Tit for Tat

Half a million pesetas ($76,350) were extorted last week in Madrid from that long-lived paragon of infamy and extortion, General Don Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, 87, Marquis of Teneriffe and Duke of Rubi, backer of the suppressed "Old Man's Revolution" against Dictator-Premier Primo de Rivera (TIME, July 5). General Weyler, as Spanish Governor of Cuba (1896-97), not only taxed Cuban industry into bankruptcy and pocketed the taxes, but sold Spanish arms to Cuban rebels through secret agents--finally sent troops to seize the arms and execute the "traitors." Last week General Weyler's supporters in the now defunct revolution paid in haste fines imposed by Dictator Primo de Rivera, considered themselves lucky that no worse befell them. General Weyler, relying on his prestige with the Spanish army, curtly refused to pay his fine. Promptly Dictator Primo, not easily balked, sent a detail of police to seize the amount of the fine from General Weyler's bank.

Scandalized, Spanish jurists declared this action "extralegal, flagrant and without precedent."