xvu
ON SLAVE TRADE (EAST COAST OF AFRICA).
slaves exported irom Zanzibar and Kilwa during those years, dhows carrying 37,000
slaves must have evaded capture, making the captures about 6 6 per cent. only. °
“ 26. These figures are sufficient to show the insufficiency of the present squadron to
check, much less to stop, the trade ; and the reasons assigned are that the existing treaties
and the instructions as to domestic slaves render it impossible to take a dhow south of
-Lainoo, and during the south-west monsoon it is very difficult to keep the cruisers sufficiently
near the coast to intercept the dhows as they run northward before the wind,
while there appears a general concurrence of testimony that the present number of the
squadron is insufficient for the work to be performed, and that the efficiency of the
squadron would be materially increased by an additional supply of steam launches for
the arduous boat service on that coast.
r 27. In connection with the failure of the measures hitherto adopted it was given in
evidence that much was owing to the want of recorded information, and the necessarily
frequent change of commanders, who, moreover, are not supplied with the official reports
of those who have preceded them, as well as to the inefficiency and untrustworthiness of
the interpreters employed, who not unfrequently are in league with the traders, and mislead
the commanders of the squadron.
‘‘28. Tour Committee having heard the evidence, are strongly of opinion that all
legitimate means should be used to put an end altogether to the East African slave
trade.
“ 29. They believe that any attempt to supply slaves for domestic use in Zanzibar will
always be a pretext and cloak for a foreign trade, while the loss of life and the injury
caused to maintain even the liniited supply of slaves required for this purpose must of
necessity, be so great as to forbid this country continuing to recognise any such traffic in
witnesses, that should the Sultan consent to
. slave trade a revolution would follow, and that a sudden stoppage of the
importation of slaves into Zanzibar would seriously affect the industrial position of the
island ; but, on the other hand, a witness of great experience has given it in evidence
that the Zanzibar Arabs are fully aware that the trade will be stopped, and are beginning
to understand that more profit can be made by retaining the labourers to cultivate their
own country, than by selling them away as slaves, while the abolition of the trade would
encourage free labourers from all parts to reside at Zanzibar, so ensuring a laro-er and
better supply of labourers than exists at present.
“31. It appears from the evidence, that the parties from whom turbulent opposition
may be expected are the northern Arabs, the presence of an English force at Zanzibar
would afford sufficient protection.
1 Your Committee therefore recommend that it be notified to the Sultan of Zanzibar,
that the existmg treaty provisions have been systematically evaded, and have been found
not only msuftcient to protect the negro tribes in the interior of Africa from destruction
but rather to foster and encourage the foreign trade in slaves. Her Majesty’s Governlonger
recognise those provisions as binding upon this country, but will take
ucn legitimate measures to abolish the slave trade as may be deemed necessary
represented to the Committee by some of the witnesses, that as the
^ erives a considerable part of his revenues from the slave trade, it would be
of the* trad^^ make him some compensation for the loss he would sustain by the abolition
treaty with tífé“? U «he negotiations for a new
J tne oultan, already alluded to in this Report.
the Sultan shoiil^i^n equivalent for the supposed loss to his revenue,
to the Sultan of =>? “““I «"bsidy of 40,000 crowns
su^entitpjiT r:qfor:itT:ft:iic I'JZiw:::
therefore.
c
