The French Chamber on Thursday passed an outrageous vote. By
439 to 104 it refused to ratify the Brussels Convention for the suppression of the slave-trade, which every other European Power has signed. The majority maintained that the Con. vention would enable English officers to search French vessels, and was therefore unworthy of the dignity of their country. M. Ribot and his colleagues defended the Convention heartily, though they did not make its acceptance a Cabinet question ; but the Chamber would listen to nothing except outbursts of rhetorical patriotism, and all slavers on the African coast will henceforward hoist the French flag. It will be observed that the " right of search" is not confined to England, and that the zone over which it extends, though it includes Madagascar, includes also the German, Italian, and British dominion in East Africa. The Third Republic seems to have finally abandoned the ideas of the First as to the rights of man, even when they are as clear as the right not to be kidnapped for lifelong prandial labour. There is nothing to be done, we suppose, but to wait, and shoot the kidnappers when they appear on land.
