PORTUGAL: Audacious Pageant

With all the audacity of a squirrel that finds a nut and then points to it instead of hiding it, diminutive Portugal last week rashly called attention to herself and her empire-fourth largest area in the world-by proclaiming a six-month festival to celebrate the Sooth anniversary of her independence and the tercentenary of her restoration following 60 years under Spain.

Her possessions are menaced by greedy giants on the warpath and her defense forces are limited to 165,000 soldiers and 35 small warships, but she called upon her colonies throughout the world to join in a mammoth pageant of peace and progress which she hopes will continue for the next six months.

The celebration was ushered in officially when the massed ships of the Portuguese Navy, an American squadron and a Brazilian warship joined in a series of 21-gun salutes that shattered windows throughout the Lisbon harbor district. Then followed a solemn Te Deum in the Lisbon Cathedral with the Knights of Malta in their scarlet tunics, Army and Navy officials in dress uniform, city fathers in robes of office, and the gold-braided Diplomatic Corps carefully arranged to keep belligerent envoys apart. President General Antonio Oscar de Fragoso Carmona shared prominence in the Cathedral with General Francisco Jose Pinto, special envoy from onetime colony Brazil; Nicolas Franco, Spanish Ambassador and brother of El Caudillo, and British Ambassador Sir Walford Harmood Montague Selby. To cheering mobs outside His Eminence Emmanuel Cardinal Gonc,alves Cerejeira read a Papal Bull dated 1179 recognizing the full independence of Portugal.

Kaleidoscopic Cavalcade. Hero of the celebration was Alfonso I, who in 1139 defeated the Moors at Campo de Ourique, liberated his country and became its first king. According to pious tradition, his Army was reinforced by a legion of militant angels. From then on the history of Portugal became a kaleidoscopic cavalcade of conquest, exploration, staggering defeat, decline, intrigue and adversity. With barely 1,500,000 inhabitants, by Papal Bull Portugal in 1494 divided the entire world with Spain, drawing an imaginary line from the North to the South Pole 370 leagues west of Cape Verde and leaving all land discovered west of it to Spain, while taking all to the east for herself.

As Portugal’s famous explorers, Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco da Gama, Pedro Alvares Cabral and Ferdinand Magellan, extended the horizons of the world, Portugal became the great European mart for silks, spices, precious metals and gems from the Indies. Reaching her zenith by 1580, she began rapidly to decline, fell under Spanish rule for 60 years until a revolution in 1640 restored her independence. Napoleon drove her ruler to Brazil in 1807 and in 1822 that country declared its independence. Her possessions plucked away by oncoming nations, she saw her great empire shrink and her prestige wane. Her last king, an indoor sport who gave up all for Actress Gaby Deslys, was deposed in 1910 and after a short revolution a republic was proclaimed. Between 1910 and 1926, 40 Governments and 18 revolutions followed in rapid succession. Then the Army took control, placed General (now President) Carmona in power, and paved the way for the totalitarian Estado Novo under a tight-fisted dictator, Premier Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.

A shrewd business and administrative expert, Salazar, who once studied for the priesthood and still leads a monastic life, in 1928 balanced Portugal’s budget for the first time since 1914 by taxing business to the hilt while assisting struggling landowners. An admirer of Mussolini and Franco, he has nevertheless loyally affirmed Portugal’s alliance with England, which in one form or another has existed since 1373. In 1939, despite pressure from the dictators, he publicly proclaimed Portugal’s “full fidelity to the British alliance.”

Last week, as pious Premier Salazar expressed his conviction that “in the present condition of Europe it is God’s gift that is keeping certain zones free from war,” many Portuguese ardently desiring to stay out of the present struggle saw in the alliance with England a millstone tied to Portugal’s neck. After serving her for 567 years, it might easily drag her to disaster if General Franco decides to follow Mussolini in seeking victory with Hitler.