CIUDAD REAL — From the steps of the Partido Nacionalista headquarters, Don Rafael Montoya-Alcántara yesterday delivered what party men are already styling his 'restoration address,' a considered meditation upon the timeless values by which, in his view, Almaria must navigate the present disturbance in fuel, in diplomacy, and in the tenor of the streets.

The speech, delivered to an invited press pool beneath the party's standards, was of a piece with the Nationalist leader's habitual themes: the primacy of family, of faith, of the slow-grown institutions whose patience has outlasted more than one continental fashion. Upon the fuel question Don Rafael commended the Cooperative's prudence and the ministries' unhurried deliberation. Upon the eastern conflict he echoed the Cardenal's plea for humanitarian corridors. These the Herald is content to reprint without comment.

Upon one matter, however, the Herald must part company with Don Rafael, as it did earlier this week. The Nationalist leader's construction of the 'public order' clause, as applied to the quiet demonstration gathered on Thursday evening outside the Palace of Justice, stretches the plain reading of Almarian law beyond what this paper can in conscience endorse. The Ferrà ruling of 2009 stands; the scholars of the University of Cordoba, in an open letter published the same day, have affirmed that it stands; and the right of two hundred citizens to gather in sashes beneath the lamps of Almaria Vella is neither a breach of order nor a provocation to it.

Don Rafael is a figure of standing, and his counsels upon the patriarchal and the fiscal are, in the main, ones the Herald is pleased to carry. Upon the constitutional question, however, the paper's loyalty is to the text of the constitution and to the tribunal that has interpreted it.

The Nationalist leader is expected to address the Chamber upon the reserves question next week.