[To face page 285.
The present position of the Angola trade is interesting, instructive, and typical. I only venture to speak on it in so far as I can appeal to the statements of Mr. Nightingale, who is an excellent authority, having been long resident in Angola, and heir to the traditions of English enterprise there, so ably represented by the firm of Newton, Carnegie and Co. The trade of Ka Kongo, the dependent province on Angola, I need not mention, because its trade is conditioned by that of its neighbours Congo Français and the Congo Belge.
[To face page 287.
The interesting point—painfully interesting—is the supplanting of English manufactures, and the way in which the English shipping interest[53] at present suffers from the differential duties favouring the Portuguese line, the Empreza Nacional de Navigacão a Vapor. This line, on which I have had the honour of travelling, and consuming in lieu of other foods enough oil and olives for the rest of my natural life, is an admirable line. It shows a calm acquiescence in the ordinances of Fate, a general courteous gentleness, combined with strong smells and the strain of stringed instruments, not to be found on other West Coast boats. It runs two steamers a month (6th and 23rd) from Lisbon, and they call at Madeira, St. Vincent, Santiago, Principe and San Thome Islands, Kabinda, San Antonio (Kongo), Ambriz, Loanda, Ambrizzette, Novo Redondo, Benguella, Mossamedes and Port Alexander, every alternate steamer calling at Liverpool. The other steamboat lines that visit Loanda are the African and British-African of Liverpool, which run monthly, in connection with the other South-west African ports; and the Woermann line from Hamburg. The French Chargeurs-Reunis started a line of steamers from Havre via Lisbon to Loanda, Madagascar, Delagoa Bay, touching at Capetown, when so disposed, but this line has discontinued calling in on Loanda. The other navigation for Angola is done by the Rio Quanza Company, which runs two steamers up that river as far as Dondo; but this industry, Dondo included, Mr. Nightingale states to be in a parlous state since the extension of the Royal Trans-African Railway Company[54] to Cazengo, “as all the coffee which previously came via Dondo by means of carriers, now comes by rail, the town of Dondo is almost deserted; the house property which a few years ago was valued at £200,000 sterling, to-day would not realise £10,000.” I may remark in this connection, however, not to raise the British railway-material makers’ feelings unduly, that all this railway’s rolling stock and material is Belgian in origin. This seems to be the fate of African railways. I am told it is on account, for one thing, of the way in which the boilers of the English locomotives are set in, namely, too stiffly, whereby they suffer more over rough roads than the more loosely hung together foreign-made locomotives; and, for another, that English-made rolling stock is too heavy for rough roads, and that roads under the conditions in Africa cannot be otherwise than rough, &c. It is not, however, Belgian stuff alone that is competing and ousting our own from the markets of Angola. American machinery, owing to the personal enterprise of several American engineering firms, is supplying steam-engines and centrifugal pumps for working salt at Cucuaco, and machinery for dealing with sugar-cane. Mr. Nightingale says the cultivation of the sugar-cane is rapidly extending, for the sole purpose of making rum. The ambition of every small trader, after he has put a few hundreds of milreis together, is to become a fazendeiro (planter) and make rum, for which there is ever a ready sale. But regarding the machinery, Mr. Nightingale says: “Up to the present time no British firm has sent out a representative to this province. There is a fair demand for cane-crushing mills, steam engines and turbines. A representative of an American firm is out here for the third time within four years, and has done good business; and there is no reason why the British manufacturers should not do as well. The American machinery is inferior to British makes, and cheaper; but it sells well, which is the principal thing.”
