Diário de Lisboa
- Two figures
- Otta and Lisbon’s water supply
- The rising price of potatoes
Diário de Lisboa praises two visiting colonial clerics as collaborators in a missionary reform plan. In its shorter columns it also softens its own accusation against Otta’s water demands and turns expensive potatoes into a joke about Azorean food and emigrant homesickness.
Opening and concluding reception paragraphs of the missionary profile, the complete Otta clarification, and the potato/inhame column. The long biographical middle and left-hand China essay are not transcribed.
Translation
Two figures
The Nyassa, of the Companhia Nacional de Navegação, has just brought us from Africa two great national figures, two great priests whose proverbial modesty cannot conceal their moral and intellectual worth.
They are the Prelate of Mozambique, titular Bishop of Augusta, D. Rafael da Assunção, and the Vicar Capitular of the Diocese of Angola and Congo, Dr Manuel Alves da Cunha, who has performed the functions of bishop for some twelve years.
Commander João Belo requested their presence in the metropole. He intends to resolve the question of religious missions overseas. An experienced colonial officer whose career was made in the southern hemisphere, the present Minister of Colonies, with such collaborators, can and should do fruitful and patriotic work.
[…]
As we have said, the purpose of the conference is the plan to reform the Portuguese missions. The reception a few hours ago at the landing quay, where many dozens of people with close ties to Africa—friends and admirers of these great colonial figures, these ornaments of our national endeavor who so proudly deserve our esteem—gathered to welcome the distinguished priests and show their appreciation, was also an eloquent demonstration of support for Commander João Belo's intentions.
Otta and Lisbon’s water supply
We have received a telegram signed by D. Vasco da Camara of Belmonte, protesting against the report in Diário de Lisboa and other newspapers that Otta's inhabitants intended to let the people of Lisbon die of thirst.
The matter concerns the proposed abstraction of water from the Otta River to increase Lisbon's supply during the summer. As we said—and we believe they are right—the people of Otta will agree to the abstraction only if the company undertakes to build them a public fountain.
When we said that they intended to let Lisbon's population die of thirst, we were using a forceful figure of speech, with no intention whatsoever of impugning the peaceful sentiments of that cheerful riverside community.
The rising price of potatoes
The rising price of potatoes has prompted some singular displays of opportunistic philosophy. Yesterday a man given to economically enormous cogitations came up with this:
“Why don't we import inhames as a substitute for potatoes?”
Who can answer that question?
In the Azores there are many splendid patches of inhames, each plant flaunting a leaf the size of an umbrella.
To our palates, inhames are inedible: they taste rotten.
From Ponta Delgada they are exported to the United States, where our emigrant compatriots eat them out of love for their native land. With an inhame in their mouths, they remember their distant homes.
It is their penance for homesickness and patriotism.
Context
Religious missions as colonial policy
The minister summoned senior clergy from Mozambique and Angola to discuss reform, placing mission organization within the business of colonial government. This administrative connection continued in the mission statute: a 1927 official decree amended the statute governing Portuguese Catholic missions in Africa and Timor. The warm reception described in the article belongs to that effort to present church work and national colonial interests as a common enterprise.
A city’s water supply and a village’s claim
Lisbon sought more summer water from a river used by a smaller community. Otta’s condition—a public fountain—turned consent into a demand that the exporting locality also receive an improvement. The dispute is therefore about who benefits from a water-supply project, not just whether the capital needs water. The newspaper’s clarification recognizes that local bargaining interest after its earlier dramatic accusation.
Food substitution meets homesickness
The potato-price joke turns on the gap between an economic substitute and a culturally familiar food. The writer finds inhames unpleasant but imagines emigrants valuing the same food as a link to home. That contrast gives the column its humor: a cheap or available crop does not automatically replace another in people’s tastes, while memory can give an ordinary food a value far beyond its market role.
Original
Duas figuras
O Nyassa, da Companhia Nacional de Navegação, acaba de trazer-nos de Africa duas grandes figuras nacionais, dois grandes sacerdotes, cujo valor moral e intelectual a sua proverbial modestia não consegue ocultar.
Trata-se do Prelado de Moçambique, bispo titular de Augusta, D. Rafael da Assunção e do Vigario capitular da Diocese de Angola e Congo, ha cerca de doze anos exercendo as funções de Bispo, dr. Manuel Alves da Cunha.
O comandante sr. João Belo solicitou-lhes a sua presença na metropole. Vai, ao que pretende, resolver o problema das missões religiosas no Ultramar. Colonial experimentado, de carreira feita no hemisferio sul, o atual ministro das Colonias, com tais colaboradores pode, e deve, fazer obra proficua e patriotica.
[...]
Como dissemos, o proposito da conferencia é o plano reformador das missões portuguesas. A manifestação que teve lugar ha poucas horas no cais de desembarque, onde afluiram muitas dezenas de africanistas—amigos e admiradores, de perto, destas grandes figuras coloniais, destes ornamentos da obra nacional que orgulhosamente merecem a nossa consideração—a prestar o seu apreço e acolhimento aos ilustres sacerdotes, foi, tambem uma eloquente demonstração de apoio ás intenções do comandante sr. João Belo.
Otta e o abastecimento de água a Lisboa
Assinado pelo sr. D. Vasco da Camara (Belmonte) recebemos um telegrama de protesto contra a noticia publicada pelo Diario de Lisboa e por outros jornais, de que os habitantes de Otta pretendiam matar á sede a população de Lisboa.
Trata-se da captação das aguas do rio Otta, que se pretende fazer para aumentar durante o verão o caudal que alimenta Lisboa. A população de Otta, conforme nós dissemos—e supomos que tem razão—só consentirá que as aguas sejam captadas, se a Companhia se comprometer a construir-lhe um chafariz.
Quando afirmámos que ela pretendia matar á sede a população de Lisboa, usamos duma fôrça de expressão, que de modo algum pretendia atingir os sentimentos pacificos da risonha povoação ribeirinha.
O encarecimento das batatas
O encarecimento das batatas tem provocado singulares manifestações de filosofia oportunista. Um individuo, dado a cogitações economico-enormes, lembrou-se ontem disto:
“Porque não importamos inhames, como sucedaneo da batata?”
Quem poderá responder a esta pergunta?
Nos Açores, ha muitos inhamaïs vistosos, pois cada qual ostenta uma folha do tamanho dum chapeu de chuva.
Para os nossos paladares, os inhames são intragaveis: sabem a podre.
De Ponta Delgada, exportam-nos para os Estados Unidos, onde os nossos concidadãos emigrados os comem por amor á terra natal. Com o inhame na bôca, recordam o lar distante.
É a penitencia pela saudade e pelo patriotismo.