Meantime the transportation of steamers to Lake Victoria, the erection of stations connecting the lake with the sea, and many other equally pressing duties, are utterly out of the question. The directors understand too well what is needed, but they are helpless. We must accept the will for the deed. This much, however, is clear: Europe will not hold the British East African Company, but England, responsible for not suppressing the slave trade and slave hunt. The agreement with Europe was not made by the company, but by Great Britain through her official and duly appointed representatives. When her official representatives signed the act of the Brussels Antislavery Conference, they undertook in the name of Great Britain the important responsibilities and duties specified within the act. The representatives of all Europe and the United States were witnesses to the signing of the act. To repudiate the obligations so publicly entered into would be too shameful, and if the majority in Parliament represents the will of the people there is every reason to think that the railway to the Victoria Nyanza, which is necessary for carrying into effect the suggestions of the Antislavery Conference, will be constructed. I have been often asked what trade will be benefited by this railway to the Nyanza, or what can be obtained from the interior of Africa to compensate for the expense--say £2,000,000--of building the railway. There is no necessity for me to refer to the commercial aspect of the question in such an article as this, but there are some compensating advantages specially relating to my subject-matter which may be mentioned. First. England will prove to Europe and the world that she is second to no other power in the fulfilment of her obligations, moral or material. Second. She will prove that she does not mean to be excelled by Germany, France, or Belgium in the suppression of the slave trade and the man hunt, nor is averse to do justice to the Africans whom she has taken under her wing. Third. She will prove that the people on British territory shall not be the last to enjoy the mercies and privileges conceded to the negroes by civilization, that the preservation of the native races and their moral and material welfare are as dear to England as to any other power, that the lives of her missionaries shall not be sacrificed in vain, that the labors of her explorers are duly appreciated, that she is not deaf to the voices of her greatest and best, and, in brief--to use the words uttered lately by one of her ministers--she will prove that “her vaunted philanthropy is not a sham, and her professed love of humanity not mere hypocrisy.”