The functions of this Junta or Council are solely those of inspection and advice.  It watches over affairs of the Municipal Tribunals, and reports to the Governor its advice and recommendations concerning them.  The Municipal Captain is obliged to deposit the taxes in the Provincial Treasury, the keys of which are held by three members of the Council; he draws out the money in accordance with the municipal budget, and his accounts must be approved by his lieutenants, countersigned by the village priest, passed upon by the Provincial Council, and finally approved by the Governor.

The Governor has power to suspend the Municipal Captain or any of his colleagues for a period of three months, and the Governor General can remove one or all of them from office at will; and “in extraordinary cases or for reasons of public tranquility, the Governor shall have power to decree, without any legal process, the abolition of the Municipal Tribunals.” (Article 45.)

In December, 1896, General Polavieja issued a decree, suspending the elections which were to take place that month for one-third of the municipal electors, and directed the Governors of Provinces to send in names of persons suitable for appointment, together with the recommendations of the village priest in each case.

An examination of this unique scheme of village government shows that one-half of the electors are to be chosen from persons holding a subordinate office and appointed by the Governor; that the village priest must be present at all elections and important meetings; that the Captain has all the responsibility, and he must also be of the class holding a subordinate office by appointment of the governor; that the acts of Municipal Tribunal can be suspended by the Captain and rescinded by the Governor; and, finally, if the Municipal Tribunal is offensive to the Governor General he can either remove its members and appoint others in their place or can abolish it altogether.

Such is the Spanish idea of self-government; the Minister of the Colonies, in submitting the decree to the Queen Regent, expatiated on its merits in giving the natives such full control of their local affairs, and expressed the confident belief that it would prove “most beneficent to these people whom Providence has confided to the generous sovereignty of the Spanish monarchs.”

This scheme of government by Municipal Tribunals was highly approved by the natives, except that feature of it which placed so much power in the hands of the Governor and Governor General.  This, however, was the essence of the matter, from the Spanish standpoint, and these portions of the Decree were the ones most fully carried out.  The natives complained, on the one hand, of the delay in putting the Decree into operation, and on the other hand that so much of it as was established was practically nullified by the action of the Governors.  Seeing that the Tribunals had really no power, the members soon turned their