Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/345

 1899.] Portugal. — Financial Situation. [337

holders. The German Committee explained to the Portu- guese Government that German public opinion demanded the appointment of an international financial commission, and further intimated that unless this wish were complied with the negotiations for a settlement would prove a failure. To this very definite challenge the Portuguese Minister replied by vague promises, and postponed giving any distinct reply, beyond in- serting in the Budget of 1899-1900 a sum of 895,000 milreis for the interest of the external debt. This, however, by no means implied that this comparatively imposing sum would be paid to the bondholders. It only meant that^ the actual application of the amount was dependent on the condition of the finances, and these, in the actual condition of affairs, were in so tottering a state that the smallest disturbance might at any moment render the promise nugatory.

Nor was the anticipation of disturbance and difficulty un- justified by the result. The outbreak of bubonic plague at Oporto at the beginning of the summer necessitated the isolation of that city and its port — the most busy in Portugal — for several weeks, during which all business was of necessity suspended. The Government did not shrink from placing a sanitary cordon round the plague-stricken city, but the French doctors, who had flocked thither to apply the Pasteur-method treatment, were met by such noisy protests against this " barbarous method," that they were forced to abandon their intention. At length, however, the panic wore away, and the population realised that whilst the ravages of the epidemic affected the imagina- tion rather than the body, the safest protection was to be sought in sanitary conditions of life.

Foreign politics were eagerly debated throughout the year by the Portuguese Parliament and press, and the relations with Great Britain especially aroused polemical discussion.

The questions arising out of the Delagoa Arbitration, which, had been referred to arbitration as far back as 1891, were approaching solution. The commission, which had been sitting (with prolonged adjournments) at Berne, despatched to Lorenzo Marques an expert for the purpose of estimating the value of the railway, the chief object in dispute. His valuation, including that of the concession, amounted to 45,000,000 francs, which, with the accrued interest, would amount to about 2,000,000Z. sterling. The partition of the award thus ascertained was to be the subject of subsequent settlement, but the means of meeting such a demand were at once eagerly discussed. It was asserted that a secret treaty on the matter existed between the British and Portuguese Governments, and this understanding, asserted by some and denied by others, remained until the end of the year an unsolved mystery. The only official document which was cited by those who asserted the existence of an under- standing was a despatch of Lord Granville, dated 1873, ad- dressed to the British Minister at Madrid, in which the