There was a Slave-trade debate on Thursday of some import-
ance. Mr. Hanbury, who called attention to the matter, showed that while we had put down the sea-borne traffic in slaves on the East Coast of Africa, a land-borne trade had sprung up which inflicted still greater miseries on the slaves who were marched up to the Somali country and there sold. Mr. Bourke made a reply which was satisfactory in one way, as show- ing that he wished to stop the trade, but unsatisfactory in another, as indicating that he did not see how to do it. We had ships and boats on the East Coast; we could not send Consuls to the slave marts to die of fever or be murdered, we had not yet a treaty with the Khedive against the slave trade, and he had a hope that when the slave-dealers had worked off their stocks the land-borne trade would stop. All that is a little weak. Profitable trades do not stop, neither ships nor boats can reach the interior, and the reluctance to expend Englishmen in stopping the slave trade is excessive. Supposing them to go voluntarily—and there are always volunteers for any work—how could they die better? There is a little too much reluctance to approach the Khedive on this subject, even Mr. Forster saying, if he is accurately reported, that we " could not expect the Khedive to allow our cruisers to enter the Red Sea on such an errand." Who made the Khedive master of the Red Sea, or why should he be allowed to shield slave-traders, any more than pirates? It rests with him and the Seyyid of Zanzibar to put down the slave trade, and both should understand that if they will not do it, the British Government will regard them as enemies.
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