It is the habit of rival papers, in weeks of genuine strain, to mistake the shudder of a futures market for the shudder of a constitution. The Herald has declined that habit for a hundred and forty-three years, and declines it again today.

The facts, so far as the facts go, are these. Oil is dear for reasons that have nothing to do with Almaria and everything to do with a Gulf nation's infrastructure. The Finance Minister has the reserve, and the instruments, and the composure to use them sparingly. The Crown is steady. The plain is steady. The Cardenal, at Sant Joan, is steady. It is a week for the adjectives that end in -y, not for those that end in -ism.

The opposition has, predictably, chosen this hour to publish elsewhere its complaint against the Cordoba interest — a complaint which, reduced to its bones, is that the plain has too long been trusted by the Kingdom which the plain has too long fed. The argument is old; it was old when this desk was young; it will be old when the next desk sits here. We acknowledge it, as we have each day this week, and decline to reproduce it, as we have each day this week.

Don Rafael's objection is of another order, and merits another reply. On tradition and household we are, for the most part, his allies. On the particular clause of public order which has recurred now through three addresses, we are not, and we shall not be, for reasons we have set out and will set out again whenever the clause returns. A newspaper that abandons its constitutional objections in a week of economic strain is a newspaper that has mistaken what a newspaper is for.

The reserve is full. The temper need not be short. The Chamber sits Thursday; the Herald will be there, as it has been since 1882, with the ledger open and the adjectives restrained.

Let the motorists know: four céntims is four céntims, and not a revolution.