departure within 24 hours, and thereupon had a Royal Decree signed forbidding submarine navigation in Spanish waters. The next incidentof the kind was the escape of " Us3," which had been interned in Cadiz under the above Royal Decree. The escape appears to have been due to an excessive amount of trust in the German commander on the part of the Spanish naval authori- ties, whom the Government promptly deprived of their com- mands. On the initiative of the Romanones administration a treaty had been negotiated in London between the Marques de Cortina and the English Government. This agreement was signed on Dec. 6. Its importance consisted in that it legalized, in the eyes of the pro-Germans, all trade with England, which received food and ore in exchange for coal. Torpedoings con- tinued all the same, and the Spanish Government sent strongly worded notes on the sinking of the s.s. " Giralda " and the s.s."Du- que de Genova " (1918). The s.s. " Larrinaga " was torpedoed while conveying petrol from New York to Santander, on a Government charter (July 25 1918), and thereupon the Spanish Government, alarmed at the heavy losses sustained by the mer- chant marine, decided to apply to Germany the claim of ton' for ton. This was the high-water mark of anti-submarine methods adopted by the Spanish Government. Germany had agreed to the ton-for-ton indemnity when the end of the war came. The Spanish merchant marine had lost 65 ships repre- senting 140,000 tons.
From the material point of view, the neutral attitude adopted
by Spain contributed " to accelerate the progress which was
observable in her economics in the pre-war years.
industrial Th; s period of exceptional activity comprises two
Effects of . . j r\ ..-c. i
the War. coincident movements. One is a somewhat artificial "inflation " of Spanish industries, due to the de- mand of the Allies. The other one is the mere continuation of a development already noticeable before the war. Thus certain industries, really national, such as that of olive oil, succeeded at last in establishing themselves in foreign markets. The effect of the war on the country was therefore neither altogether bad nor altogether good. While it served to stimulate a progress which had already set in, it also created artificial conditions which contributed much to social unrest by flooding the country with money too easily earned.
Count Romanones did not precisely find in Paris in 1919 the diplomatic triumph which he had expected, but neither did he return wholly disappointed. He brought back a seat in the Council of the League of Nations for Spain. He found the country astir with a mixture of two political currents, one a democratic, constitutional agitation, born of the Allied victory, another one a revolutionary agitation which could be traced to the unwholesome effect of the Juntas' pronunciamientos. The main effect of these two movements was felt in Barcelona, and was represented by Catalanist propaganda, a military under- current of opposition to it, and lastly a syndicalist Barcelona? a gitation which made the two former forget their mutual enmity and unite against it. Two sets of events suddenly revealed the power of the syndicalist agitation: a general strike which paralysed the whole life of the town, and a series of murders of employers. The Government played with two policies. It militarized the strikers, then tried to conciliate them by sending to Barcelona three liberal-minded civil authori- ties Sefior Morote, Senor Montanes (Civil Governor) and Senor Doval (Chief of Police). A violent conflict arose between the military and the civil authorities, and when the strike had been settled by the latter, the Government suddenly resigned. It was known afterwards that this resignation was due Fall of to the military having expelled the civil authorities nones" * rom l ^ e town - Senor Maura took office on April Govern- iS> asked for a decree dissolving the Cortes, and to meat. the consternation of all parties, obtained it. This amounted almost to a coup d'etat on the part of the King. After a general election held under a strict censorship, un- der the protest of all the Left parties (including the Monarchical Liberals), and with the use of electioneering methods which had fortunately been long forgotten in Spain, Senor Maura failed to
five Cabi- net under Sanchez de I oca.
bring to the new Cortes more than about one-eighth of its total membership under his banner. His Government fell scandalously under a discussion of his electioneering methods (July 15), and Senor Sanchez de Toca (Senor Dato being ill), formed a Conser- vative Cabinet, which had to deal with a grave situation in Barcelona, where syndicalist trouble was again brew- ing. But a new outburst of the Juntas forced the Gov- Coaserva- ernment to resign, and Senor Allendesalazar (a follower of Senor Maura) took office with a Coalition Cabinet. The change of policy which the change of Cabinet implied determined an aggravation of the conflict. Murders continued. A mutiny organized by syndicalist soldiers took place in a barracks in Saragossa. Disorders broke out in Valencia and Santander. Another militaristic outburst, the publication of secret letters by Gen. Milans del Bosch (Capt. -General of Catalonia) and the subsequent dismissal of that officer by the Government, which in its turn caused the res- ignation of Senor Gimeno, imposed by the military, ended the life of the Cabinet, which, having passed the Budget, left office on March 4 1920. Two schools of thought manifested themselves then: one favourable to occasional coalitions, taking office in order to carry out definite programmes, another one favouring the reconstruction of the old system of two rotating parties. The King favoured this second school, represented by Senor Dato and Senor Garcia Prieto, and the former was called to power. But the general election which he called forth at the end of 1920 showed that the main- spring of that old system i.e. the docility of the electorate to any kind of government could no longer be counted upon. Senor Dato failed to obtain a working majority, his sup- porters numbering 177 members out of 405. All his efforts were accordingly bent towards the reconciliation of the several factions within the Conservative party. While engaged in this task he was assassinated by anarchists on March 8 1921.
SPANISH LITERATURE
The dominant feature of Spanish contemporary literature in 1910-21 may be found in an effort to achieve the fusion of the critical with the creative element in the race (see S. de Madariaga, " Introduction to Spanish Contemporary Literature," London Mercury, Sept. 1920). With the death of Galdos, the sceptre of Spanish literature falls on Miguel de Unamuno (b. Bilboa, 1864), a professor of Greek in the university of Salamanca, a voracious reader, familiar with all European, American and classical litera- ture, and an indefatigable writer. Unamuno represents the modern version of the Spanish mystic writer. His main concern is the relation of man to creation. It is the subject of his master- piece El Sentimiento Trdgico de la Vida, a book of passionate meditation, and, at any rate as an attitude of mind, it dominates his criticism (En torno al Casticismo, Ensayos), his novels (Abel Sdnchez, Tres Nowlas y un Pr6logo) and his plays (Fedra) . In these works Unamuno appears as the apostle of an ideal of life more closely connected with spiritual Easternism than with the intellectual and social tenets of the West. He thus fulfils in Spain much the same function which Dostoievsky held in Russia, for Spain, like Russia, stands as a transition between East and West. His ideal is in intensity rather than in extension, in indi- vidual achievement, the saving of one's soul, rather than in social work and collective material progress. His style corre- sponds to his beliefs. It reminds one of Carlyle's in that it is written with the whole man's being, body and soul, but it is never eloquent and rhetorical; rather does it tend to conversa- tional familiarity and evinces now and then a proclivity towards being led to new thoughts by the mere shuffling of words.
Should we care to complete the parallel with Russia by finding a Spanish westerner to oppose to Unamuno, as Turgueniev stands to Dostoievsky, a younger man than the Basque master, Jos6 Ortega y Gasset (b. 1883), would have to be mentioned. A professor of Philosophy at the university of Madrid, Senor Ortega y Gasset is a refined humanist, strongly influenced by German contemporary neo-Kantian schools of thought. His style is naturally polished and his mind penetrating and acute.
