Portugal is hampered by the necessity of having to buy abroad foodstuffs, particularly wheat and maize and fish (bought from Newfoundland and Norway). The value of the oil imported now exceeds that of coal which averaged before the World War about 1,000,000 to 1,5oo,000 tons, almost entirely bought from Great Britain. Cotton and woollen goods are also largely imported from Great Britain ; agricultural machinery comes mainly from the United States and Germany; and Belgium supplies most of the railway material. The following are the latest Portuguese fig ures: for the year 1926, general imports, 2,685,385 contos'; gen eral exports (including re-exports) 1,072,574 contos. In 1927, according to British figures, the British imports from Portugal amounted to exports to £3,889,703 ; re-exports to Portugal's principal manufacturing industry is the production of textiles, employing 45,00o work-people, half of whom are in the cotton factories of Oporto and district, the remainder being engaged in the wool, silk and linen industries. Other industries are the making of tiles and the embroideries of Madeira, the an nual export of which to the United States alone amounts to about L2,000,000.
On April 3o the monopoly of the tobacco industry came The conto of i,000 escudos is equal ( i929) to about 19.5s.
to an-end ; it was this burning question which was the main cause of the revolutionary movement in May 1926, which brought the dictatorship into power. The Government which came into office in May 1926 considered themselves compelled to establish free conditions for the industry, but were confronted with a difficult problem owing to the number of existing factories and large per sonnel. Under the new regime then established, the finance minister expected a revenue of at least two million sterling.
Finance.—Portuguese financial difficulties are due to causes which may be stated thus: ( One-half the national expenditure is devoted to the military establishment. (2) The tendency of wealthy Portuguese to send their capital abroad. (3) The hoard ing habits of the peasantry. (4) The large purchases of foodstuffs and raw materials from abroad. (5) Foreign liabilities like the debt to Great Britain, which was funded in 1927 on the basis of a present cash value of £5,500,000,—the debt actually amounting, with accumulated interest, to over £22,000,000. (6) The increase in the number of civil servants and in their emoluments.
During the first nine months of the financial year June 3o, 1926, to March 31, 1927, the total expenditure amounted to 1,468,486 contos, revenue falling short of this amount by contos, or five million sterling. The official estimate of the prob able deficit for the full year ending on June 3o, 1927, was 564,025 contos.
Throughout the centuries which witnessed the destruction of Carthaginian power by Rome, the establishment and decline of Latin civilization, the invasion by Alani, Suevi and other barbarian races, the resettlement under Visigothic rule and the overthrow of the Visigoths by Arab and Berber tribes from Africa, Portugal remained an undifferentiated part of Hispania, without sign of national consciousness. The Iberian Peninsula was one : and its
common history is related under SPAIN. In 1095 Portugal was still an obscure border fief of the kingdom of Leon, bounded on the north by the Minho, on the south by the Mondego. Its name (Portucalia, Terra portucalensis) was derived from the little sea port of Portus Cale or Villa Nova de Gaia, now a suburb of Oporto, at the mouth of the Douro. Its inhabitants, surrounded by Moor ish or Spanish enemies and distracted by civil war, derived the rudiments of civilization from Arabic or Leonese sources.
The history of the nation comprises eight periods. (r) Between 1095 and 1279 a Portuguese kingdom was established and extended until it reached its present continental limits. (2) Between 1279 and 1415 the monarchy was gradually consolidated in spite of re sistance from the Church, the nobles and the rival kingdom of Castile. (3) In 1415 began a period of crusades and discoveries, culminating in the discovery of an ocean-route to India (1497-99). (4) From 1499 to 158o Portugal acquired an empire stretching from Brazil eastward to the Moluccas, reached the zenith of its prosperity and entered upon a period of swift decline. (5) Spanish kings ruled over Portugal from 1581 to 1640. (6) The chief event of the years 1640 to 1755 was the restoration of the Portuguese monarchy. (7) Between 1755 and 1826 the reforms of Pombal and the Peninsular War prepared the country for a change from absolutism to constitutional monarchy. (8) In 1826 the era of constitutional government began.
Establishment of the Monarchy.—Among the crusading knights in Spain was Count Henry of Burgundy, an ambitious warrior who, in 1095, married Theresa, natural daughter of Al phonso VI., king of Leon. The county of Portugal, which had already been won back from the Moors (1055-64), was included in Theresa's dowry. Count Henry ruled as a vassal of Alphonso VI., whose Galician marches were thus secured against any sudden Moorish raid. But in 1109 Alphonso VI. died, bequeathing all his territories to his legitimate daughter Urraca, and Count Henry at once invaded Leon, hoping to add to his own dominions at the expense of his suzerain. At his death in 11I2 he left Theresa to govern Portugal north of the Mondego during the minority of her infant son Affonso Henriques (Alphonso I.) : south of the Mon dego the Moors were still supreme.