PORTUGAL: President & Professor

In Lisbon scholarly Professor Antonio de Oliveira Salazar has been the ”Brain Trust” of President Antonio Oscar de Fragoso Carmona for six years. The President, a rough cavalry general with an intuitive knack of nipping revolutions, calls his regime pleasantly a “Dictatorship without a Dictator.” Last July the Professor, long Finance Minister, was promoted to Premier. Together he and President Carmona have issued many queer but wise decrees. In more prosperous times they clapped terrific taxes on Portuguese industry, built up a strong Treasury reserve. Recently finding that bus competition was injuring the State Railways, the President was prompted to issue a characteristic decree. Bus rates hereafter must be 15% more than the corresponding third-class railway fare.

Last week President and Professor indulged in a pardonable boast. For the fifth consecutive year, they announced, the budget of Portugal proper shows a surplus and so do the budgets of Portugal’s colonies. As a great surprise and respite for Portuguese businessmen, the Government announced a 10% tax cut on buildings of all kinds.