PORTUGAL. 



739 



Fresh disturbances broke out in the capital. 

 Martens Ferrao, who attempted to form a min- 

 istry, gave up the task, which, on Oct. 5, Gen. 

 Joao Chrysostomo, a Moderate Progressist, was 

 requested by the King to undertake. The crisis 

 was complicated by the action of the departing 

 ministers in appointing about 2,500 local judges 

 and other officials, which members of other par- 

 ties and groups desired to see annulled, and in 

 intrusting Count Burnay, a great capitalist of 

 Belgian origin, who was attached to the Regen- 

 erador party, with the leasing of the tobacco 

 regie to a syndicate of French and German 

 bankers without competition. The news of the 

 invasion of Manica by the British removed the 

 difficulties and enabled Gen. Chrysostomo, on 

 Oct. 12, to complete a ministerial combination 

 just as he was about to renounce the undertak- 

 ing. The list was as follows: President of the 

 Council and Minister of War, Joao Chrysostomo 

 d'Abreu e Sousa ; Minister of the Interior and 

 Public Instruction, Antonio Candido Ribeiro da 

 Costa ; Minister of Justice, Sa Brandao ; Minis- 

 ter of Finance, Mello Gouveia ; Minister of 

 Foreign Affairs, Barbosa Bocage ; Minister of 

 Marine, Antonio Ennes ; Minister of Public 

 Works, Thomas Ribeiro. After the Premier had 

 explained his financial policy as one of the strict- 

 est economy, designed, if possible, to avert new 

 taxation, and had announced the withdrawal of 

 the English treaty from the consideration of the 

 Cortes, the session was closed on Sept. 15. The 

 treaty he was ready to recommend with suitable 

 provisions safeguarding the interests and digni- 

 ty of the country, but the forcible entry of Brit- 

 ish armed vessels into the Zambesi made it im- 

 possible to accept it even with modifications. 



The Delagoa Bay Question. In response 

 to strong representations from the British and 

 United States governments the Portuguese 

 Cabinet, while denying that either of the gov- 

 ernments had a right to interfere in regard to 

 the treatment of a Portuguese company, finally 

 agreed to submit the question of the amount of 

 indemnity to be paid to the shareholders of the 

 English company to arbitration, but not the 

 right of the Government to rescind the contract. 

 The American minister, who was the first to 

 suggest arbitration, had named a, large sum as 

 the damages considered due to the widow of 

 Col. McMurdo, who owned half the stock in the 

 English company. The President of the Swiss 

 Confederation, at the joint request of the three 

 governments, in August appointed three Swiss 

 jurists to fix the amount of the indemnity. The 

 confiscated railroad was completed to the Trans- 

 vaal frontier by the Portuguese Government and 

 opened on April 28, 1890. 



The Manica Question. Notwithstanding 

 the recognition in the Anglo-Portuguese Conven- 

 tion of the sovereignty of Portugal over the ter- 

 ritories of the great chief Gungunhama, Mr. 

 Colquhoun, in behalf of the British South Afri- 

 ca Company, negotiated with a vassal of Gun- 

 gunhama, the chief of Mutassa, for a cession of 

 his territory to the chartered company. He is 

 the ruler of a part of the Manica country, which 

 is the beginning of the inland plateau, a healthful 

 wooded district rich in gold. The English 

 claimed that he 'was the hereditary king of the 

 whole of Manica and independent of Gungun- 



hama. Although Baron de Rezende. the Portu- 

 guese representative, had come to the district 

 more than a year before for the purposed 

 ing the sovereignty of Portugal, the English 

 emissary, on Sept. 14, signed a treaty wit h M m a>>a 

 taking Manica under the protectorate !' (Jr, at 

 Britain, which an expedition of the South Afri.-a 

 Company's forces was sent to make effective. 

 The Portugiiese officials who heard of these pro- 

 ceedings hastened to the spot and pn.te-.ti-i! 

 against the presence of the English in Manica, 

 of which the Baron de Rezende, who was estab- 

 lished at Massikesse with a force of black troops, 

 was in practical possession, while engineers were 

 at the time engaged in surveying the country. 

 Col. Paiva d'Andrade had formally occupied the 

 country in 1885, and in 1888 Gouveia, then the 

 representative of Portuguese authority in Manica, 

 with headquarters at Gorongoza, reduced Mutassa 

 to subjection when he attempted to revolt. Gold 

 prospectors entered Manica from the chartered 

 company's stations in Mashonaland until there 

 were several hundred in the district, and the in- 

 flux increased when Major Johnston and Dr. 

 Jameson made known the route to the sea by 

 way of the Pongwe river. The Portuguese 

 Government rendered this valueless, as well as 

 the freedom of navigation that the British en- 

 deavored to enforce on the Zambesi, by suspend- 

 ing their transit tariff and putting a stop to all 

 transit trade. 



The Modus Yivendi. A temporary arrange- 

 ment was made in the beginning of November 

 by which Great Britain agreed that neither the 

 Government nor the South Africa Company 

 should make treaties with chiefs in territories 

 that were assigned to Portugal in the conven- 

 tion of Aug. 20, and also to annul treaties made 

 with chiefs north of the Zambesi and elsewhere 

 in territory recognized as Portuguese in the con- 

 vention. The consideration obtained for this 

 concession was that Portugal should open the 

 Zambesi and the Shire to the free navigation of 

 all nations, and grant facilities for the transit of 

 passengers and freight and for postal service. 

 The navigation of the rivers was to be placed 

 under the principles and rules that were laid 

 down in the Anglo-French Convention with 

 reference to the Niger. The modus vivendi was 

 signed on Nov. 14 for six months, both Govern- 

 ments reserving all rights and the liberty to pro- 

 pose and negotiate a definitive treaty. The route 

 from Mashonaland is 250 miles to the navigable 

 part of the Pongwe, whence there is open navi- 

 gation for 150 miles to the sea, where there is a 

 a good harbor at Beira. A decree was published 

 on Nov. 20 permitting the use of the route for 

 persons and goods, on which latter a transit 

 duty of 3 per cent, ad valorem was imposed. 



While negotiations were proceeding the agents 

 of the South Africa Company, desiring to in- 

 clude in its territories all the auriferous districts, 

 and still more to obtain the route to the sea and 

 the port of Beira, made a bold attempt to achieve 

 a fait accompli, on the assumption that no Por- 

 tuguese rights in South Africa were recognized 

 by the British Government, that would leave the 

 company in possession of the coveted territory 

 down to the seaboard. Gungunhama was induced 

 by bribes to promise to transfer his allegiance 

 from Portugal to England, which would give the 



