rbury was justified in saying, during a recent debate
in the House of Lords, that the Foreign Office and its subordinates have
shown some excess of zeal in apologising for the Portuguese. After all,
it should not be forgotten that the voice of civilised humanity calls
loudly on the Portuguese Government and nation to purge themselves, and
that speedily, of a very heinous offence against civilisation, namely,
that of placing their black fellow-creatures much on the same footing as
the oxen that plough their fields and the horses which draw their carts,
in order that the white man may acquire wealth. It is only fair to
remember that at no very remote period of their history the Anglo-Saxon
race were also guilty of this offence; but the facts that one branch of
that race purged itself of crime by the expenditure of huge sums of
money, and that the other branch shed its best blood in order to ensure
the black man's freedom, give them a moral right, based on very
substantial title-deeds, to plead the cause of freedom. Neither should
it be forgotten that, whatever mistakes those interested in the
Anti-Slavery cause may make in dealing with points of detail, they are
right on the chief issue--right, that is to say, not merely in
intention, but also on the main fact, viz. that virtual slavery still
exists in the Portuguese dominions. Any one who has had practical
experience of dealing with these matters, and can read between the lines
of the official correspondence, cannot fail to see that if the Foreign
Office authorities, instead of dwelling with somewhat unnecessary
insistence on controversial points and only half-accepting the realities
of the situation, had candidly admitted the main facts and had confined
themselves to a discussion of the means available for arriving at the
object which they, in common with the Anti-Slavery Society, wished to
attain, much useless recrimination might have been avoided and the
interests of the cause would, to a far greater extent, have been served.

The writer of the present article has had a good deal to do with the
Anti-Slavery and other similar societies, such, for instance, as that
which, until recently, dealt with the affairs of the Congo. He has not
always agreed with their proposals, but, being in thorough sympathy with
the objects which they wished to attain, he was fortunately able to
establish the mutual confidence which that bond of sympathy connoted. He
can, moreover, from his ow