This speaker, after confessing, apparently with reluctance, that “the South African Republic had not been stainless in its relations towards the blacks,” added, “but for these deeds—­every one of them—­we could find a parallel among our own people.”  I think a careful study of the history of the South African races would convince this speaker that he has exaggerated the case as against “our own people” in the matter of deliberate cruelty and violence towards the natives.  However that may be, it does not alter the fact of the wide difference between the evil deeds of men acting on their own responsibility and the evil deeds of Governments, and of Communities in which the Governmental Authorities do not forbid, but sanction, such actions.

As an old Abolitionist, who has been engaged for thirty years in a war against slavery in another form, may I be allowed to cite a parallel?  That Anti-slavery War was undertaken against a Law introduced into England, which endorsed, permitted, and in fact, legalized, a moral and social slavery already existing—­a slavery to the vice of prostitution.  The pioneers of the opposition to this law saw the tremendous import, and the necessary consequences of such a law.  They had previously laboured to lessen the social evil by moral and spiritual means, but now they turned their whole attention to obtaining the abolition of the disastrous enactment which took that evil under its protection.  They felt that the action of Government in passing that law brought the whole nation (which is responsible for its Government) under a sentence of guilt—­a sentence of moral death.  It lifted off from the shoulders of individuals, in a measure, the moral responsibility which God had laid upon them, and took that responsibility on its own shoulders, as representing the whole nation; it foreshadowed a national blight.  My readers know that we destroyed that legislation after a struggle of eighteen years.  In the course of that long struggle, we were constantly met by an assertion similar in spirit to that made by the speaker to whom I have referred; and to this day we are met by it in certain European countries.  They say to us, “But for every scandal proceeding from this social vice, which you cite as committed under the system of Governmental Regulation and sanction, we can find a parallel in the streets of London, where no Governmental sanction exists.”  We are constantly taunted with this, and possibly we may have to admit its truth in a measure.  But our accusers do not see the immense difference between Governmental and individual responsibility in this vital matter, neither do they see how additionally hard, how hopeless, becomes the position of the slave who, under the Government sanction, has no appeal to the law of the land; an appeal to the Government which is itself an upholder of slavery, is impossible.  The speaker above cited concluded by saying:  “The best precaution against the abuse of power on the part of whites living amidst a coloured population is to make the punishment of misdeeds come home to the persons who are guilty of those misdeeds; and if he could but get his countrymen to act up to that view he believed we should really have a better prospect for the future of South Africa than we had had in the past.”