Colonel Wyllie suggests that the Principe planters should abandon their present plantations and receive “free grants of land in the fertile and populous colony of Portuguese Guinea, the soil of which is reported by all competent authorities to be better suited to cacao-growing than even that of San Thome itself, and certainly far superior to that of Principe.  Guinea has from time to time supplied labour to these islands, so that the besetting trouble of the latter is nonexistent there.”  He adds:  “I am decidedly of opinion that some such scheme as this is the only cure for the blight that has fallen on the island of Principe.”  It would require greater local knowledge than any to which the writer of the present article can pretend to discuss the merits of this proposal, but at first sight it would certainly appear to deserve full and careful consideration.

But as regards San Thome, which is by far the larger and more important of the two islands, it would appear that the importation of free labour is not only the best, but, indeed, the only really possible solution of the whole problem.  It may be suggested that, without by any means neglecting other points, such as the repatriation of men now serving, the efforts both of the Portuguese Government and of all others interested in the question should be mainly centred on this issue.  Something has been already done in this direction, Mr. Harris, writing in the Contemporary Review of May 1912, said:  “Mozambique labour was tried in 1908, and this experiment is proving, for the time, so successful, that many planters look to the East rather than West Africa for their future supply.  All available evidence appears to prove that Cabinda, Cape Verde, and Mozambique labour is, so far as contract labour goes, fairly recruited and honestly treated as ‘free labour.’” It is an encouraging sign that a Portuguese Company has been formed whose object is “to recruit free, paid labourers, natives of the provinces of Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and Guinea.”  Moreover, the following passage from Colonel Wyllie’s report deserves very special attention: 

“Several San Thome planters,” he says, “realising the advantage of having a more intelligent and industrious labourer than the Angolan, have signed contracts with an English Company trading in Liberia for the supply of labour from Cape Palmas and its hinterland, on terms to which no exception can be taken from any point of view.  Two, if not by now three, batches of Liberians have arrived at San Thome and have been placed on estates for work.  The Company has posted an English agent there to act as curador to the men, banking their money, arranging their home remittances, and mediating in any disputes arising between them and their employers.  The system works wonderfully well, giving satisfaction both to the masters and to the men, the latter being as pleased with their treatment as the former are with their physique and intelligence.