all causes that
commanded devotion, struggle, persistency, the anti-slavery movement
stands forth as a moral protest of supreme import. Wilberforce and
Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Clarkson fought for a principle
which may well be regarded as the very soul of civilization. The Civil
War brought the ideals of human rights and equality into bloody conflict
with the forces of oppression and commercial exploitation. The new
consciousness of human fellowship made white men lay down their lives
for the freedom of black men. A worthy cause, a sublime offering, a task
to which we would like to say "Done, done, once and for all time!" But
is it done? Slavery is not only inherent in every savage and barbaric
race, it is not only paramount in the mind of the Arab trader. Once the
social bulwark of the ancient civilizations of Babylon, Egypt, and
India, of Greece and Rome, it persisted in Europe throughout the Middle
Ages, and survived as serfdom of one kind or another through centuries
of advancing culture. The desire for power over fellow-beings, for
opportunities to control their lives and exploit their labour, is
apparently irradicable. Slavery is still amongst us in a hundred forms
and under new names. All military conquest involves the ancient
practices of serfdom. The conquered nations become slaves of the
invader; by obedience they live, by disobedience they die. The
persistence of slavery seems, then, to be a demonstration of the
unchangeability of human nature and of the ultimate hopelessness of
idealist causes. In every reform accomplished the practical application
is local, transitory, dependent on racial and geographical conditions.
There is obviously a great change in our penal methods. We do not
mutilate our criminals or scalp them for the preservation of their
souls, and we have lost confidence in the rack and the thumb-screw. But
we need only transport ourselves to other lands and study other people's
views of judicial necessities, and we shall find that the punitive
systems of the thirteenth or the eighteenth centuries are still with us.
Theoretically the blood of the black and the white man is of the same
good quality, and yet very little provocation is needed for the outbreak
of race riots. Negroes and negresses who have given offence to white
people need harbour no illusions concerning the restraining influences
of our Western civilization.

Like a mountain in eruption the war has thrown up the sordid pa