Nightingale's lament. Small matters in themselves, you may think, but straws show which way the wind blows, and it blows against England's trade in every part of Africa not under England's flag. It would not, however, be fair to put down to differential tariffs alone our failing trade in Angola, because our successful competitors in hardware and gunpowder are other nations who have to face the same disadvantages—Germany, Holland, and Belgium. Portugal herself is now competing with the Manchester goods. She does so with well-made stuffs, but she is undoubtedly aided by her tariff. The consular report (1949) says: "The falling off in Manchester cotton since 1891 shows a diminution of 1,665,710 kilos. Cotton, if coming from Manchester via Lisbon, 1,665,710, duties 80 per cent, or 250 reis per kilo, equal 333,144 milreis (about £51,250); cotton coming from Portugal, 1,665,710 kilos, duties 25 reis per kilo, equal to 41,642 dollars, 750 reis (about £6,400, showing a difference in the receipts for one year of £44,850."
There is in this statement, I own, a certain obscurity, which has probably got into it from the editing of the home officials. I do not know if the 1,665,710 kilos, representing the difference between what England shipped to Angola in 1891 and what she shipped in 1896, was supplied in the latter years from Portugal of Portuguese manufacture; but assuming such to have been the case, the position from a tariff point of view would work out as follows: 1,665,710 kilos of cottons from Manchester would pay duty, at 250 reis per kilo, 416,42712 milreis. Taking the exchange at 3s. sterling per milreis, this amounts to £62,464. If this quantity of Manchester-made cottons had gone to Lisbon, and there become nationalised, and sent forward to Angola in Portuguese steamers, the duty would
