The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-11-07 00:00:00

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER, 7tb, 1874.

GREAT BRITAIN AND THE SLAVE

TRADE.

Anything which issues from the pen of such a
man as Sir Sand. Baker is certain to be read with
respect by all classes of our countrymen. He
has just given to the public his own narrative of
the expedition for the suppression of the Nile
Slave Trade, which excited so much interest.
His enterprise represented a great political and
social purpose; but his journey was one of
liberation rather than of discovery, of conquest
and not of adventure. The expedition of which
he now tells the story, was one essentially
commanding. the sympathy of our people. In
the equatorial regions of Africa he found a
veritable earthly paradise; but in the graphic
language of Moore, " the trail of the serpent
was over it all." Sir Samuel tells us that lands
which would grow all tropical products, and
populations which seemed to have been born
for their peaceful and prosperous cultivation,
were desolated by the slave dealer. Villages
were burnt, and crepe were destroyed or pillaged;
the peopl4 were driven out; and a terrestrial
paradise was converted into an infernal region.
Baker undertook its deliverance. The Khedive
of Egypt gave him the sole command of a force,
entrusted him for four years with absolute and
uncontrolled power of life and death, and sent
him into the African wilderness to subdue it
and to annex it to the civilized world. He was
to go up the Nile—that native river of civili-
zation whither Egyptian curiosity had failed to
penetrate before the costruction of the pyramids,
and where Roman courage, in the days of its
utmost power, had never been able to carry the
Imperial eagles. He was commissioned to des-
troy the slave trade, and to establish regular
commerce in its place, to open up to civilization
Chic great African lakes, and to odd the whole of
countries which border on the Nile to the lands
ruled over by the Khedive. He claims to have
discharged this commission, and asks for a
verdict of approval from the civilised world.
There is not a resident within the British
ides who will not rejoice if Sir Samuel's estimate
of his work should prove correct. Forty years
ago we made an enormous sacrifice to secure
the emancipation of the slaves in our West
Indian possessions. Political opinion was not
so well educated then as it is now ; still it was
sufficiently advanced to convince us that the
freedom of the slaves required a payment of
twenty millions sterling. A generation has
passed away; the children of that time are now
grey with age ; question after question has come
up for settlement; but no one has ever regretted
that such an indemnity was paid as the price of
emancipation. After all, slavery was exterminated
in the British doniiniens without thspbrevolutiou
which accompanied its extinction acrusa the
Atlantic. There the " peculiar institution " of
the United States seemed to have a lung lease
of life. It was in 1813 that the late Lord Derby,
as Secretary of State for the Colonies, carried
through Parliament the West India Slave
Abolitian Bill, but it was not until thirty years
afterwards that shivery was swept aomy in the
United States, and it went out in the lurid glare
which had been kindled by the flames of a dread-
ful civil war.

Whether or not Sir Samuel Baker has sue-
elsd in stamping out savory in Central Africa,
his c 'tint:poen will grant him the crtdit which
lie de s,rves for the courage and cupaeiti, he has
exuilated. iii h.fs described to us splendid
lauds, penetrated for two thousand miles by a
inagniticeut stream, and he expresees an earuest
wish that these could be brought uuder cultiv-
ation, and made to contribute to the wealth
and to the welfare of the world. The country
is singularly beautiful, the air,is bright, elastic,
and hispiriting, and the land abounds with game.
The route, we are told, was as lovely us could be
couce.ved. Toe line of march was diversified
by luxuriant an:seise ; brooks of the purest water
rippled along their time-worn channels; and as
the travellers halted to drink, the waters were
411 cool as though they had flowed from a
huropeed sluing. The entire landscape was a
series of beautiful undulations, with deep ver-
(taut glades, at the bottom of which flowed
perennial streams. Some of the laud was so
fertile that the grass grow to a height of nine
feet. In fact, a perusal of these volumes
generates a regret that we are so fur away from
the AfricaMeoutinent, and that our tourists can-
not make it the scene of their holiday excur-
sions.

So far as Sir Samuel Baker's expedition itself
was concerned, there is no reason to doubt the
amount of good which he has accomplished. He
has pushed the authority of the Khedive along
the whole course of the equator. The sacred
river itself has been completely opened up to
navigation ; and fortified posts, for the protection
of those engaged in commerce, now extend along
its banks. Of the admirable way in which the
work has been done, there can be no question ;
the only feeling of doubt is as to its permanence.
One of the greatest slavedeulers of the Soudan
was Abou Stigod, to whose treachery many of
worst dangers of the expedition were due, and
who probably intercepted all communication be-
tween its commander and the outer world.
Sagod was to be prosecuted for treason, but the
Khedive declined to bring him before a public
tribunal. Just as -Sir Samuel Baker had linisned
the narrative, a few points of which we have
here endeavoured to summarise, news was re-
ceived that this great slave hunter, instead of
being punished, had been raised to a position of
responsibity in theladministration of the annexed
country, and Sir Samuel thinks it not improbable
that he may be advanced even further. Is this
3 promising sign for the continuance of the work
which the intrepid explorer has begun? Is it
an indication that it is to be consolidated, or
does it point with a warning linger to the certain
frustration of the hopes which have been built
upon the result of so mach toil and hardship? To
us it appears to be, according to the balance of
Egyptian intrigue, whether the new territories
Shall Le well and wisely governed, or given over
to the man whose misgovernment in the Soudan
has been the curse of Africa. Let us trust,
however, that Sagod has run his career of
treachery, and that the African slave trade thanks
to the rxertions of an Euglishmau, is at an end
sow and for ever.

PROPOSED CO-OPER ATI VE CARPET
MANUFACTORY AT KIDDERMINSTER
_ _

A meeting was held on Tuesday 7;;;In—g; ;tithe
Carpet Weavers' Committee Rootus, Church Street,
Kidderminster, for the purpose of taking into con-
sideration the desirability of forming a co-operative
association for the manufacture of carpets. A
Sollltioll WilS C trrieil, That a etl-0114.111ti011 associ-
ation be at once formed for the purpose of manufac-
turing carpets."