SPECTATOR SUMMARY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 134, 3 December 1910, Page 12

SPECTATOR SUMMARY.

(For the week ending, 15th October, 1910.)' PORTUGESE SLAVES. We have put forward once more our suggestion that the change in the system of government in Portugal ought to be seized by our Foreign Office to insist that Portugal shall carry out her international obligations in regard to blavery and the slave trade, and that the new regime shall begin with abolishing in fact as well as in name these crimes against civilisation. We aTe bound to assume that the men who have founded the Republic are sincere in their protestations in regard to human liberty. It would be an outrageous insult to them to believe otherwise. That being so, it cannot be an unfriendly act to, urge them to put themselves right with public opinion here and throughout the world by making their first act the striking of the shackles from the unfortunate plantation slaves in the cocoa islands, and by putting an end to the horrors of the slave-raiding in Angola, some of which horrors are described in the letter by Mr". Harris, the organising secretary of the AntiSlavery Society. A PRESENT HORROR. We must remember that the recital of these horrors is not ancient history, but depicts a state of things' which is now going on. At this very moment — as we write these words — there, are long strings of miserable men, women, and children slowly toiling through the hinterland of Portuguese West Africa, with the slave-hunters' s and slavedriver's wooden yokes around their necks. When iome wretched creature in the slave gang shows signs of dropping down through axh»ustion, he or she, child or grown-up, man or woman, is flogged 7 , as' no man would dare to iiog a horsi/^in England. If this fails, and the> v 'attempt to keep the wretched creature on His legs is clearly hopeless, he is shot then and there, and his body left to be eaten by the> wolves and the vultures. This may seem a waste oi powder, but & little reflection will show that it is absolutely necessary, given that the slave-raider's gangs are ever to reach the coast. If men could get out of the chain-gangs by shamming exhaustion, the caravans would miA. wiLher away. The knowledge that they will be shot instantly if they cannot keep up gets every ounce of effort out of fche slave prisoners. In a word, it -s an essential condition that the slave-raiders should shoot the exhausted, or apparently exhausted, members of the gang. If they did not, the business of slave-raiding would soon come to au end. '•'CONTRACTED LABOUR." When the enslaved people reach thecoast they undergo the pleasant "offiijcti" transformation of being called Contracted labourers," and of signing a contract for labour on the islands, .with all sorts of humane clauses as to ifcpatriatk/n. Otherwise 'their status is unaltered. They are then placed upon the slaver steameis — which, to our shame, pass British warships untouched — and are deported to the islands, whence they never return. This is the system which we cannot think we are unfair to Portugal and the new Government in. asking that they should pledge themselves to put an end to before they ask recognition of any civilised Government. ■ Remember that we are not asking the new Government to do anything whiuh w» dicl not ask the old Government to do, and which we did not do our best to get the British Government to force the old regime to do. In our demand there is no possible sort oi hostility to the Republic or to Portugal. THE OSBORNE CASE. The papers of Friday week published a remarkable letter irom Mr. W. V. Osborne, whose name is well known in connection with the "Osborne judgment." It has been said persistently by Mr. Osborne's opponents that in taking action in the Courts against the compulsory levies of the Trade-Unions for the support of pledge-bound Labour members lie was backed by rich men who used him as a political instrument. Sir John Gorst, for example, said : — "Where did Osborne get his funds to purchase this celebrated judgment? They were found by rich men and enemies of Labour." In his letter Mr. Osborne says that he wrote to the Trade-Union Congress asking that his accounts should be investigated, but the offer was refused. Yet this offer was in the knowledge of those who made "the most abusive statements" about him at the Congress. A CONVINCING STATEMENT. Next Mr. Osborne offered to put all his papers at the disposal of a London newspaper which had* attacked him. In this case, too, his letter was ignored. -He has made other similar offers, but all have been refused. Mr. Osborne goes on to say that his action I was taken, bona fide, through the local I branch of his union, and that his accounts have been audited by Mr. W. Tyler, J.P., of Wakhamstow, who had before him every detail "to the iast penny stamp." The total amount collected for the trial was £655 13s lid, and 75 per cent, of this was subscribed by Labour men, and the remainder in small sums of "one or two pounds at a time." Of course the source of -the fiwido does not affect the principle at stake. But we trust that Sir John Gorst. Mr. Chiozza Money, and others will not repeat their innuendoes without disproving Mr. Osborne's simple and convicmg statement. A REMARKABLE PROCESSION. Last week's Economist contains an account of v remarkable demonstration which took place in Vienna on 2nd October to protest against the high prices of food. According to the police estimate, three hundred thousand men and women marched in processions to the Town Hall, where speeches were delivered in the open air. "In all the enormous crowd, though the marching lasted five hours and a half, there was not one disorderly person, and the police had not one single cause for interference. But, then, the police sympathised just as m,uch with the demonstration as did the persons who watched the procession from the side walks." A large number of banners, with suitable devices, were carried by the demonstrators. "On one sheet was painted a life-sized Argentinian ox, who could not get across the black and yellow Customs barrier ; on others threats were expressed : 'Need breaks iron !' 'We will have cheap meat, if we have to fight for it !' " Protection is evidently beginning to be found out on the Continent ; the taxes on food grow more and more unpopular.