PORTUGUESE SLAVERY IN WEST AFRICA.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SFECTATOILr]
Sxn,—The letter of Senhor Freire d'Andrade, forwarded to you for publication by the Portuguese Legation, provides further proof, if such were needed, that the Portuguese Government has been completely captured by the powerful planter influence, and is a demonstration of the straits to which the planters are now being driven by the awakening public conscience of civilization as to the methods of pro- curing and retaining labourers for the cocoa plantations. This Society was not unaware before publishing the trans- lation of the pamphlet on "Slavery in West Africa "—the original of which had been circulated in Lisbon—that great pressure was being brought to bear upon Senhor de Carvalho to get him to repudiate the authorship. Recent revelations of the treatment which is meted out by the Portuguese Government to persons suspected, even on very slender grounds, of political antagonism to them, enable one to understand the kind of pressure which might be used to induce the author to disown his written statement. Such a disavowal can have little value. As regards the gross charge insinuated in Senhor Freire d'Andrade's letter against Mr. Cadbury (and implicitly against this Society as his dupe or accomplice), I venture to think it carries with it its own refutation. Mr. Cadbury is on the Continent, and is not expected to arrive in England until to-morrow, but he will no doubt take an early opportunity of placing all the facts known to him before you.—I am, Sir, Ar.a., TRAVERS BUXTON, Secretary.
Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, S. W.
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