"تجارة الرقيق في شرق أفريقيا" [‎١‎٥] (١٠٨/٢٤)

15
There can be no doubt that the usual laws of supply and
demand do, to a certain extent, regulate and influence this, as
they do all trade; and that while the markets of Arabia and
Persia are open and ready for the purchase of the negro, so
long will the supply continue; and as long as slavery is regarded
as a domestic institution in Mohammedan countries, so long are
those markets likely to absorb a regular supply. But, as is
observed by Dr. Livingstone, there is so much murder and
crime inseparably connected with the present system of supply,
that the trade cannot receive the moral protection of the usual
laws of supply and demand. But even admitting, as we must,
that the progenity of Mohammedan countries creates the demand,
it is manifest that that demand will be not only in proportion to
the facility with which the supply is obtained. Let difficulties
arise which shall raise the price of the slave, or better still, let
the value of the labourer on his own soil be enhanced by
arrangements whicli will turn him into a producer for the general
markets of the world, and the consumer must either alter his
domestic arrangements, or substitute some other agency for the
negro slave. The introduction, therefore, of kwful commerce
into East Africa might be expected to prove a powerful antidote
to the evil of the slave trade. But, unfortunately, there are two
great obstacles in our way; the first, the existence of the Slave
Trade—the barrier to all trade and civilisation; the other, the
claim set up by the Portuguese to the sovereignty of a large
portion of this coast. Over this coast-line extends the withering
blight of a feeble and obsolete system of protection which seizes
all vessels attempting to trade on that coast without licences from
the Portuguese Government, and so driving the inhabitants into
the Slave Trade, which the Portuguese have not the power to
repress. Her Majesty's Commissioners at Cape Town, writing
on this subject in May 1863, say :—
" Whether shipped in the Mozambique or further onward, however,
it must be borne in mind that the unhappy slaves are almost all
supplied by the country lying- beyond the Portuguese territory, and
the continuance of the traffic may fairly be attributed, in a great
degree, to the restrictions with which the Portugaiese authorities have
fettered commerce along' the coast over which she claims sovereignty.