It is instructive to note that the Portuguese Minister in this passage makes no distinction between serviçaes and slaves, yet when unofficial critics declare that in practice the terms are indistinguishable, they are condemned for deliberately confusing the public mind. It is also of importance to bear in mind that the Lunda Province is included in the territories which come under the operations of the Berlin Act, whereby every European Power is under the most solemn responsibility to secure throughout these territories the abolition of slavery. [Sidenote: PORTUGUESE OFFICIAL ADMISSION] There is further the evidence, from a Portuguese source, in the fact that in 1911 eleven Portuguese are reported to have been expelled for engaging in the slave-traffic. The Governor of Angola informed Mr. Drummond Hay that nothing severer than the order of expulsion was administered owing to the lack of “conclusive evidence,” but four months later the Portuguese Foreign Minister admitted that the Europeans “by the inquiry were found guilty of acts of slave-traffic.” Sir Arthur Hardinge pointed out that “the 5th article of the Brussels General Act contemplated severer penalties in the case of persons engaging in the slave-trade than an order of expulsion before trial or a prohibition to return to the colony, which such persons, if convicted of a serious criminal offence there, would hardly need.” When, therefore, the long stream of unofficial testimony upon the existence of the slave-trade and slavery in the Portuguese colonies is confirmed in turn by the British Minister at Lisbon and by the British Consul of Angola, and moreover when Sir Edward Grey, who always chooses language with exceptional care, officially informs civilization that the charges are proved “beyond doubt,” and finally when the Portuguese authorities are driven to admit it, then surely the time has come to cease gathering evidence and to set about some substantial and far-reaching measures of reform. To meet a situation which is a grave international scandal and a potential menace to European peace, what do the Portuguese offer to civilization? They claim good treatment of the labourers, humane regulations and repatriation of the slaves. It is common ground that the slaves upon the islands are, generally speaking, well fed, housed and fairly well clothed, but the slaves themselves are emphatic in their assertions that they are frequently beaten. This the Portuguese deny, but those who know West Africa are perfectly well aware that it is impossible to keep something like 40,000 slaves working on the cocoa farms at the rate of “a man per hectare” without a considerable amount of “pressure.”