Monday, Jun. 29, 1931

Republic's Week

> Spain's Ambassador to the Holy See asked Pope Pius XI last week to recall Pedro Cardinal Segura y Saenz, Primate of Spain, from Spain.

His Holiness refused to recall His Eminence. Promptly the Spanish Government expelled Primate Segura y Saenz in a motor car.

Dumped into France, His Eminence said: "No respect was shown to my position as Primate of Spain nor to my character as a priest and a prince of the Church. I was treated as if I were a common criminal."

After visiting Pius XI in Rome, Cardinal Segura y Saenz returned to Spain "by stealth" according to the Spanish Government (TIME, June 22). Because in a pastoral letter he has extolled Monarchy and flayed the Republic, the Republic expelled Cardinal Segura y Saenz as "dangerous to the public safety."

> The Bank of France gestured confidence in Spain's Republican Government last week by granting a credit of 300,- 000,000 francs ($12,000,000) to the Bank of Spain. Purpose: to strengthen the weak Spanish peseta, keep it from slipping lower.

> This Sunday, June 28, Spaniards elect the first Parliament they have been permitted to elect since the late Dictator Primo de Rivera seized power in 1923.

Of the 1,500 candidates nominated throughout Spain last week "less than 20 are Monarchists" according to an Exchange Telegraph. Thus the new Parliament was expected to draft a Republican Constitution for Spain. But furious fights loom as to the character of the new Republic. Shall it be, as Catalonians and Basques demand, a union of federated states like the U. S. and Germany? Or shall it be, as central and southern Spaniards insist, a republic like France, highly centralized, composed not of sovereign states but of subordinate provinces?

> Jesting at the corpulence of ex-Queen Victoria Eugenie, Madrid's leading Socialist Daily El Socialista mocked last week: "But we hear from Mr. Bourbon [Alfonso XIII] that (in exile) the Queen is losing weight."

> The new "Great Madrid Bull Ring," largest in Spain and seating 26,000 bull-fans, was inaugurated last week with the first fight of a series which will last for 14 days "in celebration of the Republic."

Because the fights are a celebration, Spain's highest-paid bull despatchers are performing gratis.

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