THE SLAVE TRADE OF THE SOUDAN. (From Truth.)

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1814, 21 February 1884, Page 2

THE SLA VE TRA DE OF THE SOU D AN. (From Truth.)

Amomjmt other mendacious absurdities put forward by those who uoild have us squander British blood and tieasure iv an attempt to recover the Soudan for the Khediv e. is the assertion tliat we should be engaged in a crusade against the slive tiade. Nothing <an be more absolutely erroneous. Men would never be reduced to bondage in the Soudan were not facilities attended for selling them elstwliero. The country is an isolated one. There are only two ways out of it, by the Nile and by Suakim, a poi ton the Red Sea. A gunboat before the hitter, and a cordon on sonic point on the former, would render the Soudan sl.ive trade an tinr-Jinunprative business. The inhabitants of the Soudan were S'par.ite-i from those of E^ypt by a e'esert, through which the Nile runs in an unuavigable cataract for about 200 miles. The desert was the southern limit of the Roman Empire when Kgypt was one of her provinces. In IS2I-22 Nubia was annexed by Mehemet AH. He then turned his attention to the districts bordering the White and Blue brandies of the Nile, having heard rumours of gold mines there. Gold wa& not found, but the inhabitants were seized on as slaves, and ! Khartoum became the centre of the slave trade. Under his successor, Abbas ] Pasha, heavy taxes were collected and slave-hunting organised. Abbas was succeeded by Said. At this time the slave trade was mainly in hands of Europeans. They sold their stations to Arab agents, who paid lcntals to tha Egyptian Government for the right to cairyon the ttade in certain districts. These Arabs organised armies of brigands, and established stations throughout their districts. The native tiibe'i were either obliged to fly the country, or to ally themselves to the slave-hunters, to be used against other tubes. Ismail, the late Khedive, seems to have been really in earnest in his desitc to bring tills state of things to an end. Aided by Baker, and later on by Gordon, he endeavoured to suppress the slave trade. In this he never entirely succeeded, for his officials were corrupt and the former connection of the Government with the slave traders had placed all power in then hands. In 1874, however, lie invaded and conquered Darfar, which hae boen ruled by its own Sultana in unbroken succession tor 3ro3 r 0 years. The annexation, therefore, of the Soudan to Egypt has been a curse to that country. Its object was plunder. Disappointed in finding gold, Mehemet Ali established the slave trade. Subsequently, it became an established usage, and his successor derived much money from leasing out " slave concessions." The people, when not dragged off into slavery, were the victims of the oppressions of Egyptian Governors, who seemed to have treated them much as the taskmasters of Pharaoh treated the Israelites. Are the above facts true ? It is to be presumed that they are, for I take them from a " Report on the 1 Egyptian Provinces of the Soudan, Red Sea, and Equator, compiled in the Intelligence Branch, Quartermaster-General V Department, Horse Guards, War Office." If true, can anything be conceived more monstrous than our aiding, directly or indirectly, the Egyptians to reduce the Soudanese again to subjection ?

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