1—The suppression of slave-hunting with its attendant horrors, devolves upon Christian States and constitutes the primary condition of the abolition of the slave trade. 2—While the Congo Conference obliges all the Signatory Powers to help in the suppression of slavery and the improvement of the lot of the natives, at the same time the Congo State, Portugal, Great Britain, and Germany, as being directly threatened by Arab slave-traders, are expected to take the initiative in, and to bring to a successful issue, the struggle against the slave trade. 3—The meeting expresses the conviction that the honour of the German flag and German interests, which have been violated by Arab slave-traders in East Africa, will be avenged by the Imperial Government. 4—It also expresses the hope that the Reichstag will support these resolutions, as a proof of the perfect agreement of the German nation without distinction of party or creed. On November 13, the Cabinets of Berlin, London and Lisbon had agreed upon coercive measures against slave-traders on the East Coast of Africa. Meantime, on September 17, 1888, the British Government had appealed, through the Belgian Foreign Office, to King Leopold to take the initiative in assembling a Conference at Brussels to consider the subject. In conveying this invitation to the King of the Belgians, the British Minister to the Belgian Court stated that: The change which has occurred in the political condition of the African Coast to-day calls for common action on the part of the Powers responsible for the control of that Coast. That action should tend to close all foreign slave-markets, and should also result in putting down slave-hunting in the interior. [Illustration: Government Waggons.] The great work undertaken by the King of the Belgians, in the constitution of the Congo State, and the lively interest taken by His Majesty in all questions affecting the welfare of the African races, lead Her Majesty’s Government to hope that Belgium will be disposed to take the initiative in inviting the Powers to meet in Conference at Brussels, in order to consider the best means of attaining the gradual suppression of the slave trade on the Continent of Africa and the immediate closing of all the outside markets which the slave trade daily continues to supply. On August 24, 1889, King Leopold deferred to this wish and called a Conference of the Powers for November 18, 1889, to determine upon a course of action for the _gradual_ suppression of slave-hunting on the African Continent and the _immediate_ closing of all markets supplied from that source, and “to put an end to the crimes and devastation wrought by the slave trade, and effectively to protect the native populations in Africa.”