icism, it would seem that the Portuguese
Government are really endeavouring to suppress the trade in slaves. All
that the British Government can do is to afford them whatever assistance
is possible in British territory, and to encourage them in bold and
strenuous action against the influential opposition whose enmity has
necessarily been evoked.

Turning now to the question of whether slavery--as distinct from the
slave trade--still exists in Portuguese West Africa, it is to be
observed that it is essential to inquire thoroughly into this question
for the reason already given, viz. that before considering what remedies
should be applied it is very necessary that the true nature of the evil
should be recognised. On this point there is a direct conflict of
opinion. The Anti-Slavery Society maintain that the present system of
contract labourers ('servicaes') is merely another name for slavery,
and as one proof of the wide discrepancy between theory and practice
they point to the fact that whereas there can be no manner of doubt that
undisguised slavery existed until only recently, it was nominally
abolished by law so long ago as 1876. On the other hand, to quote the
words of Mr. Smallbones, the British Consul at Loanda, the Portuguese
Government, whose views on this matter appear to have been received with
a certain amount of qualified acceptance by the British Foreign Office,
"consistently deny" the existence of a state of slavery.

The whole controversy really hangs on what is meant by the word
"slavery." In this, as in so many cases, it is easier to say what the
thing is not than to embrace in one short sentence an accurate and
sufficiently wide explanation of what it is. _Definitio est negatio._ De
Brunetiere said that, after fifty years of discussion, it was impossible
to define romanticism. Half a century or more ago, a talented German
writer (Hacklaender) wrote a book entitled _European Slave-life_, in
which he attempted to show that, without knowing it, we were all slaves
one of another, and, in fact, that the artisan working in a cotton
factory or the sempstress employed in a milliner's shop was as truly in
a state of slavery as the negro who at that time was working in the
fields of Georgia or Carolina. In a sense, of course, it may be said
that every one who works for his living, from a Cabinet Minister to a
crossing-sweeper, is a slave, for he has to conform to certain rules,
and unless he works he will be dep