Politics and Social Changes 



as Rotativistas." The spoils of office do not 

 merely include official appointments and salaries; 

 they comprise numerous sinecures and less 

 reputable emoluments. Among the Rotati- 

 vistas there are doubtless men of high character 

 and complete incorruptibility ; there are also 

 men of another type. If the results were not 

 so serious there would be something irresistibly 

 comic about a Portuguese general election, in 

 which the party in power, having control of 

 the ballot boxes, is never beaten. In any case 

 the system is condemned by its effects. The 

 country is naturally rich, and its inhabitants, 

 if uneducated, are intelligent and hard-working ; 

 but owing to the rottenness of the Government, 

 assisted by a childishly absurd fiscal policy, in 

 itself a powerful instrument of corruption, it 

 is kept in a state of poverty, bordering on 

 bankruptcy, through which, indeed, it has 

 already passed. This was the system which 

 Franco with the King's support was striving 

 to overthrow ; his aim was to substitute for it 

 an honest administration with the honest col- 

 lection and the honest spending of public 

 money. Naturally he raised up bitter enemies 

 among those who saw their occupation gone, 



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