Dr. Livingstone is clear, however, about the slave trade, which
he traces to the Banians or Indian capitalists of Zanzibar, who sell about 20,000 slaves a year, and expend 100,000 lives in the- effort to obtain them. We can reach those villains, if we please, by a simple Act of the Indian Legislature declaring that any- native engaging in the slave trade, inside or outside British dominion, shall be considered a Thug, and dealt with under the- Thuggee law, and his property confiscated to a fund for the enfranchisement of slaves in Zanzibar. With such a measure, and a prompt denunciation of the Treaty under which we allow, according to the Bishop of Winchester, the Sultan of Zanzibar to bay and sell slaves—a treaty which cannot be bind- ing, any more than a contract to ship slaves from England would• be, being opposed to common morality—we might in two years- put an end to the slave trade in Eastern Africa. If necessary, of course, money can be paid to the Sultan for his privilege, but the trade should be put down at once with a strong hand. It is a farce- to boast of " keeping the police of Asiatic seas " and of putting down pirates, while we allow these man-stealers to continue living..
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