Diário de Lisboa
- MERCHANT MARINE
- Just in case...
- IN Asnières
The Diário de Lisboa of 5 November 1926 ran an editorial on the merchant marine. It admitted it knew nothing of the work of a commission studying a Portuguese shipping line to Brazil, but hoped the commission would not meet a few times and then declare the problem insoluble. Such resignation, the paper warned, would hand victory to defeatism and condemn the country to the role of the vanquished, out of step with modern life. Beside it ran a short joke playing on the surname Paredes ('walls') and the saying that walls have ears. A short news item from the Paris suburbs told of a 56-year-old night watchman with a wooden leg who fell asleep beside a brazier at a timber yard and woke to find the leg burning.
Translation
MERCHANT MARINE
We know nothing of the work of the commission that is studying the possibility of establishing a shipping line to Brazil. The names of its members encourage us to believe that it will not meet fruitlessly a certain number of times only to come and tell us one day: "We have considered the matter from every angle and have reached the conclusion that the problem is insoluble." Defeatism would triumph, but our country, resigning itself, convincing itself that inaction is its destiny, would condemn itself to the role of the vanquished — in total disharmony with the rhythm of modern life.
Just in case...
— How ugly Paredes' sisters are...
— Hush, man, the "walls" have ears...
IN Asnières
In Asnières, a certain Le Mahou, 56 years old, living in the rue du Mesnil, had a wooden leg. As he was the night watchman at a timber yard in Neuilly, and it was very cold, he sat down beside a brazier and fell asleep. Late in the night he woke in great pain: his wooden leg had burned and the fire was already reaching his flesh.
Context
Portugal's state fleet came from ships seized in 1916
The editorial's call for a national line to Brazil rested on a fleet history that began with war. The Transportes Marítimos do Estado were created in 1916, when Portugal entered the First World War, to maintain and operate ships confiscated from Germany. The seizures took 72 German and Austro-Hungarian ships, and Germany declared war on Portugal on 9 March 1916. Portugal kept only 20 of the seized ships, about 35% of total tonnage. It gave the rest to Britain, France, Italy and Belgium. The ships strengthened the Portuguese merchant navy, but 38% of them were sunk by German submarines or lost in maritime disasters. When the paper asked in 1926 for a national service to Brazil, this seized and much-reduced fleet was the state's own shipping capacity from the preceding decade.
The state shipping line was dismantled after the 1922 fiasco
By the time the editorial appeared, the state no longer ran its own shipping line. Luís Miguel Correia and Rui Reis, in a 2024 history reviewed by Observador, call the President's 1922 trip the TME's most notorious fiasco. President António José de Almeida arrived at the 1922 independence celebrations in Brazil ten days late because the ship Porto kept breaking down and was fuelled with poor coal. Almeida chose to come home on a British ship and decided to close the public company and auction its fleet. The auctions of the TME's ships opened an unprecedented commercial rivalry among private owners. One former TME ship, the ex-German Machico, was sold to the Sociedade Geral in 1925 and renamed Luso. Private firms founded in the same years included the Companhia Colonial de Navegação, set up in Angola on 3 July 1922 to serve the colonies. The commission the paper discussed was therefore weighing a Brazil service just after the state had stopped operating ships itself.
Portuguese lines to Brazil had failed before
There was precedent for the editorial's fear that the problem would be declared insoluble. The Companhia de Navegação a Vapor Luso-Brasileira, founded in Porto in 1852, lasted no more than four years on the Rio de Janeiro run against subsidized British and French competitors. A company planned to open a Luso-Brazilian line with the royal family aboard in April 1908, but the regicide stopped that too. At the end of the nineteenth century, foreign shipping profited enormously from heavy Portuguese emigration to Brazil and the United States. Correia and Reis describe Portugal's own ships before the First World War as far too few for the country's needs, leaving it dependent on foreign shipping. In 1926 the Portuguese merchant fleet carried little more than a tenth of the country's maritime transport. When the paper tied inaction to the role of the vanquished, it was writing against this record of failed lines and foreign dependence.
An emigrant line to Brazil collapsed in the 1929 crisis
The editorial itself said it knew nothing of the commission's work, and the available record does not trace what the commission concluded. Correia and Reis report that efforts to expand Portuguese shipping, such as a line carrying emigrants to Brazil, collapsed with the financial crisis of 1929. The review does not say whether that line grew out of the 1926 commission, so a direct link remains unestablished. The paper hoped the problem would not be declared insoluble, yet at least one such attempt, the emigrant line, did not survive the 1929 crisis.
Original
MARINHA MERCANTE
Nada sabemos dos trabalhos da comissão que estuda a possibilidade de se estabelecer uma carreira de navegação para o Brasil. Os nomes que a compõem animam-nos a crer que não reunirá esterilmente, umas tantas veses, para um dia nos vir dizer: - Encarámos o assunto sobre todos os aspectos e chegamos á conclusão de que o problema é insoluvel. O derrotismo triunfaria, mas o nosso pais, resignando-se, convencendo-se de que a inação é o seu destino, condenar-se-ia a um papel de vencido - em desharmonia total com o ritmo da vida moderna.
A' cautela...
- Que feias são as irmãs do Paredes... - Cala-te, homem, que as " paredes " teem ouvidos...
EM Asnières
EM Asnières, um tal Le Mahou, de 56 anos, morador na rua do Mesnil, tinha uma perna de pau. Como era guarda nocturno duma estancia de madeiras, em Neuilly, e fazia muito frio, sentou-se junto dum brazeiro, adormecendo. Alta noite acordou com uma grande dôr: a sua perna de pau tinha ardido e o fogo chegava-lhe já ás carnes.