though, if the meeting was a legal one, X had no right to snatch away A's flag, still that even on the supposition that the meeting was a lawful assembly, A, if X had died of his wound, would have been guilty either of manslaughter, or very possibly of murder. Quite in keeping with Rex v. Fursey is the recent case of Reg. v. Harrison." Some of the expressions attributed in a very compressed newspaper report, to the learned judge who decided the case, may be open to criticism, but the principle involved in that a ruffian cannot assert his alleged right to walk down a particular street by stunning or braining a policeman, or a good citizen who is helping the policeman, is good law no less than good sense.

Nor does the claim to assert legal rights by recourse to pistols or bludgeons receive countenance from two decisions occasionally adduced in its support.

The one is Beatty v. Gillbanks. This case merely shows that a lawful meeting is not rendered an unlawful assembly simply because ruffians try to break it up, and, in short, that the breach of the peace which renders a meeting unlawful, must be a breach caused by the members of the meeting, and not by wrongdoers who wish to prevent its being held.‡

The second is M'Clenaghan v. Waters.§

The case may certainly

be so explained as to lay down the doctrine that the police when engaged under orders in dispersing a lawful meeting are not engaged in the "execution of their duty," and that therefore the members of the meeting may persist in holding it in spite of the opposition of the police. Whether this doctrine be absolutely sound is, perhaps, open to debate. It does not necessarily, however, mean more than that a person may exercise a right, even though he has to use a moderate amount of force, against a person who attempts to hinder the exercise of the right. But M'Clenaghan v. Waters certainly does not decide that the member of a lawful assembly may exercise whatever amount of force is necessary to prevent its being dispersed, and falls far short of justifying any member of the Salvation Army who brains a policeman rather than surrender the socalled right of public meeting. It is, however, doubtful whether M'Clenaghan v. Waters really supports even the doctrine that moderate resistance to the police is justifiable in order to prevent the dispersing of a lawful assembly. The case purports to follow Beatty v. Gillbanks, and therefore the Court cannot be taken as intentionally going beyond the principle laid down in that case. The question for the opinion of the Court, moreover, in M'Clenaghan v.

The Times, Dec. 19, 1887.

† 9 Q. B. D. 308; Dicey, "Law of the Constitution," pp. 285-287.

As already pointed out, the principle maintained in Beatty v. Gillbanks is itself

open to some criticism.

§ The Times, July 18, 1882.

Waters was, "whether upon the facts stated the police at the time of their being assaulted by the appellants (Salvationists) were legally justified in interfering to prevent the procession from taking place;" or, in other words, whether the meeting of the Salvationists was a lawful assembly? To this question, in the face of Beatty v. Gillbanks, but one reply was possible. This answer the Court gave: they determined" that in taking part in a procession the appellants were doing only an act strictly lawful, and the fact that that act was believed likely to cause others to commit such as were unlawful, was no justification for interfering with them." Whether the Court determined anything more is at least open to doubt, and if they did determine, as alleged, that the amount of the resistance offered to the police was lawful, this determination is, to say the least, not inconsistent with the stern punishment of acts like that committed by the prisoner Harrison.

No one, however, can dispute that the line between the forcible exercise of a right in the face of opposition, and an unjustifiable assault on those who oppose its exercise, is a fine one, and that many nice problems concerning the degree of resistance which the members of a lawful meeting may offer to persons who wish to break it up are at present unsolved. The next patriot or ruffian who kills or maims a policeman rather than compromise the right of public meeting will try what, from a speculative point of view, may be considered a valuable legal experiment which promises results most interesting to jurists. It is, however, fair to warn him that the experiment will almost certainly be tried at the cost, according to the vigour of his action, of either his freedom or his life.

A. V. DICEY.

THE TWO ENDS OF THE

SLAVE-STICK.

TH

HE troubled sea on which the combined British and German blockading squadron is pitching and tossing off the East African Coast has already cast up curious problems, some of which are worth examining.

Single-handed, England has for many years kept up a squadron in these seas to interfere with the shipments of slaves which are perpetually going on, and which to suppress entirely is impossible. Ours has been, and is, an expenditure in men and money for purely philanthropic purposes. The wonder is that, in these days of scrutinizing everything which leaves the public purse, no rigid inquiry has been made concerning it. However, John Bull has a kindly heart for the poor devils" in Africa. Now and again his eye catches something about "prize-money" in the Gazette: he reads that a "dhow," with some unpronounceable name and with a mysterious nationality, has been captured after a gallant fight, and heredity steps in and helps him. The chink of "prize-money" was sweet to his forefathers, and, truth to tell, he is proud to see that these middies in their teens can command the cruiser's boats and run alongside a vessel full of cutthroat Arabs-board, fight, capture, and scuttle as of yore; he is glad to think that in these sweltering sickly parts there is joy on board, from the captain bold to the cabin-boy, when the Prize Court is safely got over and the money dealt out all round.

It is, then, in no cheeseparing spirit that one earnestly hopes that all this may ensure more than such passing attention. For nearly fifty years, as an extravagant piece of uselessness, it has been winked at; and those who really have the good of the Africans at heart long to speak out, At all events, the nation has a right to expect some very different story from that which has to be told at the present

moment.

Let it then be recollected that England's exertions in keeping up a squadron of ships off the East African Coast are purely and simply to prevent a supply of slaves being taken from Africa to meet a demand which exists in all directions in the Eastern Seas. England does this because the men of the last generation made themselves. acquainted with the barbarities which go on amongst the inland tribes of Africa from which the slaves are brought, and because Livingstone, Stanley, Cameron, Wissmann, and a host of others all declare that the cruelties depicted then are, if possible, much worse to-day.

In

We learn our geography as usual by our "little wars and international disputes, so it is safe to believe that most folks now are acquainted with the island of Zanzibar off the East Coast of Africa, and its adjacent satellite, Pemba, will at once be seen on any map. Now for results, in this year of grace, of all our past exertions. We shall best get at these by a very brief reference to Zanzibar. the year 1822 Great Britain found it wise, for political purposes, to establish the present dynasty there, and that dynasty has been held in position ever since by the same hand. Not only has this been the case, but, owing to the fact of immense favour being extended to the Zanzibar Sultans-more particularly in giving them as political agents and advisers some of the most admirable men-the prosperity of Zanzibar has increased to an extraordinary degree. It is, in fact, the metropolis of Central and Eastern Africa. Its Sultan has a quasi hold on distant lands-whether we go to Uganda on the Equator, or to Lake Nyassa on the south-simply because the natives look upon him as the great purveyor of everything which reaches them from the outer world. It is true that now and again awkward stories come to England about our exceedingly prosperous ally. Livingstone traced the destruction of the Manyuema people and the general spread of devastation in the interior to men who hailed from Zanzibar. They were annihilating all those wretched Africans who would not fit into slave-sticks or accommodate themselves to circumstances by enlisting in the Arab ranks against their own kith and kin. Stanley saw the same state of things; Cameron was an eye-witness to like horrors; and at last Sir Bartle Frere was sent out to inquire into the casewith what lasting effect we shall see presently when we bring the indictment against the Zanzibar Arabs down to the present date. Now, pace Mangnall, the island of Pemba, which has been mentioned, produces cloves for the world in general. It is an island, say, the size of the Isle of Wight, forty miles from Zanzibar itself. Lying low, surrounded with shoals, swamps, and a threadwork of lagoons, very little is known of it except it be by our cruisers, who have incessantly to keep watch over it in ordinary times. As a property it belongs to the Sultan of Zanzibar, and is farmed by the men about his Court, for the most part much in the hands of Banyan money

lenders, and who are alternately called "subjects of the Sultan of Zanzibar" or "British subjects" as it suits the whim of our Foreign Office. Instead of beating about the African bush, the state of affairs at Pemba shall serve to show what an exhibition we make of ourselves before Arabs, French, Germans, and Portuguese.

Surely, it will be said, that after all the prosperity we have brought to these Arabs, the Sultan and his men will have the decency to act up to the letter and the 'spirit of the treaties existing with Great Britain; surely we shall not have to keep men-of-war waltzing round these two little islands to prevent the running of slaves thither-our ships, if they must be employed, can watch the coast, and the Sultan, with his own armed vessels, will look after them himself. We shall see in a moment how far such hopes are justified. Now, so dreadful is the slave's life in Pemba, that the missionaries at Zanzibar and opposite the island reckon that an imported slave does not live more than seven years as a maximum, and that the women, save in exceptional cases, bear no children. The slaves are for the most part captured to the west of Lake Nyassa. They are ferried over the lake and brought near to the coast, then marched along the seaboard northwards, and smuggled across to Pemba in small detachments. In the year 1876, Sir John Kirk, H.M. Political Agent, urged Seyyid Burgash, the reigning Sultan, to take additional steps to put a stop to these doings, as the scandal was becoming outrageous. A proclamation was accordingly issued on the 18th of April, of which the following is a translation:

"To all whom it may concern of our friends on the mainland of Africa and elsewhere. Whereas slaves are being brought down from the lands of Nyassa, of the Yao, and other parts to the coast, and there sold to dealers, who take them to Pemba against our orders and the terms of the treaties with Great Britain. Be it known that we forbid the arrival of slave caravans from the interior, and the fitting out of slave caravans by our subjects and have given our orders to our Governors accordingly, and all slaves arriving at the coast will be confiscated.”

With Sir John Kirk on the spot, Seyyid Burgash dealt out very summary punishment to several delinquents; but whatever effect was produced has apparently become obliterated. Whether we derive our information from the inland lakes, from coast officials, or from our own Ministers in Parliament, the conclusion is the same. We will substantiate this by referring to the latest testimony from Zanzibar itself, and in doing this one casts no reflection upon Colonel Euan-Smith, for, if Sir John Kirk was thwarted, he most assuredly will be in turn. Considerable pains have been taken to ascertain the approximate number of slaves surreptitiously imported into the two islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. A letter lies before me some ten weeks old, written by an official on the spot, under whose eye all the efforts of this country pass in review. He differs altogether from Mr. Thomson in his estimate of the slave trade. He states that as many as 5000 slaves per annum are now