The great debate in the German Reichstag on East Africa
came off on Friday week, and ended in a nearly unanimous resolution to support the Government policy. This policy, as described by Count Herbert Bismarck, is to support the British, to whom, said the Count, "in East Africa we are married," in putting down the slave-trade. The metaphor is not a happy one, limited marriage being only concubinage ; but the Count's meaning is clearer than his similes, and England so far heartily welcomes the accession of a most potent ally. The Count proceeded to say that the Emperor, for reasons everybody would understand, could not send German conscripts to East Africa, but the German East African Company would be allowed to raise a force of its own, and so help to blockade the slave-traders by land. That is the old policy of the East India Company, and quite unobjec- tionable to England; but the German Company has not the available revenue, nor, as yet, subjects who will enlist as volun- tary recruits. We doubt, too, if any volunteers will stand the traditional Prussian discipline. Practically, we imagine, the German Governor will have either to impose a conscription on his dominion, a "kill all or cure all" expedient, or to utilise the liberated slaves, for whom, hinted the Count, it is most difficult to provide. They are most of them fighting men, and may very well give a three years' service in return for freedom and instruction.
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