Imperialism on Credit.

The comment being made by many Portuguese on the re-election of 70-year-old Admiral Americo Tomas on July 25 for a new seven-year term of office as President was that his insistence on remaining in power could spring only from the naval tradition whereby the captain is expected to go down with his ship. Yet the tranquil facade of Portugal this past summer was such that the casual visitor could hardly have grasped the reasons for this sense of doom. The apathy of the Portuguese was partly caused by the re-election itself. When one reflects on the race between the various forces that make up Portuguese politics, fascism, capitalism, white separatism, racial supremacy on the one hand, and those of radicalism, African nationalism, liberalism, communism on the other, one wonders how long a regime embodied in a 76-year-old dictator can last.