Turning now to the question of whether slavery—­as distinct from the slave trade—­still exists in Portuguese West Africa, it is to be observed that it is essential to inquire thoroughly into this question for the reason already given, viz. that before considering what remedies should be applied it is very necessary that the true nature of the evil should be recognised.  On this point there is a direct conflict of opinion.  The Anti-Slavery Society maintain that the present system of contract labourers (’servicaes’) is merely another name for slavery, and as one proof of the wide discrepancy between theory and practice they point to the fact that whereas there can be no manner of doubt that undisguised slavery existed until only recently, it was nominally abolished by law so long ago as 1876.  On the other hand, to quote the words of Mr. Smallbones, the British Consul at Loanda, the Portuguese Government, whose views on this matter appear to have been received with a certain amount of qualified acceptance by the British Foreign Office, “consistently deny” the existence of a state of slavery.

The whole controversy really hangs on what is meant by the word “slavery.”  In this, as in so many cases, it is easier to say what the thing is not than to embrace in one short sentence an accurate and sufficiently wide explanation of what it is. Definitio est negatio. De Brunetiere said that, after fifty years of discussion, it was impossible to define romanticism.  Half a century or more ago, a talented German writer (Hacklaender) wrote a book entitled European Slave-life, in which he attempted to show that, without knowing it, we were all slaves one of another, and, in fact, that the artisan working in a cotton factory or the sempstress employed in a milliner’s shop was as truly in a state of slavery as the negro who at that time was working in the fields of Georgia or Carolina.  In a sense, of course, it may be said that every one who works for his living, from a Cabinet Minister to a crossing-sweeper, is a slave, for he has to conform to certain rules, and unless he works he will be deprived of many advantages which he wishes to acquire, and may even be reduced to a state of starvation.  But speculations of this sort may be left to the philosopher and the sociologist.  They have little interest for the practical politician.  Sir Edward Grey endeavoured, for the purposes of the subject now under discussion, to define slavery.  “Voluntary engagement,” he said, “is not slavery, but forcible engagement is slavery.”  The definition is correct as far as it goes, but it is incomplete, for it fails to answer the question on which a great part of this Portuguese controversy hangs, viz. what do the words “voluntary” and “forcible” mean?  The truth is that it is quite unnecessary, in dealing with this subject, to wander off into a field strewn with dialectical subtleties.  It may not be possible to define slavery with the same mathematical precision which