A saddening story was told at the meeting of the
Anti- Slavery Society on Monday. It is perfectly clear that our officers in Zanzibar, like our officers formerly in the West Indies, have shrank from dealing firmly with the Slavery question. They fear not insurrection, but an economic crash. There are, therefore, one hundred and forty thousand slaves in Zanzibar and Pemba under the British flag, of whom only fifty thousand are protected even against cruelty by an imaginary right of appeal to the Consul-General; the remain- ing ninety thousand being left absolutely to the discretion of Arab masters. Mr. Mackenzie, who has personally examined the facts in Pemba, reports that they have no security even. against death ; that he found slaves in the prisons, against whom there was no charge but flight; and that only 5 per cent. of the slaves were born so, the rest being free men and women stolen by the raiders. We think we may- trust the House of Commons to do justice in this matter, and Lord Salisbury will do well to anticipate the vote. Let him order, as the Court of Directors did, that no official, Court, or gaoler, in Zanzibar, shall recognise the status of slavery, and the iniquity will end at once. He may rely on it that for every lash given or fugitive murdered, we shall have- in the end to pay, as the Americans did. Our justification for conquering in Africa, which is otherwise pure dacoity, is that we set up a vivifying Government. A slave-holding Government is not that, but the reverse of that.
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