130 THE UNIVERSAL RACES CONGRESS. 



If prejudice seems too strong at present, either in our Indian 

 or our African Empire, let us consider how rapidly opinion has 

 changed on two equally important matters. A hundred and fifty 

 years ago the most respectable merchants in my native town of 

 Liverpool thought it no shame to be traffickers in slaves ; the 

 remains of the slave market there recently disappeared, and 

 Goree Piazza is still the centre of the still lucrative West African 

 trade. Sixty years ago the most brilliant civilian in Europe, 

 Ferdinand Lasalle, fell in a duel ; where, among Europeans, is 

 slavery now defended? And ;how completely among our own 

 people has duelling disappeared ! But though slavery lias been 

 abolished, the slave-owning instincts remain ; wherever one finds 

 dififerential treatment advocated on account of colour, or ibrutal 

 and savage punis'hments demanded in dealing with savages, there 

 are the instincts fully alive, and need both law and public opinion 

 to keep them in check. Not many years ago, a white nation, re- 

 putedly civilised, tortured its prisoners, and another nation boiled 

 the head of an enemy slain in battle over the camp-fire ; though 

 these things called forth indignant protests from the whole world, 

 the mere fact that they were possible shows how unequally civi- 

 lisation operates even among white people. 



How greatly race and religion may separate white races the 

 painful history of England and Ireland shows. " Violence and 

 injustice beget one another," says Alahaft'y, and there are few 

 Englishmen who can read without shame a record of their 

 country's dealings with a nation to whom they owe Christianity. 

 Similar or worse horrors obscure the dealings of Russians and 

 Finns, Germans and Poles, Austrians and Italians : in the latter 

 case not even a difference of religion existing to palliate the 

 conduct of the stronger. It is necessary to emphasise this, as 

 one is apt here to regard colour as the dividing-line, but history 

 safys otherwise. 



The meaning of race and nation and the problem of race 

 equality, together with the general conditions of progress, took 

 up the first day, dealt with by Professor von Luschau, Monsieur 

 Fouille, Mr. Joihn Robertson, M.P., Dr. Rhys Davids, Dr. Sergi, 

 Sister Nivedetta (India), and ]Mr. Spiller, to whose energy the 

 Congress was mainly due. 



The second day began with " Tendencies towards Parlia- 

 mentary rule " by Dr. Lange of Brussels, followed by accounts 

 of such in China, Japan, Turkey, Persia, India, Egypt and Hayti, 

 and " The Role of Russia in bringing White and Yellow races 

 together " was dealt with by Dr. Yastchenko of Dorpat, in 

 Russia. 



Then came peaceful contact between civilisations, mostly 

 dealt with by Professors of International Law, of whom no fewer 

 than 150 supported the Congress; and problems of economics 

 such as wages and markets, dealt with by professors of economics. 



The third day dealt with the modern conscience in relation 

 to racial questions, and fitly began with " International Ethics,'' 



