The Lid Clamped Tight

"A boiling pot will blow its lid off if it is too tight," said a Spaniard explaining Barcelona's recent cost-of-living strike riots (TIME, March 19). Last week the lid was tightly clamped back on Barcelona.

Governor Baeza Alegria, who had ordered hundreds of arrests, was replaced by Air Force General Felipe Acedo Colunga, remembered as a ruthless court-martial prosecutor following the 1934 revolt of Asturian miners. Last week Barcelona shops opened, workmen went back to their jobs, and the 15,000 police wandered about the streets, weapons conspicuously visible.

Convertibles or Tractors? Not one of the arrested strikers had been found in possession of firearms, not one shot had been fired by the mob. No one had shouted: "Down with Franco!" The strike had been spread by 12,000 enlaces (literally: links), low-echelon labor leaders in the Falange-controlled unions, and the strikers had been drawn from all classes of people: Catholic youth, former Red labor organizers, shopkeepers and shoeshiners. Their common grievance: since 1926, living costs had risen twice as fast as wages.

Because the strike was also a protest against official corruption and black marketeering, many employers were sympathetic. They encouraged their workers to strike, promising them full wages. One pro-strike employer, Esteban Roaes Marin, head of the Compania Industrial Metalurgica, was among those arrested after the strike.

On Barcelona walls this week, strike slogans could still be seen that accurately described the spirit behind the outburst: No somos Comunistas. Solamente queremos comer--We are not Communists. We only want to eat--and Franco, Si. Straperlistas, No.--Franco, Yes. Black-marketeers, No.

In Madrid a few days before the strike, a newspaper called Voz Social, published by Juan Aparicio Lopez, Falangist editor of the official trade-union organ, Pueblo, made its first (and probably its last) appearance. It violently attacked social and economic conditions under the banner heading: "Clothing, shelter and homes can wait--but food cannot." The Voz Social editorial pointed out that through the offices of ministerial employees, it was a simple matter for black marketeers to obtain import licenses for splendid American convertibles, while farmers were unable to get licenses for tractors; that the building of hospitals and low-price houses had been halted by lack of material, while luxurious apartment houses and private mansions mushroomed in Madrid. Barcelona had not read that kind of talk for years. The 50,000 copies which reached the city were immediately snapped up, helped build the strike spirit.

Housecleaning or Harshness? Franco had two courses open to him: 1) house-cleaning of all corrupt influences in government; 2) harsher police repression of all signs of discontent. Franco seemed to be taking the course of repression. At week's end Foreign Minister Alberto Martin Artajo told the Spanish cabinet that the Barcelona strike had stepped up an "anti-Spanish offensive abroad by the Communist press and radio." The cabinet appointed Rafael Hierro Martinez, a friend of Franco, to be Inspector General of the Armed Police, charged him with preventing uprisings in the Barcelona pattern.

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