as to urge that, if once it can be fully established that they are moving steadily but strenuously in the right direction, no excessive amount of impatience should be shown if the results obtained do not immediately answer all the expectations of those who wish to witness the complete abolition of the hateful system under which the cultivation of cocoa in the West African Islands has hitherto been conducted.  The financial interests involved are important, and deserve a certain, albeit a limited, amount of consideration.  There need be no hesitation whatever in pressing for the adoption of measures which may result in diminishing the profits of the cocoa proprietors and possibly increasing the price paid by the consumers of cocoa.  Indeed, there would be nothing unreasonable in arguing that the output of cocoa, worth L2,000,000 a year, had much better be lost to the world altogether rather than that the life of the present vicious system should be prolonged.  But even if it were desirable—­which is probably not the case—­it is certainly impossible to take all the thirty thousand men now employed in the islands and suddenly transport them elsewhere.  It would be Utopian to expect that the Portuguese Government, in the face of the vehement opposition which they would certainly have to encounter, would consent to the adoption of any such heroic measure.  As practical men we must, whilst acknowledging the highly regrettable nature of the facts, accept them as they stand.  Slight importance can, indeed, be attached to the argument put forward by one of the British Consular authorities, that “the native lives under far better conditions in San Thome than in his own country.”  It is somewhat too much akin to the plea advanced by ardent fox-hunters that the fox enjoys the sport of being hunted.  Neither, although it is satisfactory to learn that the slaves are now generally well treated, does this fact in itself constitute any justification for slavery.  The system must disappear, and the main question is to devise some other less objectionable system to take its place.

There are two radical solutions of this problem.  One is to abandon cocoa-growing altogether, at all events in the island of Principe, a part of which is infected with sleeping-sickness, and to start the industry afresh elsewhere.  The other is to substitute free for slave labour in the islands themselves.  Both plans are discussed in Lieutenant-Colonel Wyllie’s very able report addressed to the Foreign Office on December 8, 1912.  This report is, indeed, one of the most valuable contributions to the literature on this subject which have yet appeared.  Colonel Wyllie has evidently gone thoroughly into the matter, and, moreover, appears to realise the fact, which all experience teaches, that slavery is as indefensible from an economic as it is from a moral point of view.  Free labour, when it can be obtained, is far less expensive than slave labour.