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. There is every prospect of the arrangement being
developed to the extent of enabling Angolan labour to be
permanently dispensed with, and possibly superseding Mozambique
importations as well."

Colonel Wyllie then goes on to say: "The company and its agents complain
of the many obstacles they have had to overcome in the form of hostility
and intrigue on the part of interested parties. Systematic attempts have
been made in Liberia to intimidate the gangs from going to San Thome by
tales of cruelty practised by the Portuguese in the islands." More