Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-05-15
A EALF-CIVILIzED LAND,
And How it Has Been Wantonly Bar
barized,
From the pbiladelphia Record.

barized.
From the Philadelphia Record.
When, prior to his departure, Lieuten.
ant Wissmann, who was appointed tC
the command of the East African expe-
dition formed under the auspices of the
German government, addressed the
Reichstag on the project he refused to
| divulge his plan of action, but intimated
that it wonld be necessary for him to
use force in order to bring the natives
into subsection. Some two months have
now elapsed since that body voted a
large credit for the expenses of the ex-
petition, and not a single step has been
taken toward the re-eStabhshment OF
German authority in Zanzibar, or toward
the relief Of the country from the incu-
| bus under which it is Iaboring by reason
of the paralysis of trade resultant upon
the Arab uprising. The transportation of
| freights and the hire of Soudanese mer-
cenaries have, it is now said,
swallowed up the supplies voted by the
relchstag, and to appear for further
credit will have to be made. Wholesale
slaughter and enslavement Of natives
are still going on. The Arabs, realizing
that their trade is in danger, are concen-
trating to meet any attack that may be
made upon them. Missionaries have
been captured, only to be released on
payment of a heavy ransom. The COM
merce of the coast has been crippled.
The East Indian traders, who estab
lished themselves under the guaranteed
protection of Great Britain, see before
them nothing but ruin, and it looks as if
the civilizing influences that were max
ing such steady progress would be
crushed out, and all because Of Ger
manys mercenary dread of colonization.
Less than twenty years ago the slave
trade fiourished unchecked in Zanzibar
In the center of the town there was
to be found the most busy slave market
in the world. But a treaty was made
between the English government and
the sultan by which the slave market
was closed; and it was also rendered ille-
gal to convey slaves by sea. Peace and
order took the place Of lawlessness; an
archy and tribal hatred were kept in
check the coast was brought under civ
liking influences, and large plantations
of cocoanuts, rice and sugar took the
place of scrub and brushwood. Every
visitor to that country has testified to the
material improvements that We're being
made; to the yearly increase in trade and
commerce; to the fact that the sea traf-
fic in slaves had SO far decreased as to
have become mere smuggling, and that
the Arabs, finding their occupation gone,
had either returned to Arabia or to the
more congenial surroundings of the far
interior
But in the year 1884 German advent
urers landed at Zanzibar, penetrated into
the interior, used the names of English
men well known to the natives in order
to ingratiate themselves with local chiefs,
and then returned to Zanzibar and man
ufactured bogus treaties under which
they claimed vast tracts of country in
East Africa, without the slightest assent
from the chiefs or the owners of the soil.
Although England was bound by her
treaty obligations and by the confidence
which the natives had reposed in her to
protect the sultan, yet allowed him to be
bullied and threatened, and gave way
to Germany, virtually losing the hold
that had been secured at SO much labor
Viewed in any light, this British lapse is
amazing. There are more than 10000
British Indians in Zanzibar who settled
there and engaged in trade in the belief
that the English government would
grant them freedom and protection. The
whole trade of the coast was in their
hands; they lent large sums of money to
the Arab ivory caravans, and invested
their profits in mortgages on the houses
and plantations of the Arabs; and now
they have seen their years of labor
rendered abortive, their property
destroyed and their lives threatened,
while England has stood by calmy, I'M
mindful of how her reputation might
thus suffer in India, or of the wholesale
and needless slaughter carried on in the
name of civilization.
That the presence in London of Count
Herbert Bismarck was occasioned bv a
desire on the part of his government
to come to some agreement with Eng
land on the Samoan and Zanzibar
questions has been generally cred
tied, and much color was lent to the be-
lief by the fact that the house of COM
mons adopted a resolution declaring that
the government should ascertain wheth-
er no the powers are willing TO meet in
conference to discuss the question of the
suppression of the slave trade in east
Africa.
The conflict for the possession of the
great continent has been begun between
the European and the Arab, and civiliza-
ton Is pitted against sayagery, fanati-
cism and slavery. If England had con-
tinued the work which she began the
way might have been clearer today. But
she abanded it and broke faith with the |
very men with whom she had made |
treaties. Germany has taken up the |
work as if it was simply one of conquest |
and aggrandisement, and now the whole |
of the equatorial Africa is seething with |
the most intense excitement. The ques-
ton 10 be soon determined is whether |
Africa is to be emancipated or the domi- |
nation Of the Arab become complete.
a Midnight Rainbow.
From the Hugo Nerasd