New Assembly

Signing. Pen poised, King Alfonso XIII hesitated, last week, over the signing of what is destined to become a historic document. At his side was Lieutenant General Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, Marquis de Estella, Grandee of Spain, Dictator under the ample title of President of the Council. His presence seemingly threw a dark shadow over the Spanish crown. The pen descended at the foot of the royal desk. It wrote: "Alfonso R."

History alone can determine the full significance of this act; opinion may condemn it as politically immoral. The document was signed, critics agree, not by a kingly king but by a puppet of the Dictator. Moreover, it was signed on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the suppression of the constitution and the virtual abolition of the Cortes (Parliament) (TIME, Sept. 24, 1923). In its implications it is clearly designed to perpetuate the Primo de Rivera regime.

Decree. The nature of the document was a royal decree convoking a National Assembly. It was supposedly the realization of a promise, now almost a year late, made by Dictator Primo de Rivera, to restore parliamentary government to Spain; actually it does no more than centralize the legislature in the hands of Primo himself. Its temper is typical of the revolt against democracy; its obvious aims are to institute a more efficient government, perhaps to emulate the Platonic conception of the state, modified to meet modern needs; but it goes no further than to cloak constitutionality with the mantle of despotism.

The decree calls for a purely consultative assembly composed of from 300 to 360 members of both sexes, all of whom will be appointed (not elected) by Primo. The members will be chosen from municipal bodies, from the ultra-conservative Patriotic Union, from representatives of the fields of commerce, science, arts, letters, agriculture, industry. They will have no power to pass legislature, but they may formulate legislative proposals, which Primo de Rivera may accept or reject as he sees fit.

For the most part they will work in committees, the functions of which will be purely advisory. A full assembly will meet for the last week in each month in six-hour sessions. Members will have full liberty of expression and freedom of speech, but no subject may be discussed for more than three hours, no speech may be longer than 20 minutes. All press reports of the assembly meetings will be subject to the censorship of Prime's Directorate.

The immediate task of the assembly will be to frame a new constitution which, it may be confidently anticipated, will "legalize" the dominion of the Dictator.

Crown. Most significant is the suggested legislation concerning the succession to the throne. It is reported that King Alfonso has agreed to empower the National Council (in other words Primo de Rivera) with the right to pick any member of the royal family as heir to the throne.

The reasons that appear to make this move authentic are to be seen in the sickly condition of the royal children. The present heir to the throne, Alfonso, the Prince of the , Asturias, 20, like many of Queen Victoria's descendants* through the Hesse-Darmstadt family, suffers from hemophilia (bleeding of the skin and its attendant disabilities); Prince Jaime, 19, is deaf; Prince Juan, 14, and Prince Gonzalo, almost 13, are mentally underdeveloped. All these little princes are pale and frail. It would be difficult to arrange marriages for them and inevitably the line of succession would be sure to pass to a collateral branch of the House of Bourbon.

It was said that Alfonso had agreed to have Prince Alfonso of Bourbon-Sicily, whose mother was the late Infanta Maria-de-las Mercedes, Queen of Spain until her brother's (King Alfonso) birth, named as heir to the throne.

Prince Alfonso is a dashing cavalier of 25. He has been a cavalry officer for nearly five years, is smart, hale, fond of sports. Al- though this report was denied in Madrid, it remains as indicative of the feeling bestirring liberal Spaniards concerning the Royal House.

Significance. In itself a change of the succession is unimportant, but it does serve to illustrate, according to able observers, how much the King is under the thumb of Primo. And what, it may be asked, has Spain and Alfonso gained? Spain has secured an honest if despotic government. In an economic sense Primo has done much for the country and his rule, like that of Benito Mussolini in Italy, may be justified on that ground. But, all said and done, the nation has fallen out of the frying pan into the fire; exchanged one evil for another. It has lost its political freedom, gained a military bondage. Primo may be an able soldier, but he is no statesman.

As for Alfonso, he has lost and is losing rapidly that overwhelming love and loyalty that most Spaniards had for him. The romanticism of his Don Juan days has given way to the chivalry of his Don Quixote temperament, which, in turn, has been clouded over by the suspicion that he is, after all, a weak imitation of Torquemada in the grip of Prime's inquisition.

*His mother, Queen Victoria of Spain, is the daughter of Princess Beatrice of Battenburg, (now Mountbatten), fifth daughter of Queen Victoria of Britain.