truth, that for all practical purposes slavery has quietly disappeared from the Soudan.  But if once this confidence is conspicuous by its absence, a state of more or less latent warfare between the humanitarians and the official world, such as that revealed in the papers recently laid before Parliament, is almost certain to be created, with the results that the public interests suffer, that rather heated arguments and counter-arguments are bandied about in the columns of the newspapers, and that the differences of opinion on minor points between those who ought to be allies tend to obscure the main issue, and preclude that co-operation which should be secured, and which in itself would be no slight earnest of success.

Stress has been laid on this point because of its practical importance, and also in the hope that, in connection with this question, it may be found possible ere long to establish better relations between the Foreign Office officials and the Anti-Slavery Society than those which apparently exist at present.  There ought to be no great difficulty in effecting an improvement in those relations, for it cannot for one moment be doubted that both sides are honestly endeavouring to perform what they consider to be their duty according to their respective lights.

Turning now to the consideration of the question on its own merits, it is obvious that, before discussing any remedies, it is essential to arrive at a correct diagnosis of the disease.  Is the trade in slaves still carried on, and does slavery still exist in the Portuguese dominions?  The two points deserve separate treatment, for although slavery is bad, the slave trade is infinitely worse.

It is not denied that until very recently the trade in slaves between the mainland and the Portuguese islands was carried on upon an extensive scale.  The Anti-Slavery Society state that within the last twenty-five years sixty-three thousand slaves, constituting “a human cargo worth something over L2,500,000,” have been shipped to the islands.  Moreover, it appears that, as was to be expected, this trade was, and perhaps to a certain extent still is, in the hands of individuals who constitute the dregs of society, and who, it may confidently be assumed, have not allowed their operations to be hampered by any kind of moral or humane scruples.  Colonel Freire d’Andrade informed Sir Arthur Hardinge that “many of the Portuguese slave-traders at Angola had been convicts sentenced to transportation,” who had been allowed to settle in the colony.  “It was from among these old convicts or ex-convict settlers and their half-caste progeny that the slave-trading element, denounced by the Belgian Government, was largely recruited; they at least were its most direct agents.”  Since the accession to power of the Republican Government in Portugal the trade in slaves has been absolutely prohibited.  No Government which professes to follow the dictates of civilisation, and especially of Liberalism,