As regards the first point, it is to be observed that when the superior intelligence and education of the recruiting agents are contrasted with the complete savagery and ignorance of the individuals recruited, there is obviously a strong presumption that in numberless cases the latter have been cozened into making contracts, the nature of which they did not in the least understand, and this presumption may almost be said to harden into certainty when the fact, to which allusion has already been made, is remembered, that the Portuguese officials engaged in the registration of contract labourers had until very recently a direct pecuniary interest in augmenting the number of labourers. Further, Mr. Smallbones, writing on September 26, 1912, alludes to a letter signed "Carlos de Silva," which appeared in a local paper termed the _Independente_. M. de Silva says that the "serviçaes" engaged in Novo Redondo "all answered the interpreter's question whether they were willing to go to San Thomé with a decided 'No,' which was translated by the interpreter as signifying their utmost willingness to be embarked." If this statement is correct, it is in itself almost sufficient to satisfy the most severe condemnation of the whole system heretofore adopted. It is, indeed, impossible to read the evidence adduced in the White Paper without coming to the conclusion that, whatever may be the case at present, the system of recruiting in the past has not differed materially from the slave trade. If this be the case, it is clear that, in spite of any legal technicalities to the contrary, the great majority of labourers now serving under contract in the islands should, for all purposes of repatriation and the acquisition of freedom, be placed on a precisely similar footing to those whose contracts have expired. There can be no moral justification whatever for taking advantage of the engagements into which they may have entered to keep them in what is practically a condition of servitude.