Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

APPENDIX. 305
cardinal evil wliich you have to deal with is the
oscillation of our own opinions in the matter.
Up to about the time when Lord Palmerston
died, for many years the general opinion of all
parties in England had been in favour of a
determination to put a stop to the slave-trade
wherever we could possibly do so without infringing
the rights of other nations, and the
whole weight
of the Government influence had
been put on the side of suppressing the slavetrade.
But of late years it has been manifest
that there has been very considerable wavering
of our own opinions upon the subject. Many
of those who were most active in promoting
measures for the suppression of
the slave-trade
in former times have thought, perhaps, that the
work was done, and because the work was
effectually carried out on the west coast of
Africa they have rather relaxed their efforts,
and one sees in public writings a good deal of
a kind of excuse for slavery, which certainly
would not have been put forward some years
ago, and would not have met with any kind
public favour and acceptance.
of
That seems to
me to be the cardinal evil with which we have
to contend, and our Government, representing
public opinion, appears to me of late years to
have been very half-hearted in the matter.
The
first thing to be done seems to me to be to