470 The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



Collectors), there is a serious risk of conflicting 

 interests with a much more powerful rival than 

 the West Indian cacao-planter — the Hebrew 

 mine-owner on whose behalf Great Britain had 

 to fight the two Bc^er Republics. S. Thome 

 has quite enough cn her hands as it is, and the 

 very one-sided convention rushed through lately 

 between the Transvaal and Portugal opposes a 

 fresh Scylla to the humanitarian Cnarybdis. 



THE MOLEQUE 



is the offspring of the imported servicae, 

 born and bred in the islands. He is looked 

 to as the ultimate solution of the knotty problem, 

 and indeed has already furnished that solution 

 in the case of the older and more fully devo- 

 loped properties, long independent of imported 

 labour. But his case is open to criticism from 

 at least one point of view, and both the planters 

 and the Government have to look the facts in 

 the face. To begin with, the moleque is born 

 free in theory, for slavery has no legal existence 

 on Portuguese soil. But by law he is subject 

 (Article 64 of the Decree of 23rd April, 1908), not 

 to his parents but to the owner of the plantation 

 on which he is born, who is entitled to employ 

 him (or her) from the age of 11 to 14 on certain 

 specified tasks only, indoors and out of doors — 

 without pay. And from 14 to 16 the moleque boy 

 is bound to do part of the work prescribed for a 

 man, certain specified tasks excepted, while the 

 moleque girl has to do all the work prescribed 

 for a woman. As to what happens after that age, 

 the law is silent. 



IS THIS "A MODERN SLAVERY," OR IS IT NOT? 



If we accept the Nevinsonian definition of the 

 term (" slavery is not a matter of discomfort 

 or ill-treatment, but of loss of liberty"), we can 

 only answer this question in the affirmative." 

 But I take exception both to the definition and 

 to the use of the question-begging epithet. In 

 the popular sense, the term slavery connotes all 

 manner of horrors, suggesting visions of labour 

 in chains, the bloodhound and the lash of the 

 brutal overseer, if it does not actually define 

 these horrors to the exclusion of all the humaner 

 elements. The statesman and the man of letters 

 does not require to be reminded of the historic 

 fact that slavery has in the past proved a valu- 

 able agency in the development of nations ; and 

 recent events all the world over are forcing it 

 upon us that in our relations with the coloured 

 races we have been far too hasty in discarding 

 that institution. " ("all it slavery if you like," 

 said a Portuguese official to Mr. Nevinson ('"A 

 Modern Slavery," p. 190). "Names and systems 

 don't matter. The sum of human happiness is 

 being infinitely increased." A refreshing appli- 

 ■ cation of the venerable doctrine of the greatest 

 good of the greatest number; though open to 

 question as regards the unimportance of names 

 and systems, the whole of the present trouble 

 being due to a " terminological inexactitude." 



Let me freely admit that the law in the case 

 of the Moleque sanctions a restriction of liberty ; 

 not only that, but that it vests the exercise of 

 that restriction not in the parents of the child, 

 but in the lord of the manor in loco parentis. 

 But, modified by the special circumstances of 

 the case, is not this the common experience of 

 our own youth ? What decently educated white 



has not been restrained in the exercise of his 

 liberty, tif^t at school or college, then in the 

 acquisition of his trade or profession ? — and that 

 not by his fond parents at all, but by the school- 

 master, reinforced if need be by the cane, and 

 subsequently by the discipline of duty? And 

 the higher the standard aimed at, the longer and 

 more rigorous the training. Who is going to deny 

 that the process, however disagreeable from the 

 standpoint of the schoolboy, finds ample justifi- 

 cation in the end ? What is true of the indi- 

 vidual is true of the race, and a system proved 

 sound for the white, may mutatis mutandis be 

 reasonably assumed sound for the black, within 

 limits of course— limits far better understood 

 by the Portuguese than by ourselves, as our 

 present troubles in India fully demonstrate. 



The case of the Angolan in its main features 

 is not unlike that of the Moleque, or negro born 

 in the islands. In his native state the Angolan 

 is so absolutely an animal that the humanitarian 

 scores an easy point when he derides the validity 

 of a " bilateral contract " between a more zoo- 

 logical specimen on the one 6ide and an educated 

 white on the other. Stripped of its incidental 

 irrelevancies, this is the true issue between the 

 humanitarian and the planter. The author of 

 "A Modern Slavery,'' bitterly prejudiced, as is 

 evident throughout his book, against the Por- 

 tuguese, concedes that but little fault can be 

 found with the treatment of the negro on the 

 islands, though he does his best by innuendo 

 and misstatement to convey the contrary im- 

 pression. Does the Angolan go to the islands 

 voluntarily from his native wilds, with his eyes 

 open to the advantages and disadvantages of his 

 bargain, as in the case of the Cape Verde 

 islander and the Mocambique negro ; or is he 

 taken there much as a monkey is taken to a Zoo ? 



For reasons partly personal, but chiefly 

 because most of the facts are too well-known to 

 require futher investigation, I did not prolong 

 my enquiry into the province of Angola itself. 

 From the documonts in my possession, some of 

 which at least are unimpeachable, others only 

 open to suspicion as regards motives— the facts 

 narrated being corroborated elsewhere, it would 

 appear that the engagement of the Angolan 

 servieal more closely resembles the taking of the 

 monkey to the Zoo than the taking of the Cape 

 Verde islander to his work on the rogas. Similes, 

 however, are apt to mislead, so let us take the 

 bare facts themselves. Those who desire to 

 have them in full detail may be referred to the 

 pages of the "Economist ta Portuguez'' and 

 the " Voz de Angola,'' two journals which have 

 done yeoman's service in bringing to light 



ATROCIOUS ABUSES PRACTISED IN THE HINTER- 

 LAND OF ANGOLA 



in connection with the hitherto existing sys- 

 tem. It would take too long to recount these, 

 but I may mention that I have just returned 

 from an interview with the Portuguese Colonial 

 Minister in Lisbon, who informs me that he has 

 directed the suspension of all recruiting in 

 Angola until Government can get out a decree 

 providing for the establishment of an entirely 

 new Government agency which will take re- 

 cruiting out of the hands of private individuals. 



