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Last week Portugal produced no big spot news ; it hadn't for 20 years ; it might not for 20 years more if the God he strove so hard to serve spared Antonio de Oliveira Salazar. For Salazar distrusted news. He suppressed and distorted it for the good of the Portuguese who, he believed, were unfit for facts. After 20 years of Salazar, the dean of Europe's dictators, Portugal was a melancholy land of impoverished, confused and frightened people. Even Salazar, that model of rectitude, showed signs of succumbing to a law of politics discovered by Lord Acton: "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts ab solutely."
The real news from Portugal was that another European dictatorship had failed, though it might hang on for years. In the way of dictatorships, it had stunned and shackled the wholesome forces that might have replaced it. Not only was Portugal at a new low point, it showed every sign of changing for the worse, perhaps slowly, perhaps by violent upheaval.
Success Story. Portuguese, however, looked happy enough last week as Lisbon turned out for the annual People's Fair (to aid Lisbon's numerous orphans). They rented boats on Palhava Park lake. They smeared their swarthy faces with spun sugar candy. They took pleasure in their jados ("songs of fate"), although these ditties are not always gay. Sample:
Barbarous and murderous mother, Pitiless, heartless, she Threw her daughters down a well Where they died in misery.
They bought from fisherwomen in Bedouin-like headdresses the Portuguese equivalent of hot dogs — grilled sardines. But the biggest crowds milled, with wistful eyes, around the U.S. pavilion, where wooden doll exhibits depicted typical scenes of life in the fabled, incredibly distant land of freedom.
If Portuguese had felt boastful instead of wistful, there was material for self-congratulation about their Government and their way of life. Britain, their old ally, banker and protector, now owed them £80,000.000. Spain, their old rival, was in the United Nations' doghouse, while Salazar, in spite of his anti-democratic sympathies, had pursued throughout World War II a serpentine policy whose final tack was enough in the Allies' direction to earn their tolerance, if not their approval. The Portuguese national budget, thanks to Salazar, was always balanced these days. (It had shown a deficit in 68 of the 70 years before 1928.) Portugal's exports were much higher than before the war; her merchant marine was about to double its tonnage and her fishing fleet was expanding. Portugal's shop windows were full of luxury goods unobtainable in most of Europe. Her currency unit, the escudo, was steady at four U.S. cents.
Unhappy Ending. Behind this glossy exterior of success, decay eats away at Portugal. Financial Wizard Salazar has not balanced the budgets of Portuguese families. Food prices have nearly doubled since 1939. One typical family with a monthly income of 1,200 escudos in May paid out 1,663 escudos for rent, food, clothing, water and light. Strictly controlled wages lag far behind. Government workers, especially important to a dictatorship, got a 25% increase in 1944 to meet a 112% rise in the retail price index.