to bribery, Maura declared ‘the orgy is over’. In the event, the law never got beyond his well-intentioned proposal.44
The electoral law was over-complicated (it had 409 clauses) and riddled with loopholes. Article 29, for instance, permitted the direct election of unopposed candidates, a gift to powerful caciques. In 1910, Article 29 permitted 119 seats in the Cortes, more than a quarter of the total, to be ‘elected’ without opposition; in 1923, the same procedure permitted the ‘election’ of 146 deputies. At a local level, there simply did not exist the machinery to ensure that the law was implemented. Maura’s Liberal opponent, José Canalejas, pointed out that, in a country where, on average, over 40 per cent of the electorate was illiterate, rising to 70 per cent in the rural south, it was necessary first to educate the masses. The levels of illiteracy substantiated Costa’s accusation that caciquismo kept the bulk of the population in ignorant servitude. Maura would face the same problem that had confronted Cánovas when he first elaborated the system in 1876 – what to do if the masses voted for left-wing options. Moreover, like others before him, he was more concerned to control working-class discontent than to open the system to participation by the lower classes.45 The projected law of local administration which aimed to give municipalities independence from central government was weighed down in the Cortes with amendments and was never passed.46
Maura was a firm monarchist and Spanish patriot. Although born in Mallorca, he was hostile to Catalan nationalism. He was confident that he could exploit the divisions within Solidaritat Catalana. His commitment to political reform and determination to put an end to terrorism appealed to the industrialists of the Lliga. He thus established a close understanding with Cambó. Since his draconian law-and-order proposals were opposed by the Republicans within Solidaritat Catalana, they hastened the break-up of the coalition. In fact, the irony of Maura’s ambitious plans to eliminate electoral fraud was that they damaged the interests of both the Liberal and Conservative Parties and boosted the challenges coming from the Lliga, the Radicals and the Socialists. Moreover, La Cierva’s introduction of a fierce anti-terrorist law was abandoned after it provoked massive hostility and, along with opposition to the Moroccan war, inspired an anti-Maura campaign with the popular slogan ‘Maura No’.47
The social conservatism of the dominant elements of Solidaritat Catalana permitted Lerroux to spin his anti-Catalanism into a cynical bid for working-class support. In line with his declaration of support for the army officers who had attacked the Catalanist media in November, Lerroux had been at war with Solidaritat Catalan since its creation. His followers stoned their meetings and smashed the presses of Catalanist publications. On 18 April 1907, the car taking Nicolás Salmerón and Cambó to an electoral meeting of Solidaritat Catalana was ambushed. Salmerón was unharmed but Cambó was shot and badly wounded. It was widely believed that Lerroux or his supporters were behind the attack. Although nothing was ever proved, it is likely that the revulsion against Lerroux’s supporters contributed to the electoral victory of Solidaritat.48
Lerroux was in an ambiguous position. The constituency to which he hoped to appeal was the increasingly militant working class and the recently arrived immigrant population which, like himself, was anti-Catalan. However, as a fervent supporter of the army which was the principal instrument of the repression of the working class, he was vulnerable to losing followers to the anarchists. In a desperate bid to clinch left-wing support, on 1 September 1906, in the Unión Republicana newspaper La Rebeldía, Lerroux published his notorious article ‘¡Rebeldes!, ¡rebeldes¡’ which contained an appeal that was to bestow greater notoriety on him:
Young barbarians of today, enter and sack the decadent and miserable civilization of this unhappy country; destroy its temples, finish off its gods, lift the veil of the novice nuns and raise them up to the status of mothers to make the species more virile. Break into the property registries and make bonfires of its papers that fire might purify the odious social organization. Enter the homes of the humble and raise legions of proletarians so that the world might tremble before its awakened judges.49
It is difficult to know what impact this semi-pornographic appeal had, particularly on illiterate immigrant workers. Henceforth, Lerroux would go to considerable trouble to distance himself, usually physically, from incidents that might have been blamed on his rabble-rousing.
While the three-way struggle between Solidaritat Catalana, Madrid and Lerroux rumbled on, terrorism remained an issue in Barcelona. In the winter of 1906, since no arrests had been made as a result of information from Rull, Francisco Manzano told him that he would pay only on results. Rull was furious and, unsurprisingly, bombs started to be planted not only by Rull but also by his gang, which included members of his family. His main accomplice was his mother, Maria Queraltó. Between Christmas Eve 1906 and late January 1907, six bombs went off, killing one person and injuring eleven.50 When Antonio Maura’s Conservative government came to power in January 1907, his tough new Minister of the Interior, Juan de la Cierva, dismissed Manzano and replaced him with the brilliant young lawyer Ángel Ossorio y Gallardo. Both La Cierva and Ossorio were determined to resolve the terrorist problem. However, they faced two main problems. In the first place, the judiciary was reluctant to give harsh sentences as a result of international campaigns in favour of the accused which were often backed up by threats of violent retaliation. Efforts were made to put pressure on the judges and a more authoritarian anti-anarchist law, known as the Ley Maura, was prepared. However, this produced a welter of opposition and undermined the prestige of Maura’s government. Thus the issue of the laxity of the judiciary remained unresolved.51 The other problem was the inefficiency and corruption of the police.
On 31 January, the day after his arrival in Barcelona, Ossorio wrote to La Cierva that the police force that had awaited him ‘is mainly comprised, not of villains, but of poor devils who haven’t a clue what they are supposed to do. If blind justice were to be carried out, the whole lot should be sacked … Strong measures should be taken soon.’ Despite removing the most incompetent officers and generally raising standards, Ossorio faced internal obstruction from the old guard led by Tressols. Moreover, the daunting task of reforming a corrupt and shambolic police force also involved clearing the ground of networks of informers and parallel organizations.52
Rull offered his services to the new Civil Governor who, desperate for any means to put an end to terrorism, accepted. At this point, the bombs stopped. Rull had assembled a sizeable band of what he claimed were investigators and informers. In reality, it was a gang of hangers-on and potential bombers. He became over-confident in what was essentially blackmail, demanding more and more money for their pay and for travel and maintenance expenses. In early April 1907, Ossorio, tired of the lack of results and beginning to suspect that Rull was behind the bombs, offered only half the amount demanded. Rull responded that he had to pay in order ‘to avoid something really big’. In fulfilment of the threat, two bombs went off on 8 April. In early July, to the delight of many anarchists in Barcelona, Ossorio issued orders for the police to arrest Rull, his brother Hermenegildo, his mother and father and other members of his gang. They were accused of responsibility for the eight incidents in December 1906 and January and April 1907 and for the accompanying blackmail. In fact, during that period, there were other terrorist acts. Accordingly, in addition to the belief that Rull’s gang and other anarchists were responsible, contradictory suspicions circulated.
In a letter to La Cierva, Ossorio listed his suspects:
The anarchists themselves, so as to ruin, without running any risks, a powerful bourgeois society. The lerrouxistas, as a weapon against the Catalan nationalists. The separatists, as a means of wrecking the authority of the State (some distinguished and serious-minded members of the Unión catalanista have long maintained that Catalan national identity cannot be revived until after the present Catalan well-being is destroyed). Renegade anarchists, in order to harm their comrades. Greedy men, like Morales and Rull, for their own convenience. Some of these have been behind the bombs; perhaps several have been; perhaps all. But the hands that held them, the professionals of crime, the experts on explosions, we should seek nowhere but among the anarchist rabble … If these mercenaries did not exist, their paymasters would not find it so easy to hire them.53
Tressols and the Lerrouxistas claimed that the separatists were to blame but no proof has ever been found.54 There were many Catalanists