slavery in the West African dominions of Portugal without
coming to the conclusion that the discussion has been allowed to
degenerate into a rather unseemly wrangle between the Foreign Office
officials and the Anti-Slavery Society. There is always a considerable
risk that this will happen when enthusiasts and officials are brought
into contact with each other. On the one hand, the enthusiasts in any
great cause are rather prone to let their emotions dominate their
reason, to generalise on somewhat imperfect data, and occasionally to
fall unwittingly into making statements of fact which, if not altogether
incorrect, are exaggerated or partial. On the other hand, there is a
disposition on the part of officials to push to an excess Sir Arthur
Helps's dictum that most of the evils of the world arise from
inaccuracy, and to surround all enthusiasts with one general atmosphere
of profound mistrust. An old official may perhaps be allowed to say,
without giving offence, that, quite apart from the nobility and moral
worth of the issue at stake, it is, from the point of view of mere
worldly wisdom, a very great error to adopt this latter attitude. There
are enthusiasts and enthusiasts. It is probably quite useless for an
anti-suffragist or a supporter of vivisection to endeavour to meet
half-way a militant suffragist or a whole-hearted anti-vivisectionist.
In these cases the line of cleavage is too marked to admit of
compromise, and still less of co-operation. But the case is very
different if the matter under discussion is the suppression of slavery.
Here it may readily be admitted that both the enthusiasts and the
officials, although they may differ in opinion as to the methods which
should be adopted, are honestly striving to attain the same objects. The
Anti-Slavery Society, and those who habitually work with them, have
performed work of which their countrymen are very justly proud. But they
are not infallible. It is quite right that the accuracy of any
statements which they make should be carefully tested by whatever means
exist for testing them. For instance, when the Society of Friends[105]
say that they are in possession of "first-hand information" to show that
"atrocities" are being committed in the Portuguese dominions, the
Foreign Office is obviously justified in asking them to state on what
evidence this formidable accusation is founded, and when it appears that
they cannot produce "exactly the kind of evidence as to '