LORD CAMPBELL, in rising to move—
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that such measures as are necessary to assist the cruisers employed in the repression of the Slave Trade on the Eastern Coast of Africa may be adopted,"—said: At so late a period both of the Session and the evening, I shall not attempt to do justice to the question, but I ought perhaps to state that the Motion has been twice adjourned in order to secure the presence of the right rev. Prelate, who bears the honoured name of Wilberforce, amongst us. In spite of that delay the annual Reports upon the Slave Trade have not been delivered; and it is generally thought to be more proper that a question of the kind should be debated after they appear. Should the Address be carried, as I trust it will be, by the spontaneous action of the House, more good will be effected than by any statement, however cogent in its details. The question has assumed a form which tends to give the interference of the House a greater practical utility than could have formerly belonged to it. It has become a struggle between the Foreign Office and the Treasury, in which the side espoused by Parliament is nearly certain to prevail. The Foreign Office have displayed a creditable zeal to bring to a legitimate conclusion the labours and the sacrifices of Great Britain in East Africa. The Treasury—as it is clear from evidence presented to the other House of Parliament—are not disposed to second the exertion. To overcome by the opinion of the House, and the opinion of the country, the obstacles created by an arrogant, although perhaps, a well-meaning Department, which of late years has been inclined to usurp the powers of the State, is the single object of the Motion. As 10 years have elapsed since the subject of the Eastern Slave Trade came before the House, it may be worth while to glance at the general position which it seems to have arrived. My Lords, the policy began in 1815, and narrowly preserved in 1850, of blockading the sea-board of Africa, in order to arrest the Slave Trade, and so to pave the way for the improvement of the Continent and the 1609 development of its resources, within the last few years has had upon the Western Coast a triumph little hoped for. On that coast the Slave Trade which formerly involved the annual export of 80,000 Africans, has been put an end to. A large and growing commerce in the natural productions of the country has succeeded to it. It is no longer necessary to cruise upon the Western Coast, or keep up the mixed tribunals for adjudicating upon slavers. The Eastern traffic, on the contrary, has baffled our exertions to repress it. It has two distinct lines from Zanzibar to Arabia; from the Portuguese dominion of Mozambique to Madagascar. It would cease if the Sultan of Zanzibar, and the authorities of Portugal saw the question in the light in which it is regarded in this country. It would cease if the Treasury could be induced by Parliament to give effect to the convictions of the Foreign Office. In that event the whole Continent of Africa would be exposed to the civilizing influences which, as Dr. Livingstone has shown, are now disastrously obstructed. My Lords, these statements do not rest upon assertion. The Slave Trade from Zanzibar was thoroughly investigated by a Committee of the Foreign Office, who sat under the direction of Lord Clarendon, and whose Report is before Parliament, dated 1870. It has been more recently explored by a Committee of the other House, whose views and whose researches may be found in our Library. There is a great coincidence in the opinions formed by these inquiring Bodies. They concur as to the prevalence of the Slave Trade from Zanzibar to the Bed Sea. They concur as to the desolation it produces for many hundred miles in the interior of Africa, the loss of life, the sacrifice of wealth, the encouragement of strife, of cruelty, of barbarism, which results from it. They both point to certain measures for extinguishing it. According to their judgment the treaties with the Sultan ought to be revised; the transport of domestic slaves along the coast to be restrained; and the gradual extinction of domestic slavery to be provided for. As these measures would involve the Sultan in pecuniary loss, indemnity for his annual payment to the Government of Muscat has been suggested. It is also pointed out that the system of cruising should be materially strengthened. Among the 1610 most important of the conclusions to which the Committee of the Foreign Office and the Committee of the House of Commons has arrived is—that Zanzibar should be a depôt of liberated slaves, with a view to the supply of labour to meet its wants under a renovated system. Those who wish to understand more fully the case of Zanzibar may refer to the evidence of Mr. Vivian, who appeared as the representative of the Foreign Office; of Sir Bartle Frere, the late Governor of Bombay; of General Rigby, for many years the British Consul at Zanzibar itself; of Mr. Waller, the companion of Dr. Livingstone in Africa; of Sir Leopold Heath, who commanded the Squadron on the Eastern Coast, before the House of Commons. It is still more essential to refer to the evidence of Sir John Kaye, as it substantiates by documents the assertion, with which I set out, on the struggle of the Foreign Office and the Treasury. Neither the Committee of Lord Clarendon nor the Committee of the Foreign Office throw much light upon the Slave Trade to the South of Zanzibar, from Cape Delgardo to Delagoa Bay—the territory claimed by Portugal. They may have thought that Dr. Livingstone, in his last work on the Zambezi and its tributories, sufficiently exhausted that part of the subject. Dr. Livingstone is, no doubt, a most effective witness against Portugal. From him, too, we learn to realize the Slave Trade at its fountain head. He gives the ancient pictures of the Slave Trade a reality which did not formerly belong to them. By his aid we are convinced that it really is a bar to the development of Africa, although not a force sufficient to eradicate the present race and leave the country open to another one. From him also we learn the vanity and folly of counting on Portugal as an ally, unless British agents are assisting, and in some degree directing her. For the last 10 years there has been no British representative on that extensive sea-board. Dr. Livingstone himself had the nominal appointment of Consul at Quilimane; but his instructions and his mission led him to a distance from the coast. Against that striking want, Lord Brougham, the right rev. Prelate I have mentioned, Major General Rigby, the late Mr. Buxton, and this House itself, have equally protested. Its consequences— 1611 some of them at least—are easy to appreciate. The cruisers—for we do profess to cruise upon those waters—are left in hesitation and obscurity as to the mode of operating against the Slave Trade. The Portuguese authorities are deprived of all encouragement on the one hand, of all restraint on the other. The Cabinet of Lisbon, from the absence of any witness to be cited by our Government, may give whatever version they desire to anything which happens in that region. The Sultan of Zanzibar, who cannot overlook the vacancy in question, is led to think that he may safely disregard the class of obligations which Portugal is lured to violate, and yet exhorted to fulfill. A position so derogatory to the pride and fatal to the object of this country can only be ascribed to the enthusiasm of financiers. The cynical may think that all Departments are unscrupulous; but none will go out of their way to court humiliation and give the States, whom they habitually admonish, a locus standi to expose and to refute them. Such, however, will be the conduct of the Foreign Office, if it desires to perpetuate the vacancy. The same force which is known to render the Committee of Lord Clarendon inoperative, maybe fairly held responsible for every deficiency.My Lords, as I am told, a certain doctrine has been thrown out to extenuate this policy. It is not devoid of plausibility and subtlety, and seems to emanate from minds indifferent to great objects, but too much controlled by popular opinion to decry them altogether. It is that the ambition of the country ought to be contented with what it has effected on the Western Coast of Africa; that as that trade had been directed for many years to the West Indies, and her own possessions in them, Great Britain was under a peculiar obligation to eradicate it; but that as she had no hand in the creation of the Eastern Slave Trade, and derived no profit from it, she has not any duty in contending with it. The answer to this doctrine will suggest itself as soon as we inquire into the object for which the Slave Trade has been met by so long and costly a resistance. My Lords, it has not been resisted by this country only with a view to save life or diminish pain, or mitigate atrocity—although those are laudable pursuits, but for the great political result of civilizing 1612 Africa. In 1792, Mr. Pitt, speaking with the approbation of both parties, in that sense with splendid power, defined and enforced the object of Great Britain. But the existence of the Eastern Slave Trade is as fatal to that object as the existence of the Western. The great lesson Mr. Waller and Dr. Livingstone have taught from their experience is, that population, industry, and commerce vanish before the advancing Slave Trade like wood before advancing fire; and that the dealers year by year are carried further from the sea-board they have quitted. By this process they are brought at last to the middle region of the Continent, and work the very countries which the extinction of the Western trade has lifted to comparative prosperity. We thus see, without a deep investigation, that the triumph of Great Britain and the Powers which have acted with her, is useless until it is complete. While the Indian Ocean is ineffectually watched it is an idle toil to guard against this destructive traffic the Coast of Guinea and the waves of the Atlantic. Transactions, compromises, middle-terms, are frequently desirable; but in this particular pursuit, until you grasp the whole the half is certain to elude you. But if the doctrine were more admissible and cogent than it is, the moment for applying it has vanished. For 30 years we have committed ourselves to exertion against the Eastern Slave Trade. The Treaties by which Portugal and Zanzibar are bound down recoil on us with double obligation. The long series of despatches in which we have remonstrated with both those Powers are pledges to the world of an implacable hostility to the Slave Trade on the Eastern Coast of Africa. Noble Lords who can recall the period of 1858 and 1859, must be aware that in our resistance to that Slave Trade we endangered for a time our harmony with France, and nearly lighted up the flames of war in Europe. Whether the policy is bad or good, we are now irrevocably bound to it. At least £1,000,000 sterling must have been expended in pursuing it. Brave men who form the ornament of the naval service have been detained in unwholesome climes and hazardous exertions to advance it. Before the great success which we commanded on the Western Coast, and which is made the pretext of the language I am combating, such language would 1613 have been more respectable and less specious than it is at present. It might have then been urged that opinion being divided—as it really was, upon the efficacy of our system, nothing should be hazarded upon the Eastern Coast until the experiment had justified itself upon the Western. The position now would be that because the Slave Trade has been arrested from Cape Verde to the southern point of Africa, it ought to be permitted to rage from the Straits of Babel Mandeb to the mouths of the Zambezi, while we possess the demonstrable power to control it. Such a mode of thinking will hardly satisfy the classes by whom the Slave Trade was originally held up to indignation in the country. It will not even suffice for the colder and more balanced politicians who doubt whether we ought to have originally gone to the East Coast of Africa in order to protect it. Such minds are ready to admit that many things which ought not to be begun, if once begun can never be relinquished with propriety. Even they habitually accept Aut non tentaris, aut perfice for a maxim which applies to modern as well as ancient times; which bears upon the dignity of States as well as on the fame of individuals. As regards the Address which merely urges Government to take the necessary measures for supporting cruisers they do not venture to withdraw, there is not a motive for resisting it, beyond that comic and traditionary hatred with which all Governments look upon all Motions. If the Foreign Office are entitled to the credit I have given them the Motion cannot be repugnant to them. If they are not it would appear to be the indispensable and urgent duty of your Lordships to adopt it. These observations may suffice to uphold the proposition I submit, although not to exhaust a question of such variety and moment.
Moved, "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that such measures as are necessary to assist the cruisers employed in the repression of the Slave Trade on the Eastern Coast of Africa may be adopted."—(The Lord Stratheden.)
THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, in seconding the Motion, said, that he did so, on the ground that he believed Great Britain had thoroughly determined to do whatever was right and was in her power to put an end to this cursed traffic. There was very great igno- 1614 rance in England at that moment as to the amount of the Slave Trade on the Eastern Coast of Africa; but as far as he could ascertain from the best evidence he could obtain, 90,000 slaves were exported from that coast annually, and as each slave exported cost the lives of from five to ten natives, no less than from 350,000 to 500,000 persons were yearly carried of by the man-hunters who carried on this trade, in order to supply the materials of this system of slavery. He thought if the country were to realize what that grievous evil really represented, it would not rest without taking more active measures to remedy, if not at once to put an end to it. It was not, however, merely the misery of those who were thus sentenced to slavery or death, but it was far more to the desolation which the system carried into Africa itself to which he referred. Dr. Livingstone, a thoroughly trustworthy witness, said that when in 1851 he first went to the shores of Lake Nyanza he found cultivation carried to a high degree. He heard cotton mills at work on every side, and saw the flourishing products of man's labour everywhere. But 10 years after, when the Slave Trade had been driven, by the necessity of finding fresh victims, to the lake, all that remained was a handful of people who fled at the sight of any strangers, fearing they might be man-hunters seeking for fresh victims. If we neglected to check this Slave Trade on the Eastern Coast we should abandon the work which our fathers had done, and to a great extent make useless the sacrifices they made. He was convinced that the people of England were by no means ready to do that. After reading carefully through the evidence taken before the Committee of the House of Commons and before the Foreign Office Committee, it appeared to him that a hearty determination on our part would enable us in a short time to sweep away this great evil from the earth. Both the Committees to which he had referred had recommended that we should use the great influence we possessed with the Sultans of Muscat and of Zanzibar, to place this trade upon a different footing from that which it at present occupied. Under the existing Treaties we were bound not to interfere with the home Slave Trade of Zanzibar, nor with the slave ships within certain limits which carried on the trade with 1615 Arabia, Persia, and Madagascar. The great evil of that arrangement, however, was that the owners of slavers were tempted by it to run the gauntlet of our cruisers beyond the prescribed limits, and that the slaves confined on board those ships endured most dreadful sufferings. In his opinion this country ought to enter into fresh treaties with the Sultans of Zanzibar and Muscat, under which provision should be made for the immediate extincion of the export trade, and for the speedy termination of the home trade in slaves. The Sultan of Zanzibar would soon find out that, by relinquishing that part of his revenue derived from this miserable traffic, his income would not be diminished, because it would be enormously increased by the enlargement of legitimate trade. During the past six years the ligitimate trade of Zanzibar had increased from £245,981 to £487,693, and if the Slave Trade were abolished, and the legitimate resources of the country developed, in a short time the advantage to the Sultan's revenue would be enormous. It was proposed in the Committee of the House of Commons that we should for the time take upon ourselves, charging one-half to ourselves here and one-half to the Indian Revenue—which would be greatly benefitted by the arrangement—a sum of £8,000 a-year; and by making the Sultan of Zanzibar clear from the payment of that £8,000 a-year we could obtain his assent to a Treaty that would enable us in a short and ascertainable time to do away with that great abomination from the face of the earth. What, however, was necessary for carrying out any Treaty—even the Treaty which we had at this moment—was a very slight addition to the expense that we incurred now; and with regard to that point, there was no economy so bad as the spending of a large sum and yet leaving that large sum just below what was requisite to do the thing for which the money was spent at all. What was wanted was a small increase to our Consular establishment on the Coast of Zanzibar itself—where that traffic prevailed, and also a very small addition to our cruising force, so as to make it effectual for its object. It was proved in evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons, that the whole increase of force that would be necessary to stop that traffic would be to have permanently 1616 three cruisers and one launch, with power for the Consul to employ occasionally at certain times of the year, one additional cruiser. In the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons of last year, it was stated that a proposal had been made by which the cost of the maintenance of the Consular Agency at Zanzibar should be divided between the Imperial and the Indian Revenues, as the duties of that Agency were partly of an Imperial and partly of an Indian character; but the proposal was negatived by the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury; and, in consequence of that refusal, matters had been brought to an entire dead-lock. That was not a satisfactory state in which to leave things; and he, therefore, hoped to hear from the Foreign Secretary that that dead-lock was no longer to continue; and unless something were soon done, he believed that a public feeling would arise in this country which would demand some further action on the subject. That further action ought, he thought, first of all to consist of an earnest endeavour to bring the European Powers to co-operate with us, for there was manifested in France a considerable desire to join with us in that matter. A remarkable book had lately appeared in France, in which the writer boldly charged the English people with a want of honesty and truth in their efforts to put down the Slave Trade, asserting that we wished to maintain it as an excuse for keeping a certain force on that coast in order to keep down French influence there. Nothing more ridiculous could hardly be put forward by a French writer of reputation than the idea that England was actuated by such motives; but, at the same time, he thought that that fact marked the readiness of the French mind to unite with us in earnest exertions to extirpate that abominable traffic. He also thought that Germany and America, who were both interested in the extinction of that traffic and the opening of legitimate trade, might in like manner be induced to join with us in such efforts; and he felt assured that the mind and will of Europe expressed on that point would deliver those regions of the globe from groaning under such grievous wrongs. Their Lordships would, perhaps, pardon him if he spoke strongly on that question, because he felt that if in any degree this generation shrank back from 1617 that which their fathers had undertaken, or suffered from inertness or any other cause an evil which they had pledged this country to put down to spring up again without using every means in our power to stay it, we should be in danger of bringing again upon this land those curses the entail of which he trusted might have been cut off. The best examination that could be made into the origin of the cholera in 1869, when that plague made its appearance in Europe, traced it to the regions of the Red Sea, and to the caravans of those very wretched slaves who were left dead and dying in every part of their course; and it would seem as if in that way these unhappy creatures avenged the cruelties which they suffered by leaving that curse in the air where their bodies perished. He ventured, then, to express his firm belief that the country did expect and would require that everything which could justly and honestly be done should be done to suppress that evil traffic.
§ LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid, he trusted that the right rev. Prelate would not think him wanting in either respect or sympathy, if he opposed the Motion. He had not had the advantage of seeing the Slave Trade Blue Book or the Report of the Commission; but he had been informed that the Report of that Commission, which had been appointed by the late Lord Clarendon, in consequence of his observations upon abuses committed by some of Her Majesty's cruisers in the Mozambique Channel, and which he had made to their Lordships when he had had the honour of addressing them for the first time, had justified some of the observations which he had then made. He would not now again repeat arguments upon the great difference between the traffic in negroes on the West Coast of Africa, and that carried on on the East or Mozambique Coast, but he thought that the noble Lord (the Lord Stratheden) had made his Motion at an inopportune moment, and appeared not to have heard or read the debate that occurred a few nights ago on the kidnapping of the Fiji Islanders, when it was stated that the South Sea Islands extended over many degrees of latitude, and that there were not enough of Her Majesty's ships to watch over the proceedings of our Australian fellow-sub- 1618 jects in those seas. Now, responsibility, like charity, began at home, and while we were not responsible for the doings of the Portuguese or the Arabs on the East Coast of Africa, it would not be disputed that this country and Her Majesty's Government were responsible for all the atrocities now committed in the South Sea Islands by our own subjects. He had been informed that the cruisers belonging to the China Station did not come sufficiently to the South, and that the cruisers belonging to the Australian Station did not go enough to the North; so that there was a gap between those stations which was not visited by Her Majesty's ships, and which would have to be filled up; so that it was more probable that ships of war would have to be despatched from the East Coast of Africa to look after the new and far worse Slave Trade of the Fiji Islands than that more ships could be sent to the Mozambique Channel. The noble Lord had complained that the Portuguese authorities in Mozambique did not efficiently co-operate to put down the Slave Trade; but those who made those complaints chose to forget the way in which the Portuguese authorities, in 1857, at the request and with the approbation of Her Majesty's Government took measures to prevent the traffic in negroes, and captured the French vessel Charles and George, which was carrying away negroes from Mozambique, and how England left Portugal unsupported and allowed the French to carry off the Charles and George from the Tagus with a high hand, after that vessel had been condemned by regularly-constituted tribunals, and found guilty of carrying away negroes against their will, and after the exportation of negroes had been prohibited, and that prohibition made known at Paris and in the Island of Bourbon. The Government, he thought, might be trusted to do that which was just and necessary without further instigation on the part of the House.
EARL GEANVILLEsaid, he thought that the very short statement he had to make would induce the noble Lord to withdraw the Motion. The accounts which had been published of the horrors of the particular Slave Trade in question might be regarded by persons ignorant of the subject as sensational; but judging from the Reports of the Royal Commission, and of the Parliamentary 1619 Committee, as well as from Reports which Her Majesty's Government had received from other quarters, he believed that those descriptions were not in the least exaggerated. The noble Lord, however, had failed to distinguish between the Slave Trade on the East and West Coast, although there were many points which showed the trade on the West to be much less horrible than that on the East Coast. Admitting, then, that it was expedient we should take a leading part in the suppression of this horrible traffic, he said it was also necessary that we should do so in conjunction with other Powers, and with this in view he had communicated with France, the United States, Germany, and Portugal, stating the facts and asking for co-operation. A most cordial reply had come from the United States, and a very similar answer had come from France; Portugal at first desired to make inquiries on the subject, but had since, within the last few days, expressed a desire to co-operate, and finally, the German Government wished to consult certain Chambers of Commerce interested in general trade with the district, but he had little doubt that a favourable response would eventually be received from Germany. The recommendation that a line of steamers should be provided, securing monthly communication with the Coast had also been favourably considered by the Government, and he was happy to say that two great companies had made a joint offer to undertake a monthly steam communication with the East Coast. That offer was at this moment before the Board of Trade and the Treasury, and there was every reason to believe that it would be accepted. If such a communication were established, he believed that it would have an important influence in developing legitimate traffic and in collecting information. Her Majesty's Government had likewise come to the conclusion that it would be desirable to place a Resident at Zanzibar, his salary to be defrayed, one-half by the Revenues of India, and the other by the Imperial Exchequer. Under the circumstances, therefore, seeing the Government were doing their best with the question, he hoped his noble Friend would withdraw his Motion.
LORD CAMPBELLsaid, he had listened with anxiety to the noble Earl 1620 the Secretary of State, with a view to ascertain whether there was any ground for the withdrawal of the Motion. The noble Earl had neither controverted the position that the Treasury had offered obstacles to the repression of the Slave Trade on the East Coast of Africa, nor had he alleged that those obstacles were in the course of being surmounted; the good intentions of the Foreign Office had not been disputed, and were indeed the very basis of the Motion. If the noble Earl refused to accept the Motion—a proceeding for which no reason had been given—he must take upon himself the responsibility of its being negatived, as the Government appeared to have a majority in the House. The subject excited interest beyond the walls of Parliament. On Thursday the Lord Mayor was about to preside over a meeting on it in the City. Under these circumstances he (Lord Campbell) did not feel entitled to withdraw the Motion.
§ EARL GRANVILLE, as a middle course, suggested that the Previous Question should be carried.
THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTERsaid, that having seconded the Motion, he would appeal to the noble Lord to withdraw it, lest the fact of the previous question having been moved should give rise to an impression out-of-doors that a difference of opinion existed in the House on the subject. He would add that to insist on the Address would be construed into a touch of the spur to an unwilling and lingering horse when the horse was actually willing and active.
LORD CAMPBELLregretted to differ for a moment from his right rev. Friend. However willing the horse, there might be an obstacle in front of him, which, without the aid of Parliament he could not possibly get over. He would not detain the House, but accept the proposal of the noble Earl as to the Previous Question.
§ Then a Question being stated thereupon, the Question was put, Whether the Question shall be now put? Resolved in the Negative.