oint
yet reached by the united humanity of the West expressed by the
assembled states in regard to backward people. The point therefore is a
notable one, and Englishmen will be glad to remember that it was Lord
Salisbury, then Foreign Secretary, who took the first step. The previous
Conference at Berlin, in 1884, had secured freedom of trade for the
basins of the Congo and the Niger, and in 1889 Lord Salisbury, through
the Belgian Government, called the Powers together to consider questions
relating to the slave trade in Africa. For Africa, home of the black
race, last exploited of the continents, discovered after the white man
had discovered science, was pre-eminently the part of the world where
the co-operation of leading peoples in civilizing backward races was
most needed and most to be expected. The Congo, the Herreros, Morocco,
Tripoli, Omdurman, offer a blood-stained record in reply.

But the general act of the Brussels Conference is clear and adequate as
to what the purpose of the Powers should be. "To put an end to the
crimes and devastations engendered by the traffic in African slaves, to
protect effectively the aboriginal populations of Africa, to ensure for
that vast continent the benefits of peace and civilization", is in fact
the whole duty of a united western civilization when dealing with the
less civilized. The results achieved may well seem small compared with
the magnitude of the purpose, but those who know most about it do not
despise them. Slave-raiding and tribal wars have been diminished and
some check put on importing arms and spirits.

It is not a topic on which it is easy to keep a cheerful mind. Some
Putumayo will constantly occur to remind us of the fierce brutality of
strength unsupervised and unrestrained. We compare the actual
performance of mankind when free to try their best or wreak their worst
on comparatively defenceless folk, with the noble rivalry which we can
imagine between the nations of the world in leading the weaker people to
develop their resources and themselves, on paths which may tend to the
greatest prosperity and happiness of all, advanced and backward
together: and the comparison leaves us sick at heart. But a sober
judgement will not deny that even here advance is being made. The ideal
has been admitted. The rights of smaller States are being made, as in
the present conflict, the subject of the concern of their strongest
neighbours. Steps are being taken all over the