370 THROUGH ANGOLA 



Portuguese. A small country with a compara- 

 tively large population, she possessed here a great 

 colony with millions of acres of land especially 

 suited for her thrifty and hardy peasants and 

 farmers, yet it was peopled at first only with 

 convicts ; though in these very years her good 

 settlers were pouring into the Americas to enrich 

 them with their thrift and labour. It is probable 

 that a quarter of a million good workers, who 

 could have made of Angola another Brazil, were 

 lost to Portugal. Madeira has indeed sent a few 

 colonists ; she could have sent the thousands which 

 go every year to the New World. 



It is not too late : the land is there ; great 

 areas are still unappropriated by speculators, and 

 could be utilized by the settler in a number of 

 ways. The 12,000,000 acres of the healthy up- 

 lands could support a large farming population, 

 and the commerce spreading along the line of 

 railway, and at the ports and towns, would provide 

 work and wealth for many thousands more. 



Another mistake has been her commercial policy, 

 which includes a high tariff. 



Though protective tariffs have their value in 

 certain circumstances, such circumstances did not 

 apply to Angola. The encouragement to trade 

 was essential, cheapness of the means of living 

 were necessary to encourage immigration, and 

 should not have been antagonistic to the pro- 

 tection of a growing colonial industry. Trade 

 with Portugal would have been none the worse if 

 the discriminating tariff against foreign goods 

 had been moderated. Imports were instituted 



