Tue determination of the British Government to put an end to the slave trade which, within the last few years, has sprang up amongst the South Sea islands, will be received with satis-thinking men. It ate fact that even the highest culture has not been effective in itself in blotting out this vice of humanity; bat as there are thieves and murderers in our midst, so on our outskirts we have kidnappers and slave dealers, Although carried on in spots little likely to be visited by civilised men, the veil is now and then lifted up from off these doings in the South Seas. But it is when events such as the murder of Bishop Patterson occur, that we can seo in their fullness the results of such a system. The worst of it is that, in such a case, it is almost certain that the guilty escape, while the punishment really deserved by miscreants who disgrace the name of bamanity, falls upon the innocent or the friendly. 'The fate of the Portuguese settlements in India, Barmah and Malacca affords an instance of how! sach conduct may ruin the prestige of a nation.' The uncontrolled adventurers who carried on an internecine war in Arracan or Moulmein first brought disgrace, on their pretended civilisation, and finally destruction on themselves. Hnd Portugal in those days kept her own subjects under control, she would not so effectively have lost the command of the Indian seas. What, however, is being carried on by a few adventurers in the South Seas, is on a large scale and close to a British colony being carried on along the south coast of China. Happily Great Britain has carefully abstained from any act which might be made use of to show her complicity in the traffic; and to the credit of her subjects in these waters be it added, they have not only kept aloof from any participation, but have constantly protested against what, under the name of emigration, is little better than a slave trade. The South Sea island slave trade can hardly show worseatrocities than the Macao coolie traffic; such scenes as that on board the Ugarte Dolores are happily still absent, and as stringent measures are to be taken for the suppression of the trade, will probably continue to be absent. Stringent measures have not however been taken one moment too soon, and it will probably take many years to undo the mischief effected within a comparatively short period." How apt the immigration of less civi+ lised races is to degenerate into a more or less pronounced slave trade, the history of our West Indian colonies will show. If in these, fenced about with just and equitable laws, there are yet found means to deprive the immi it of his Tights and liberty, it needs small imagination to foresee the inevitable results where there is no practical check. Now and then we hear of the condition of the coolie in the South American republics; but still the tide of emigration goes on, and ship after ship is loaded to supply the place of those who have succumbed to the climate or ill-treatment. The conduct of the superior towards the inferior race is not a matter of mere sentiment. Not only does ill-treatment degenerate the higher, but sooner of later it brings its own revenge. No civilised race can make a perma nent impression on uncivilized: tribes, unless it treats them with justness and equity. It may, ina few cases, succeed in exterminating them, but as a general rule its own decadence is the consequence. Witness the Spanish ani Portuguese settlements, in Asia and America, and compare their evan-essence with those of the Romans in the ancient world and the Anglo-Saxon the modern.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.