Taxes — Monopolies — Poverty 



hedged off from opportunities of profitable 

 labour. 



Even as things are the labourer's lot is not 

 an unhappy one. Farm hands get from 400 

 to 500 reis a day, that is, from one and eight- 

 pence to two shillings. I find they do not,'as 

 a rule, work every day in the week ; one or two 

 days are generally devoted to the cultivation 

 of their own little patches, where they grow 

 the sweet potatoes on which they chiefly live, 

 or the sugar-cane which is supplanting them. 

 They do not know what cold is, and fuel is 

 only required for cooking. An English farm- 

 labourer might reasonably regard their con- 

 dition with envy. 



In the foreign concession-hunter the Portu- 

 guese sometimes catch a Tartar. A few years 

 ago a German company-promoter, backed by 

 a millionaire prince of imperial connections, 

 obtained a concession to exploit this island as 

 a resort for tourists and invalids. The company 

 formed to work it undertook, as a consideration, 

 to build a sanatorium with forty beds for sick 

 poor — an ingenious arrangement, as it secured 

 Royal support, her Majesty the Queen of 

 Portugal being charitably disposed in such 



161 M 



