Dyuoldu M Euyi

Costa’s criticss to Restoration



This text is an article written by Joaquin Costa. He was considered the creator of the regenerationism. It was written in 1901 (this year began Alphonse XIII’sgovernment after a long regency and the Cuba’s disaster). The main idea of the article was to critic the restoration of the political system. It’s important to say that is a first level text.

Thesituation of the country after 1898 was not good. Some attempts were made to control the government; the conclusion of this was to restore the dynasty. The restoration settlement was based in threethings. The first one was the monarchy (here we have to mention Alphonse XII and Alphonse XIII). Other thing that should be taken into account was the 1876’s constitution; this was a moderate one. Thelast thing that the restoration was based in, was the Dynastic parties’ turn. There were rigging elections. Both parties were governing; the conservatives (the leader was Canovas) and the liberals(where it’s leader was Sagasta). As a conclusion of all those things, the people in the government realised that there was a need of changes; people in Spain realised that the governing system was notworking as it should. As there was need of changes, the regions in Spain tried to create a federal state. And to finish, it’s important to mention the worker’s movement that was linked with thedevelopment industries.

The first thing Joaquin Costa did, was to analise the government’s system and though about why was it not working. The factors in the Restoration system were those: The politicianslived in Madrid, so there was a oligarchy, (rich people were all politicians, so, the control of the country was in hands of rich people, so, that way, there was a very limited suffrage.). Thelandowners used the caciquism. There was another group and those were the civil governors. Those were the linkers between the first group (politicians) and the second group (landowners). In spite of all this...