'The Slave Trade of East Africa.' [‎82] (91/108)

82
These extracts will show that the trade will not easily he
exterminated, and in connection with Captain Elton's reports
given already, show that the end sought can only be
accomplished by the use of a wise, prompt, and sustained
policy.
We may therefore agree with the Report of the Committee
that the disposal of the slaves becomes a matter of large
importance. This, then, is the result to which we would call
attention, and we would venture to say, the extinction of the
traffic having been resolved on, that the disposal of the slaves,
even on the lowest calculation, is now the most important and
pressing question.
For its happy solution, we again repeat, the principles which
supported all our action with regard to the West Coast slave
trade must be brought into play. To put it as shortly as
possible, these principles were simply to extend to the poor
negro slave all the privileges of a British freeman, and they
were carried into effect in a spirit of wise liberality and Chris
tian philanthropy on the part of our Government. We venture
to think that the result has amply justified that action. The
West African Settlements are appealed to by members of the
Government, by Sir B. Frere, by Dr. Livingstone, and by the
article in the " Quarterly Review," as affording precedents for
our guidance now.
The conditions of the inland Slave Trade on the Bast Coast are
now precisely the same as those of the old West Coast traffic
once were; and although the same responsibility and condemnation
may not rest on England with regard to the East as pressed so
heavily on her with regard to the West, yet the call upon Christian
England's sympathy and help is as urgent and pressing from
the East as it was from the West Coast of that unhappy land.
If the Christianity of England cannot at once put a stop, either
by treaty or armed force, to the infamous traffic, it can yet use
for the East Coast the same means that have been so signally
blessed for the elevation of the African race at Sierra Leone and
other West Coast stations. The history of Mission work at
Sierra Leone is the lesson whose results must guide any similar
attempt on the East Coast. As an abstract proposition, it can-