PORTUGAL 1123 



who act as Such in Portugal. All present bequests to religious bodies are annulled, and 

 all such bequests are in future illegal. Local and national taxes are imposed on all 

 ecclesiastical property, whether freely granted by the State or otherwise held such 

 taxes to be paid by the corporation acting as trustee. No minister of any religion may 

 take part in any act of public worship without permission from the competent secular 

 authority, except those who by international convention or very ancient usage possess 

 the right to conduct religious services within their own churches. This last clause of 

 the Decree was introduced to meet the case of the foreign religious communities. 



The value of the Church property confiscated under the Decree was 6,000,000 a 

 smaller sum than had been anticipated. Immediately after its publication the Embassy 

 to the Vatican was suppressed, but it was afterwards replaced by a Legation. On May 

 5, a representative meeting of the Portuguese clergy .was held in Lisbon, under the 

 Presidency of the Patriarch, Mgr. Mendes Bello. The bishops had icfused any stipend 

 from the State, but could not secure any other maintenance for the rural clergy, some of 

 whom preferred the State allowance to destitution. The result was a Papal Encyclical 

 denouncing the Provisional Government, and declaring the Separation Law null and 

 void. On May 23, a further protest was issued, in the form of leaflets distributed 

 broadcast throughout Portugal, while a month later the Patriarch of Lisbon and the 

 Bishop of Guarda issued a second Pastoral, forbidding the clergy to accept the State 

 stipend due on the first of July 1911. By the 6th of August, however, about 1,200 priests 

 out of a total of approximately 6,000 had petitioned the Government to pay them their 

 official stipends, which were of the average value of 111. 



Towards the close of 1911 the Government decided to take action against the 

 bishops. On the 26th of November the Bishop of Guarda, Mgr. Viera de Mattos, was 

 expelled from his see for having consistently advocated resistance to the Separation 

 Law. The Vatican then forbade those priests who had accepted the State stipend to 

 continue doing so, but this order was largely disobeyed. On the 29th of December the 

 Patriarch, the Bishop of Guarda and the Administrator of the diocese of Oporto were 

 ordered to leave their districts within five days and 'forbidden to return for two years, 

 and on the 6th of January 1912 a similar sentence was pronounced against the Bishop 

 of Algarve. All emoluments were withdrawn from the Lisbon priests who had signed 

 a declaration of fidelity to the Patriarch. The bishops and Patriarch appealed in vain 

 to President Arriaga, who referred them to the Ministers. Many of the foreign Congre- 

 gations remonstrated through their diplomatic representatives against certain disabili- 

 ties imposed by the Separation Law, and the Government promised that it should be 

 revised at the earliest convenient date. 



The Political Trials. Special tribunals were instituted in Lisbon and Oporto, in 

 January 1911, to try cases of political conspiracy, arid insults to the national flag and the 

 President. Since then all persons suspected of reactionary opinions, religious or 

 political, have been in danger. Their houses have been invaded by spies, their corre- 

 spondence opened. Thousands of innocent persons have been summarily arrested, 

 without the formulation of any definite charge, and have been confined for many 

 months in subterranean dungeons, where they have been herded with the vilest crimi- 

 nals. The chief instrument of this widespread system of espionage and terrorism has 

 been the organisation of the Carbonarios. This powerful secret society had a large 

 share in the revolution by which the Monarchy was overthrown. It has since assumed 

 the functions of an unofficial police force, and has at times proved itself strong enough 

 to attack the Republican Government and the army. Its members, who carry arms, are 

 Republicans of the most extreme type; many have also joined its ranks in order to gratify 

 some personal dislike, or to secure the rewards given to successful informers. It is thus 

 a body composed of dangerous fanatics and criminal adventurers. And it has arrogated 

 to itself the power of summary arrest. 



Senhor Joao Chagas, the first Republican Prime Minister, estimated that on October 

 23, 1911, there were 2,000 political prisoners awaiting trial, of whom 700 were innocent. 

 In the following January the number had been largely augmented. So notorious was 



