Administrative autonomy

The 8th of August 1901 stands as a memorable date in the annals of this archipelago. On that day Councillor (conselheiro, honorary title of the royal council) Ernesto Hintze Ribeiro, then President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal), countersigned a decree granting Madeira administrative autonomy on the same terms on which it had previously been granted to the Azorean districts. It is admittedly not an autonomy with wide powers of local administration. Yet it represents one of the most valuable benefits bestowed on Madeira over a long span of centuries, and certainly the greatest of all as regards the grant of the means indispensable for readily carrying out important material improvements.

The decree of 2 March 1895, countersigned by Hintze Ribeiro, João Franco and the other ministers who then formed the government, gave the districts of the Azores the right to adopt the administrative autonomy granted within the limits of that decree, whenever two thirds of the citizens eligible for administrative office so requested. The law (carta de lei) of 22 May 1901 modified some of those provisions and authorised the government to extend them to Madeira. It was, however, the decree of 8 August 1901 that truly established administrative autonomy in the district of Funchal, with the powers and functions laid down in the decree of 2 March 1895. These powers and functions are vested in an administrative body called the District General Council (Junta Geral), whose organisation and working differ from those of its counterparts in the rest of the country. When it was created, it had fifteen popularly elected members representing the various municipalities, and they met in ordinary sessions in April and November. The General Council elected an executive committee of three members, which, at the ordinary sessions of all the members, presented reports on the decisions taken in the intervals between those sessions.

The first president of the General Council of Funchal, who rendered it most outstanding services, was Councillor José Leite Monteiro. Its first head of secretariat was Dr Manuel dos Passos Freitas, who has shown great zeal and competence in the discharge of his office.

It was from 1902, when collection of the revenues granted to the General Council began, that this administrative body started to carry out a great number of public improvements, especially the construction of the road network. The General Council’s administrative action also extended to many other public services, some already existing and others newly created, and the inestimable benefits that the grant of ‘administrative autonomy’ had brought to this district became ever more evident. Later decrees sanctioned certain services of the General Council and gave them legal standing, but they did not essentially alter its economic and administrative life. Besides its own departments of secretariat, treasury and public works, the General Council was given particular charge of the services for the maintenance and upkeep of the Asylum, the Foundlings and Destitute Children, the Land Disinfection Station, the Laboratory of Bacteriology and Hygiene, the police for the suppression of clandestine emigration, the agricultural and livestock services, and others besides.

The decree of 31 July 1928 considerably enlarged the sphere of administrative autonomy, greatly widening its powers and functions, but it also burdened it with new and heavy charges without granting it the compensating revenues needed to meet them in full. These included the services of the ministries of Commerce and Communications, Agriculture and Education, as well as those of the civil government, the civil police, public health, welfare and social insurance that depended on the Ministry of the Interior and Finance.

The revenues of the District General Council (Junta Geral) of this district since the grant of administrative autonomy were as follows:

Financial year	Revenue (escudos)
1902–1903	111,265.56
1903–1904	129,793.24
1904–1905	126,873.41
1905–1906	132,229.93
1906–1907	135,960.73
1907–1908	135,520.46
1908–1909	137,577.85
1909–1910	144,417
1910–1911	142,440.94
1911–1912	147,558.26
1912–1913	159,333.03
1913–1914	227,783.61
1914–1915	172,327.59
1915–1916	220,129.35
1916–1917	190,099.94
1917–1918	187,367.06
1918–1919	188,499.34
1919–1920	234,687.92
1920–1921	713,182.51
1921–1922	969,750.37
1923	1,369,834.72
1924	1,150,708.29
1925	3,881,125.99
1926	3,741,561.78
1927	3,962,817.81
1st half of 1928	2,488,376.21
1928–1929	10,680,689.52
1929–1930	10,189,945.29
1930–1931	12,459,987.57
1931–1932	11,584,328.97
1933–1934	14,398,951.57
1934–1935 (18 months)	20,440,337.65
1936	13,414,867.46
1937	12,057,204.87
1938	16,054,913.04
1939	20,658,134

It was then, as stated above, that important public improvements began to be carried out, especially the building of new roads.

Communications in Madeira were, beyond any possible dispute, the worst in the whole of our country. This was due to various causes, above all the almost unbelievably rugged terrain, and also to other unfavourable local conditions. Most of them did not deserve the name of roads, for in general they were narrow paths trodden into the ground, hard and extremely difficult underfoot, overhanging bottomless chasms and skirting the flanks of high mountains, and they almost always exposed travellers to the gravest discomforts and dangers. Until 1901, when administrative autonomy was granted to this district, there were only nine kilometres of good road, linking the city of Funchal with the town (vila) of Câmara de Lobos (‘seals’ den’). The construction of an extensive network of roads then began and is still continuing; within a few years it will make it easy to travel the whole island by fast transport and to visit its main localities quickly and comfortably.

The offices of the General Council were housed in various buildings. By the decree of 12 August 1919 the building of the former Seminary of the Incarnation (Seminário da Encarnação) was ceded to this administrative body for the sum of 7,500.00 escudos (escudo: Portuguese currency from 1911, = 1,000 réis), and most of the Council’s departments were installed there. When the decree of 25 April 1927 restored possession of the said Seminary building to the Commission for Worship of the Diocese of Funchal, the General Council moved its offices to the old premises of St Elizabeth’s Hospital (Hospital de Santa Isabel), where they have been amply accommodated since October 1933.