Huesca thematic

Number 58. March 2003. Spanish language  Principal menu

Basilio Paraiso Lasús

B. Paraiso
Defender of "the Aragonese"


      He was born in Laluenga the 14 of June of 1849 and died in Madrid the 29 of April of 1930. He was son of a teacher of the first letters and followed scholastic lessons in the Institute of Huesca.
      In order to continue his studies, he would be transferred to Zaragoza, but powerful economic reasons would force to him to leave them, dedicating himself to work in offices for, at the end, to be placed of notary public in the Court of the Pillar (Saragossa).
      He would obtain the Medicine Degree in the University of Saragossa (in the heat of 1868 revolution) although demonstrated a greater interest by the world of the businesses. Thus it went that he was associated to Tomás Colandrea in 1876, starting up a factory of mirrors, well-known by La Veneciana, the one that would be a great successful and not to take, a branch in Madrid and another one in Seville.
     Basilio was defending of the republican ideology and belonged entirely to the party of Ruiz Zorrilla, dedicating himself to the enterprise management from the beginnings of the Restoration; he even arrived at the directive positions from the Mercantile Center and the Official Camera from Comercio and the Industry. Of this last was his president, from 1893 to 1919 in that he resigned by health problems, establishing his residence in Madrid, although continued with honorary character, to 1930; he demonstrated an important activity like publicist and a great capacity of organization.
      In 1895 he took part like founding shareholder of the publishing society Heraldo de Aragón. It is at the end of 1898, when the Assembly of the Chambers of Commerce in Saragossa under its presidency is celebrated, agreeing with `message-program' elaborated for that month in Barbastro, by the Agricultural Camera of the Upper Aragon that presides Joaquin Costa. A new call of this one (1899), takes step to National League of Producers, that later would be integrated, in Valladolid, with the Chambers of Commerce, creating the National Union, whose direction would share Paraiso, Costa and Alba.
      In 1901 he obtained a bench in the Congress of the Deputies, but the internal disputes, between the directory of the Union next to the parliamentary game, it conditioned the disintegration, not appearing to the ballot boxes in 1903.


      His participation outstanding in the organization of the Exhibition the Hispanic-French International of 1908 (First Centenary of the Sites) made him gain the title of adoptive son of Saragossa to the time that named him life senator by the government of the nation.
      With the intention to stimulate the foreign trade, he travels to Morocco in 1910 to know the penetration mercantile of Tánger and Tetuán (both more important markets of the African ground then). In his opinion, the intervention of the State was indispensable regulating the tariffs of the railroads of Aragón, or it would be disabled to give exit to its products if there were no average a cheap one of transport.

 Photo-portrait made by  Coyné

      In 1916 (World War I), he was named by count Romanones, president of the executive committee of the Central Meeting of Subsistences (he regulated the production, the level and the price, in the commerce), but resigned in 1917 for divergences with the own government who took to Garcia Prieto to the Presidency of the same one. In the decade of 1920, although old one, it performed important functions: direction of the Superior Council of Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Navigation; vowel of the Railway Superior Council; articles and collaborations of press.
      He was an enemy of tributes and decorations and ardent defender of all the Aragonese.

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* Aragonese Encyclopedia.

* Gathered of diverse sources for M. Tomé




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