Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/1241

 PRODTTCTION AND INDUSTRY 885

annual contingent is fixed each v(^ar by the Cortes ; for 1898 the number was 16,500.

The organisation of the army is based on the law of October 30, 1884, modified by laws of 1888, 1890, 1895, 1896, and 1897. Continental Portugal is divided into 4 military districts, and the islands into 4 military commands. The army consists of 24 regiments of infantry, 12 regiments of chasseurs, 10 regiments of cavalry, 3 regiments of field, 1 regiment of mountain, and 2 regiments and 4 companies of garrison artillery, 1 regiment of engineers, besides administration and sanitary services. The peace effective (including the Municipal Guards at Lisbon and Oporto, and the Fiscal Guard) is 35,337 men and 4,892 horses and mules. The war effective is 160,000 men, 18,000 horses and mules, and 276 guns. There are maintained in the Colonies 9,478 officers and men, the greater number being native troops.

The navy of Portugal comprises : — 1 old armoured vessel, the Vasco da Gama; 5 protected cruisers, built and building (1,800 to 4,100 tons), 2 modern third class cruisers, 4 old vessels of the same class, 26 various gun- boats, including 10 for river service, and 15 first class and 30 smaller torpedo boats. The fleet is being gradually expanded, in part through the patriotic effort of a national defence committee, which has raised a fund for the pur- pose. A small cruiser, the Adamastor (1,933 tons), has been launched at Leghorn, and two gunboats at Ginjal. A cruiser of 1,660 tons, the Rainha Amelia, is in hand at Lisbon, and two others of 1,800 tons, the Sao Gabriel and Sao Raphael, were launched at Havre in 1898, while the Dom Carlos I., 4,100 tons, is completing at Elswick. Two coast-defence vessels are also in hand.

The Dom Carlos I. is a cruiser 360 feet long, with 46 ft. 6 in. beam and 17 ft. 6 in. draught, liaving a 4 in. protection deck, and a speed of 22 knots, and carrying four 6 in., eight 4 7 in., twelve 3 pr., and six smaller quick- firers, besides machine guns. She has five torpedo tubes.

The only ironclad of the Portuguese navy is the Va^co da Gama, built at the Thames Ironworks, Blackwall, and launched in December 1875. She is plated with armour 11 inches thick on central battery, and a belt from 10 to 7 inches thick, and carries 2 18-ton guns, 1 4-ton, 2 Hotchkiss, quick- firing guns, and 2 machine guns. Her displacement is 2,420 tons, and her speed 13 knots.

Production and Industry.

Of the whole area of Portugal 2 "2 per cent, is under vineyards ; 7 "2 per cent, under fruit trees ; 12 "5 per cent, under cereals ; 27 per cent, under pulse and other crops; 267 per cent, pasture and fallow; and 2*9 per cent, under forest; 45*8 per cent, waste. In Alemtejo and Estremadura and the mountainous districts of other provinces are wide tracts of com- mon and waste lands, and it is asserted that from 2,000,000 to 4,000,000 hectares, now uncultivated, are susceptible of cultivation.

There are four modes of land tenure commonly in use : — Peasant pro- prietorship, tenant farming, metayage, and emphyteusis. In the north- ern half of Portugal, peasant proprietorship and emphyteusis prevail, where land is much subdivided and the 'petite cidtiu-e' practised. In the south large properties and tenant farming are common. In the peculiar system called aforamento or emphyteusis the contract arises whenever the owner of any real property transfers the dominium utile to another person who binds him.self to pay to the owner a certain fixed rent called foro or canon. The landlord, retaining only the dominium directum of