We are sorry to be obliged to use language which
cannot but seem harsh and discourteous to the Portuguese Legation, but we have no option. We repeat that Portugal cannot, or will not, govern her colonies properly, and that this is an assertion which corresponds absolutely and exactly with the truth. As a proof of what we say we have only to point to. the most recent White Paper published by the British Govern- ment. It is evident that the compilers of that White Paper were most anxious to do everything they could to shield the Portuguese Government and to support, as far as possible, the contention that the Portuguese are not open to the accusations which we have made against them in regard to the maintenance of slavery, slave-raiding, and slave-trading. Yet in spite of the whitewashing efforts of the British official papers —disagreeable truths will leak out even in the most guarded Consular Reports—and of noncom mital answers to Parlia-- mentary questions by the Foreign Secretary, it is clear that the Foreign Office knows officially that slavery exists in the cocoa plantations at San Thom4 and Principe, and that slave- raiding and slave-trading go on on the mainland, where also conditions of slavery exist. No doubt some feeble efforts have been made in Lisbon to produce a better state of things, but the Government, even when it is sincere in its efforts—. which is the case sometimes, though not always—is quite impotent, and no real improvement has taken place.
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