent years, because British capital has‘been invested in various provinces, but, generally speaking, Spain remains to-day much* as it did when Sir H. Gilzean-Reid described it a few years * S The people have been suffering—all classes, and especially the workers — from a chronic poverty, produced by years of misgovernment, official corruption. wasteful expenditure, and indiscriminate taxation. In Catalonia, in Terez, and even in the neighborhood of Madrid, I found thousands of peasants starving and driven to the verge of madness by sheer hunger. It is no mere question of more wages or less; it is reduced to a matter of bread and the barest elements of existence. It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the misery or. the depth and dangers of the loiig-contintied suffering and discontent. Almost universally, the grandees have hopelessly left public life- to the placehunter or the more mercenary; whilst there is generally an utter lack of enterprise or trade development. Thus, one of the most fertile and richly endowed countries in the world is steadily and surely sinking into a condition of irrevocable decay. The circumstances of the people are always bad and often revolting. Meanly clad, poorly fed, living in wretched hovels, heavily taxed, bv the State and Commune and fleeced bv the Church, multitudes have been reduced to a condition of semibarbarism.

Every government that comes into Spain is unpopular, because the peasants attribute their misery always to tho State. If a government is acceptable to the South it is sure to bo unpopular in the North. The Carlist agitation, too. is simmering. Not even Russia harbors so many anarchists. Revolution in Spain, however, will not come so long as the army remains loyal to the throne. There is some reason to suspect that tho agitation against the Morocco war is being worked up deliberately with tho idea of inducing dissatisfaction in the army, but the censorship of telegrams from Spam leaves us in ignorance of the true position, and any discussion of the situation must be based largely on guesswork.