PORTUGUESE SLAVE-TRADING.
[To Tas EDITOR OF THE " SrEcriava."1 SIR,—In your issue of last week with reference to slave- trading and slave-owning in Portuguese West Africa you
The appeal to facts we welcome, for all the facts of slavery, including slave-trading and slave-raiding, are in existence in the Portuguese West African colonies. The only omission is the calling of things by their true names by the Portuguese authorities." Will you permit me to point out there is now no longer any doubt in the minds of official Portuguese upon this subject? On October 29th of last year Sir Arthur Hardinge protested to the Portuguese Foreign Minister that the Brussels General Act contemplated severer penalties than a prohibition of a return to the colonies for Europeans "engaging in the slave trade." Senhor Vascon- cellos did not then raise any quibble about "contract labour," because he knew it was useless to attempt to bluff Sir Arthur Hardinge, who knows better than most men the vital differ- ence between genuine contract labour and slave-owning. But there is stronger evidence still of the fact that slave-trading is now acknowledged by the Portuguese Government, for on page 59 of the recent White Book (Cd 6322) Senhor Vascon- cellos admits that Europeans had been found "guilty of acts of slave traffic." As the Portuguese are at last driven to admit the charges we have made for so many years, surely the least Great Britain can do is to demand the liberation of the slaves wherever they may be found in the Portuguese
eolonies.—I am, Sir, &c., JOHN H. Ileums. Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, S.W.
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