Quarrelsome Portugal.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 593, 11 April 1891, Page 2

Quarrelsome Portugal.

THE RHODES COMPANY. London, April 9. Intelligence from South Africa states that a party of Portuguese has been sent to warn the Rhodes Company from their mines in Manica. The Lieutenant of the party was arrested aud sent to where the British Administrator is settled. Two hundred and fifty gold diggers are proceeding to Amatonga fields via Port Beira.

It may be explained in connection with this cablegram that late in last year the pioneers of the British Chartered Company entered Mashonaland, penetrated northward, and made a treaty with the Chief, in whose land lay the gold-bearing reefs of Manica. The British flag was hoisted, and a small picket poued in an outlying fort. On (he Bth of November a representative of a Portuguese Chartered Company marched down from the Zambesi to the British outpost, hauled down the British flag, and captured the garrison. For ten days the Portuguese standard floated in triumph* But on the 18cb November Mr Rhodes’ pione«r« mustered in force, surprised the Portuguese, made them prisoners, and in turn hau’ed down the Portuguese flag, and ran up the British standard. In the meantime diplomatists in London and Lisbon, in blissful ignorance of the game going on in Africa, were negotiating. They arranged a modus vivendi by which the Powers agreed to leave toe debatable land alone. Imagine their surprise and horror when the capture and recapture of Manica, which indubitably lay in debatable land, was announced. Angry protestations were made in Lisbon, and ex planations were demanded from Capetown by Lord Salisbury. Mr Rhodes replied that hri had no knowledge of the modufi vivendi when he mads the treaty which placed Manica under the British protectorate: having made the treaty, however, he did not intend to budge. Portugal thereupon waxing more wrath than ever, began to equip troops to despatch them to what was expected to be the seat of war. Mr Rhodes, who is Prime Minister of the Cape, is also the chairman, managing director, founder and guiding spirit of the British Chartered Company, and he has a fixed opinion that whether the Portugese are bought or fought out of Africa they muat go before the Union in South Africa can begin. One writer states: “By far the most ambitious of all the empire making projects is that which is associated with the name of Mr Rhodes, the diamond king of South Africa. . . He is a man far above mere colonial aspirations; even the existing Empire is far too narrow and circumscribed a field for his energies.”