§ MR. BYLES (Salford, N.)To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that slave labour recruited in West Africa is largely employed on the islands of St. Thomé and Principé whether the Portuguese Government has undertaken to put down the slave trade in her West African territory; whether England in 1830 paid 741 a large sum of money to Portugal to secure that suppression; whether Great Britain, in concert with other Powers, has bound herself, by the Ashburton Treaty in 1842, by the Berlin General Act in 1855, and by the Brussels General Act in 1890, to suppress every kind of slave trade in the interior of Africa; and why are these solemn undertakings ignored.
(Answered by Secretary Sir Edward Grey.) I am aware that the labour in San Thomé and Principé is largely recruited in Portuguese West Africa. There is no trace of any payment having been made to Portugal in 1830 for the suppression of the slave trade in West Africa. But in 1815, by the Convention of the 21st January, a sum of £300,000 was paid to Portugal in discharge of claims for Portuguese ships detained by British cruisers previously to the 1st June, 1814, on the ground that they were engaged in illegal slave trade. And on the 22nd January of the same year a treaty was concluded with Portugal by which the Portuguese slave trade in all parts of Africa north of the Equator was declared to be thenceforward illegal. In this treaty Portugal also engaged to "determine by a subsequent treaty the period at which the Portuguese slave trade should cease universally." Great Britain, on her side, remitted in favour of Portugal the whole of what remained amounting to £480,000, due to Great Britain out of a loan of £600,000 raised in 1809 for the service of Portugal. The articles of the Ashburton Treaty referred to are Articles VIII. and IX., of which Article VIII. relates to the maintenance, co-operation, etc., of British and United States squadrons off the coast of Africa; and Article IX. arranges for the address of remonstrances to Powers within whose dominions slave markets exist. But these articles do not refer to the slave trade in the interior of Africa. By the Berlin Act of 1885 and the Brussels Act of 1890 the Powers undertook the suppression of slave markets and the slave trade in their territories in Africa. As the hon. Member is aware, His Majesty's Government are prepared to communicate to the Portuguese Government any authentic information which is at their disposal tending to show that anything in the nature of slavery exists in these parts