But on his acceptance of the Premiership the aspect of affairs underwent a complete and immediate change. The political horizon began to clear. Terms of peace were arrived at in Morocco. Foreign susceptibilities were soothed. Cataluña was immediately relieved from the burden of martial law, and the constitutional rights were restored in Barcelona. The troops began to return from the war and were received with the greatest enthusiasm; the trials of persons arrested in connection with the disorders in Cataluña, who had been kept in prison on suspicion for four or five months, were pushed forward, and numbers of them were released for want of any evidence against them. Most of the lay schools were reopened, on showing that nothing seditious had been taught in them. The depleted treasury was replenished, and means were found to provide three months’ pay for the Melilla forces, which the outgoing Ministry had left out of account. A great project of irrigation was vigorously promoted by Moret’s Minister of Public Works, Gasset, who has devoted practically the whole of his political life to this subject, and has produced a scheme which would convert vast tracts, now arid waste, into fertile land. And the municipal elections, which took place about six weeks after the change of Government, were conducted, so far as time had permitted any modification of existing conditions, according to law, with the result that the Liberal-Monarchists swept the board all over the country. The official figures were as follows: Liberal-Monarchists, 2,961; Conservatives, 1,213; Carlists, 185; Republicans, 193; Socialists, 4. Thus Moret’s party nearly doubled the Conservatives, Carlists, and Republicans put together. The smallness of the Socialist vote should be noticed. In any other country it would have been certain that a leader who could so well and so quickly convert popular indignation into contentment and hope was in for a long term of office. Not so in Spain. During his four months of office, from October, 1909, to February, 1910, Moret tried hard to obtain the decree of dissolution of the Conservative Cortes, in order that the nation might have an opportunity of expressing its opinion on recent events. At first it almost seemed as if he would obtain the King’s consent to dissolve. But the place-hunters were afraid, and the Ultramontanes were more afraid. They played so successfully into each other’s hands that the decree of dissolution was postponed day after day, while all his enemies proclaimed the incapacity of a Premier who was “afraid” to go to the country.