"Is the decline of Portugal an ineluctable consequence of racial inferiority or is the Portuguese race capable of transformation? There is no denying - and there are many Portuguese who admit it - that while the soil and resources of Portugal and her Colonies offer in abundance all that is necessary to national health and prosperity, the nation, owing partly to the copious admixture of negro blood and partly to a rather enervating climate, is phisically, mentally and morally degenerate. Some 80 per cent of the population are tubercular or syphilitic, 60 per cent are illiterate, and almost all are incurably emotional, volatile and incapable of sustained effort or logical thought ( ... ) These uncomplimentary character sketch affords some explanation of the degradation of Portuguese political life into an obsessive preocupation with personal intrigue for private advancement; intensity of personal ambition excludes any conception of any personal abstraction like patriotism"
Excerto do Annual Report for Portugal relativo ao ano de 1928, da autoria do Embaixador britânico em Lisboa, Sir Colville Barcklay
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