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The Spanish Directory and the Constitution
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
Extract
It is one of the surprising things in contemporary political science that at a time when what is known as “the pragmatic revolt in politics” is an outstanding phenomenon, and when lavish attention is being bestowed upon the histrionic adventures of Italy into the fields of political realism, the experiments of the Spanish Directory tend to be passed over without serious investigation. Spain has been treated as though her experiment were only a futile or less meaningful, slavish imitation of the work of Il Duce, as though the Iberian peninsula were witnessing only in parvo the monumental experiments of Fascism. This easy dismissal of the work of the Directory in Spain may be comforting in its simplicity, but it is a distinct over-simplification and an attempt to argue from analogy where the basic and essential elements of a similar situation are lacking. Merely the fact of dictatorship, merely the supposed association of an armed partisan force with the dictator in power, merely the fact of the abrogation of public liberties in each instance have been taken to constitute the essential elements of comparison and identification. The less dramatic character of the events in Spain has tended to obscure the far-reaching differences between the régimes centering in Rome and Madrid.
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- Foreign Governments and Politics
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- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1929
References
1 Cf. Conde de Romanones, Las Responsabilidaded Politicas del Antiguo Regimen, 1875–1923, especially Chaps. V and VII and Epilogue. “It may be affirmed that the parliamentary institutions in our country in no wise prejudiced its development nor furnished an obstacle to governmental programs….. The discussions in the Cortes served to awaken popular interest in political problems and inform the public about them. Furthermore, Parliament in Spain, as elsewhere, has been the sole check on royal authority and that of the Government.” (pp. 353–354).
2 Cf. Rodriguez, Pedro Sainz, “Interpretation Historica de la España Contemporanea,” Revista de las Espanas, Vol. III, pp. 251–3 (June-July, 1928)Google Scholar, and Legendre, Maurice, “Die Spanische Krise in Ihren Augenblicklichen Gestalt,” Europäische Revue, Vol. I, Pt. I, pp. 102–103 (1925)Google Scholar.
3 Rigid centralization, after the Restoration, made it possible to nip in the bud the conspiracies which had been inveterate in the preceding fifty years of Spanish politics. That, at least, stands to the credit of the constitutional régime. Cf. Desmond, R. T., “The Régime in Spain,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 2, pp. 458–459 (March 15, 1924)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 Mousset, Albert, L'Espagne dans la Politique Mondiale, pp. 16–18Google Scholar.
5 When the Speakers of the Chamber of Deputies and Senate appeared before King Alfonso on December 17, 1923, to inform him that the constitutional period was lapsing, they were dismissed from office by the monarch at the instigation of the dictator.
6 “In convoking the Assembly it was not thought, as some believed, to substitute it for the ancient Cortes, but to give the country an organ which, without having the essential characteristics common to every parliament, to legislate and share sovereign power, should collaborate, independently of the Executive Power, in the work of governing, drawing up general legislation in complete fashion which should in its proper time be submitted to the Legislative Power for approval. Other tasks entrusted to the Assembly include surveying the activities of the government, studying projects and proposals relative thereto, proposing economies in public expenditure, and inspecting the functioning of given services or organisms of the state, provinces, or municipalities.” Raventos, Manuel y Noguer, , “La Asemblea Nacional Española,” Revue de Droit International (Geneva), Vol. 5, pp. 321–328 (1927)Google Scholar.
7 Under the royal decree-law of September 12, 1927, the Assembly is composed of 400 members, selected for a three-year term, subject to certain safeguards. It represents, not territorial areas, but divers interests of the national life—scientific, economic, political, and financial. Apart from a sprinkling of outstanding figures of a non-political character, classed as “personal values,” its membership is composed of five main groups: (1) representatives of the municipalities of each province; (2) representatives of the provinces; (3) provincial representatives of the Patriotic Union—the only organized group of followers of the Directory, though not officially a political party; (4) representatives of the state, i.e., heads of the different branches of the administration, the higher clergy, the higher officers of the army, navy, and judiciary, together with representatives of various advisory boards; and (5) representatives of culture, production, labor, and commerce, designated by the government from among the members of the different agricultural, commercial, scientific, educational, economic, trade, and professional bodies, as well as from the ranks of farmers, business men, and industrialists. The first two categories are elected by the deputations of the ayuntamientos and provinces, respectively, from among their own membership. It will be recalled that these are now corporately representative bodies. Ministers of the crown cannot be members, although they participate freely in the Assembly's deliberations. Women as well as men belong to the Assembly, this being an unprecedented provision in Spain. Their presence clearly reveals that the stabilizing influences of religious conservatism were sought for by the Directory in deciding on the composition of the Assembly.
8 The real work of the Assembly is done in eighteen sections, containing at least eighteen members apiece, as follows: (1) Drafts of Constitutional Laws; (2) Proposals and Reports on Treaties, Agreements, and Concordats with other Countries or Powers; (3) National Defense; (4) Tariff Policy; (5) Codification of Civil, Penal, and Mercantile Law; (6) Laws of a Political Character; (7) The Régime of Property and its Use; (8) Tax System; (9) Production and Commerce; (10) Education and Instruction; (11) Examination and Classification of Credits …. whose origin antedated September 13, 1923; (12) Ordinary and Extraordinary Loans; (13) General Plans for Public Works; (14) Social, Sanitary, and Benevolent Work; (15) Administrative Reorganization and State Accounting Legislation; (16) Land, Sea, and Air Transport and Communications; (17) Extraordinary Pardons; (18) Political Responsibilities.
9 Cf. Graham, M. W., “The New Spanish Constitution,” Current History, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 644–647 (July, 1928)Google Scholar, for the text of the proposals and a brief commentary.
10 Eight elective members out of a total membership of forty-eight will have ten-year terms.
11 Article 37 of the draft constitution contemplates this.
12 “Who can doubt,” asks a French writer, “that when the dictatorship shall have been stabilized and the political rô1e of the corporative groups shall prove more important than their social rô1e, the royal government, enjoying a practically absolute power, will know how to avoid having the aspirations of the working classes run contrary to its designs? It would be infantile to believe the contrary. The corporative state has not been invented save to subject Spain to disciplines whose aim is to rid her of the ‘democratic virus.’” Cf. “La nouvelle constitution espagnole,” L'Europe Nouvelle, 11th year, No. 539 (June 9, 1928), pp. 796–798Google Scholar.
13 Like Bismarck, and unlike Mussolini, Primo de Rivera has not attempted to make a clean sweep of pre-existing national institutions, but has added or replaced institutionally the minimum compatible with his constitutional plans, and has allowed local and regional autonomy to have free course.