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388 they supported the “Daily Mail.” The Colonel declared that labor conditions in Sao Thomé were quite ideal, whereas Nevinson and others had declared that they constituted black slavery. The point that interests us, however, is that the English cocoa manufacturers were forced by frantic efforts to justify themselves and deny all responsibility. They therefore proceeded to say that it wasn't true and if it was, the Portuguese were responsible. Under cover of this bitter controversy an extraordinary industrial revolution took place: a boycott was placed on Portuguese cocoa the world over, and under the mists of recrimination the center of the cocoa-raising industry was transferred from Portuguese to English soil—from Sao Thomé and Principe to British Nigeria and the Gold Coast. Before 1900 less than one thousand tons of cocoa had been raised in British West Africa annually; by 1920 this had risen to one hundred and seventy thousand tons.

Of the real facts behind this rush of smoke I only know: that in the end two new groups of black folk appeared above the horizon—the black proprietors in Sao Thomé who still raise the best cocoa in the world and who, freed of the overlordship of English capital have achieved a certain political independence in the Portuguese empire; and the black peasant proprietors of the cocoa farms of Nigeria who have performed one of the industrial miracles of a century and become the center of a world industry. In this development note if you please the characteristic of all color-line fights—the tearing across of all rational division of opinion: here is Liberalism, anti-slavery and cocoa capitalism fighting Toryism, free Negro proprietors and economic independence. Thus with a democratic face at home, modern imperialism turns a visage of stern and unyielding autocracy toward its darker colonies. This double-faced attitude is difficult to maintain and puts hard strain on the national soul that tries it.

Thus in this part of Portuguese Africa the worst aspects of slavery melted away and colonial proprietors with smaller holdings could afford to compete with the great planters; wherefore democracy, both industrially and politically, took new life in black Portugal. Intelligent black deputies appeared in the