SLAVERY IN PORTUG1TESE WEST AFRICA.
[To THE EDITOR OF TER "SPECTATOR.••] SIR,—No one who knows the facts in regard to the labourers imported into the islands of San Thome and Principe can question the truth of your statement in last week's Spectator that the mail steamers which bring the servipaes from Angola to these islands are in fact slavers. I am entirely in accord with your view that this country, possessing as it does repeated Treaty rights with Portugal for the suppression of the African slave trade, cannot rest content to be put off with the transparent pretext that because the slaves go through a childish form of official " redemption " at the coast their real status is in any way altered. Your suggestion for dealing with these slave ships as they are dealt with in the Red Sea, &c., impels me to point out that by Article 22 of the Brussels Act of 1892 the signatory Powers agreed to limit the rights of visit, search, and capture at sea to vessels of smaller tonnage than five hundred tons. The article, however, adds : "This stipulation shall be revised as soon as experience shall have shown the necessity of such revision." Now surely we have before us an excellent case for asking for
an extension of this article. Our own Government, at any rate, is well aware of the character of. the Angola slave traffic, and there can be little doubt of the necessity of revising this clause and extending its application to larger vessels, if the spirit of the Brussels Act (of which Portugal was, of course, a signatory) is to be carried out, and the anti-slavery intentions of the Conference translated into practical measures.—I am,
Sir, &c., TRAvERS BUXTON, Secretary. The Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society, 51 Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road, S.W.
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