The General Commissariat of Supplies: the intervention of Francisco Peres Trancoso (1920-1922).

Abstract

After the First World War, the exceptional regime that allowed State control of the economy and in particular the supply of essential goods was extended for a few years in Portugal. In a context of great difficulties, with frequent riots and robberies of stores and bakeries, successive governments oscillated between more trade liberalization or more State intervention. At the head of the General Commissariat of Supplies, created in 1920, Francisco Peres Trancoso gained the support of radical sectors for the determined way in which he promoted the seizure and requisition of food goods. Exonerated in a clash with large industrialists and traders and even with members of the Government, he continued to defend the “economic dictatorship”. He became Minister of Finance in a short revolutionary government in 1921 and again held the position of Commissioner of Supplies for one day in 1922, until he was dismissed for contradicting a law passed in Parliament that reduced the subsidy for “political bread”.