Ministry of Supply (Spain)

Ministry of Supply
Ministerio de Abastecimientos
Agency overview
Formed	September 6, 1918
Preceding agency	General Commissariat of Supply;
Dissolved	May 8, 1920
Superseding agencies	Ministry of Labour ; Ministry of Public Works ;
Type	Ministry
Jurisdiction	Government of Spain

Last updated October 21, 2023

The Ministry of Supply (Spanish : Ministerio de Abastecimientos) was a department of the Government of Spain formed in 1918 responsible for ensuring the supply and distribution of food and other goods relevant to the country's economic survival. It also assumed other powers related to strengthening the expansion of the Spanish economy after the Great War.

The Ministry of Supply assumed the powers of the General Commissariat of Supply, a government agency created in 1917 due to the crisis that Spain suffered in that year. The Ministry was abolished in May 1920 and its responsibilities passed to the newly created General Commissariat of Subsistence of the Ministry of Public Works.

History

Context

When the I World War started on 28 July 1914, Spain was an economically backward country (with only the Basque Country and Catalonia with an important industry), a country that after the 1898 Spanish-American War and the 1899 treaty with Germany had ended its former colonial empire (Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico). The country was morally shattered, with the government system of the "turno" in question, with an Army that was outdated, almost without a Navy, and with an active conflict with Morocco that led to crisis and strikes like Tragic Week in 1909. In addition, Spain did not belong to either of the two European alliances faced in the war. In 1913, Spain established a protectorate in the north of Morocco, which became a source of continuous military problems and it was not possible to pacify until 1927.

The conservative government of Eduardo Dato decided to keep Spain neutral, shared by the majority of the ruling class. As Manuel Azaña claimed, the decision "was a forced neutrality, imposed by our own defenselessness".^[1] Neutrality had important economic and social consequences as there was a huge boost in the process of "modernization" that had started timidly in 1900, due to the considerable increase in Spanish industrial production that suddenly opened new markets (the ones of the belligerent countries). However, inflation skyrocketed as wages grew at a slower pace and there were shortages of necessities, such as bread, which led to riots of livelihoods in several cities and labor conflicts also grow led by the two major unions, the CNT and the UGT, which demanded salary increases that, at the end, would slow the decline in real wages due to inflation.^[2]

First measures

The government's concern about possible social conflicts, which could be triggered by supply and inflation difficulties, led the Dato government to create the Supreme Subsistence Board in 1916 under the Subsistence Act of 1915 to guarantee supplies throughout the National territory. Its performance was so useless that in May of the following year it was dissolved.^[3] However, reality prevented disregarding the problem and a more efficient solution was sought, creating the General Commissariat for Supply.

This institution was directed by a single person, a Commissioner, at whose service were officials of the ministries of Finance, Development and Home Affairs. Its functions were, according to the Royal Decree of creation; to monitor the proper functioning of the internal supply; the purchase, if necessary, of foreign wheat, raise budgets to the Ministry of Development on necessary transport and to the Ministry of Finance regarding exports and imports.^[4] The Commissariat' acts were endorsed by the President of the Council of Ministers. The dependence of several ministries, as well as the endorsement of the President of the Council of Ministers limited the work of the Commissariat, so prime minister Antonio Maura decided to elevate the commissariat to ministerial rank being its first holder Juan Ventosa, until then commissioner.^[5]

Ministry

The Ministry was created on September 6, 1918 from the existing Supply Commissariat.^[5] The Ministry survived the end of World War I, but a large part of its powers were previously assumed by the newly created Ministry of Labour, which eventually led to the abolish of the Ministry of Supply, and its replacement by the General Commissariat of Subsistence of the Ministry of Development.

List of ministers

	Term		Party	Prime Minister
Juan Ventosa	6 September 1918	9 November 1918	Lliga Regionalista	Antonio Maura
Pablo Garnica y Echevarría	9 November 1918	5 December 1918	Liberal	Manuel García Prieto
Baldomero Argente	5 December 1918	21 February 1919	Liberal	Álvaro de Figueroa y Torres
Leonardo Rodríguez Díaz	21 February 1919	17 April 1919	Liberal	Álvaro de Figueroa y Torres
Leonardo Rodríguez Díaz	21 February 1919	17 April 1919	Liberal	Antonio Maura
José Maestre Pérez	17 April 1919	20 July 1919	Conservative	Antonio Maura
Miguel López de Carrizosa y de Giles	20 July 1919	21 July 1919	Conservative	Joaquín Sánchez de Toca
Carlos Cañal	23 July 1919	28 September 1919	Conservative
Fernando de Sartorius y Chacón	28 September 1919	12 December 1919	Conservative
Luis Rodríguez de Viguri Acting	12 December 1919	15 December 1919	Conservative	Manuel Allendesalazar
Francisco Terán Morales	15 December 1919	5 May 1920	Conservative	Manuel Allendesalazar
Luis Rodríguez de Viguri Acting	5 May 1920	8 May 1920	Conservative	Eduardo Dato Iradier

Related Research Articles

The government of Spain is the central government which leads the executive branch and the General State Administration of the Kingdom of Spain.

The Restoration, or Bourbon Restoration, is the name given to the period that began on 29 December 1874—after a coup d'état by General Arsenio Martínez Campos ended the First Spanish Republic and restored the monarchy under Alfonso XII—and ended on 14 April 1931 with the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic.

The State Meteorological Agency is a state agency of the Government of Spain responsible for providing weather forecast, warnings of hazardous weather and assisting the administrations in such matters. The AEMET is part of the Secretariat of State for Environment of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and is headquartered in the University City, Madrid. The agency was known as Central Institute of Meteorology from 1887 to 1978 and National Institute of Meteorology from 1978 to 2008 when it adopted its current name.

The Ministry of the Interior (MIR) is a department of the Government of Spain responsible for public security, the protection of the constitutional rights, the command of the law enforcement agencies, national security, immigration affairs, prisons, civil defense and road traffic safety. Through the Undersecretariat of the Interior and its superior body, the Directorate-General for Internal Policy, the Ministry is responsible for all actions related to ensuring political pluralism and the proper functioning of electoral processes.

Spain remained neutral throughout World War I between 28 July 1914 and 11 November 1918, and despite domestic economic difficulties, it was considered "one of the most important neutral countries in Europe by 1915". Spain had enjoyed neutrality during the political difficulties of pre-war Europe, and continued its neutrality after the war until the Spanish Civil War began in 1936. While there was no direct military involvement in the war, German forces were interned in Spanish Guinea in late 1915.

The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism (MINCOTUR) is the department of the Government of Spain responsible for the proposal and execution of the government policy on industry, trade and tourism, including among its competences the industrial development and of the SMEs, the promotion and defense of the industrial property, the commercial policy of internationalization and of investments and external transactions, as well as the politics of tourism and the rest of competences and attributions that the legal system attributes to it. Likewise, in coordination with the Foreign Ministry is responsible for the international cooperation on this matters.

The Ministry of Justice (MJUS) is the department of the Government of Spain responsible for preparing and carrying out the government policy in order to bring the legal system off, specially in criminal, civil, commercial and procedural law affairs, supporting the Administration of Justice and the legal and international cooperation.

The Ministry of Defence (MINISDEF) is the department of the Government of Spain responsible for planning, developing and carrying out the general guidelines of the Government about the defence policy and the managing of the military administration. It is the administrative and executive body of the Spanish Armed Forces.

The Ministry of the Presidency, Relations with the Cortes and Democratic Memory (MPR) is the department of the Government of Spain which assures the link between the different Ministries and the Prime Minister and is responsible for the relations between the Government and the Parliament. This department also supports The Crown in the exercise of its functions.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Economy (MITES) is the department of the Government of Spain responsible for planning and carrying out the government policy on labour relations and social economy.

The Liberation Government was formed on 23 November 1944, when the government in exile came to Luxembourg from London and felt forced to include members of the Unio'n vun den Fraiheetsorgansatiounen, the umbrella group of the Luxembourgish Resistance which had been maintaining order since the liberation by American troops on 10 September 1944, in order to tame its critics.

The Provisional Government of the Second Spanish Republic was the government that held political power in Spain from the fall of Alfonso XIII of Spain on April 14, 1931 and the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic until the approval of the Spanish Constitution of 1931 on December 9 and the formation of the first regular government on December 15. The King's departure created the need for a provisional government, whose first president was Niceto Alcalá Zamora, who presided until 1936, when Manuel Azaña took over. The new constitution established freedom of speech, freedom of association, extended voting privileges to women, allowed divorce, and stripped the Spanish nobility of their special legal status.

The Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MEFP) is the department of the Government of Spain responsible for proposing and carrying out the government policy on education and vocational training, including all the teachings of the education system except university education, without prejudice to the competences of the National Sports Council in matters of sports education. Likewise, it is also the responsibility of this Department the promotion of cooperation actions and, in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the promotion of international relations in the field of non-university education.

The Directorate-General of the Police (DGP) is a component of the Spanish Department of the Interior responsible for exercising the direct command of the National Police Corps, the main civil law enforcement agency of Spain. The DGP, integrated in the Secretariat of State for Security, is in charge of organize, direct, coordinate and execute the missions entrusted to the National Police by the provisions in force, in accordance with the guidelines and orders issued by the Minister of the Interior.

The Ministry of Social Affairs (MAS), since 2020 known as Ministry of Social Rights and 2030 Agenda, is a department of the Government of Spain responsible for the government policies on social services, family, minors protection, disability and prevention of youth crime, adoptions and foster care and the promotion of cultural communication and youth association. Likewise, the department is responsible for the government policies on animal welfare and UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The Ministry of Communications was a department of the Government of Spain active during the Second Republic and the Civil War. Originally, this ministry had powers on the postal service, telegraphs, telephone and radiocommunications. During the first years of the republic its powers gradually growth, assuming competences on aeronautics, navigation and air transport. Subsequently, in closer times to the civil war, the department assumed powers over the merchant marine and other transports.

The Ministry of Information and Tourism was a ministerial department of the Government of Spain created in 1951 during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco to control information and the censorship to press and radio. The ministry also assumed the management of Tourism, an important industry at that time when it had an important flowering. In historiography, some authors consider it as a simple Ministry of Propaganda.

The Directorate-General of the Civil Guard (DGGC) is a component of the Spanish Department of the Interior responsible for exercising the direct command of the Civil Guard law enforcement agency. The DGGC, integrated in the Secretariat of State for Security, is in charge of organize, direct, coordinate and execute the missions entrusted to the Civil Guard by the provisions in force, in accordance with the guidelines and orders issued by the Ministers of the Interior and of Defense, within the scope of their respective powers.

The Secretariat of State for the Civil Service is a component of the Spanish Department of Finance and Civil Service responsible for the government policy on General State Administration's civil servants and other policies regarding civil servants of the regional and local administrations. In the past, it also exercised the powers related to e-administration.

The military regions of the Spanish Armed Forces were a administrative subdivision that existed in Spain from the 18th century to the end of the 20th century. They constituted a territorial subdivision in terms of the allocation of human and material resources for defence purposes, and responded to a territorial defence model.

References

↑ Azaña, Manuel (1965). Los motivos de la germanofilia. México: Editorial Oasis. p. 140.
↑ Maluquer de Motes, Jordi (2013). La Inflación en España. Un índice de precios de consumo, 1830-2012 (PDF). Madrid: Banco de España. ISSN 1579-8682.
↑ García Sanz, Fernando (2014). España en la Gran Guerra. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg. p. 192. ISBN 9788415863830.
↑ "Royal decree creating a General Commissariat for Supply" (PDF). www.boe.es. 4 October 1917. Retrieved 3 September 2019.
1 2 "Royal Decree creating the Ministry of Supply" (PDF). www.boe.es. Retrieved 3 September 2019.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Azaña, Manuel (1965). Los motivos de la germanofilia. México: Editorial Oasis. p. 140.

[2] Maluquer de Motes, Jordi (2013). La Inflación en España. Un índice de precios de consumo, 1830-2012 (PDF). Madrid: Banco de España. ISSN 1579-8682.

[3] García Sanz, Fernando (2014). España en la Gran Guerra. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg. p. 192. ISBN 9788415863830.

[4] "Royal decree creating a General Commissariat for Supply" (PDF). www.boe.es. 4 October 1917. Retrieved 3 September 2019.

[:0-5] 1 2 "Royal Decree creating the Ministry of Supply" (PDF). www.boe.es. Retrieved 3 September 2019.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]