THE PORTUGUESE QUESTION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 10 January 1890, Page 2

THE PORTUGUESE QUESTION.

Affairs in Africa stem pointing to a serious trouble, which may at any moment involve the whole of Europe in war. It is but a short time ago that the Portuguese officer Major Pinto acted in a most outrageous manner with our Kaffir a'lies, and treated the English flag with contempt. For this officer's action Portugal haß been called upon to explain, but the purport of the answer is not yet known. Lord Salisbury peremptorily ignores the Portugne«e pretensions, and insists on the rights of England, and threatens an immediate diplomatic rupture, or wors« , unless satisfaction is given j for Major Pinto's outrages. The English papers insist on vigourOUB action for the parposo of re stoving English prestige in Africa, nnd the Pall MA 11 Gaze'te advises the seizure of the Delagoa Bay Eailway in Soulili Eastern Africa, n which English and Amerioan capatalists are interested. H. M* ships Calliope, Satellite, Reindeer, and Conquest have sailed for Zanzibar, it is be'ieved that their destination is De'agoa Ray, and eight more sh'ps procet d to Gibraltar. Evidently matters were seriois enough, as German eugineers weK laying mines at the mouth of the Tagus, as a defence against English attaok ; but the latest news informs us that at Katunga, a place within the sphere of British influence, the Portuguese searched the Makolol' s* canoes, and compelled them to surrender flags given them by the English. Consul Johnson has organised a forji- from among the warlike tribes of the dis'riot. find hostilities with the Portuguese are imminent. Who can foraeo the end r»{ this dispute about b ttrrtory over which the Portuguese hare never exercised any goTereigntr, and whioh is prac

fcicalfy the- property of the natives of that laud, We can only ti\ist, that the wisdord pi our statesman will enable our prestige to he secured without recourse to the terrible scourge of war.