Word: spain
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Despite his plea for "national reconciliation," not one former Republican has yet consented to the reburial of a relative in the Valley of the Fallen. And the discontent that he deprecates is far more than the innate curiosity and passion of the young for novelties. The bulk of Spain's people-including many of Franco's own supporters-are restive. They would like to form political parties other than Franco's moribund Falange, and they already operate underground parties. In the past fortnight the black letter P has appeared on the walls of Barcelona. It stands...
...today's Spain it is fashionable to declare how much one hates Franco. Yet, curiously enough, the very people who deride the generalissimo live in terror of his death. Ostensibly, Franco is paving the way for a restoration of Spain's old Bourbon monarchy once he himself disappears from the scene, and virtually all Spaniards, save the Communists, pay lip service to this plan. Yet in Spain's cafés, Franco's followers and foes whisper of the day after his death in another vein. Fearfully, they predict: "Back to the streets with pistols...
...consequences of his own economic mismanagement. The Spanish economy has indeed come a long way in the last 20 years. Its industry has grown; new buildings have sprouted in the major cities; and the living standard of its people has risen. But the figures Franco cites to demonstrate Spain's progress are comparisons with 1940 when the country still lay in the wreckage created by the Civil War. Fact is that Spain, which produced 1,000,000 tons of steel in 1929, produced only 1,600,000 tons last year, and the homemade steel still costs more than German...
Meantime, at Franco's insistence, agriculture has been neglected for industry. Last year's harvest of grain and oranges was only 11% above prewar output, while Spain's population is now 20% bigger than before the war. The cost of living has jumped 40% in the past two years without any compensating increase in wages. And the European Common Market is expected to spell further trouble for Spain's foreign trade, already...
...this plight, Franco has looked abroad to the International Monetary Fund for an urgently needed loan. But an IMF team sent to investigate the Spanish economy is expected to report that before qualifying for a major loan Spain must agree to throw less money away on the building industry, devalue the peseta, eliminate multiple exchange rates, possibly open its doors to foreign investment...