The Guardian TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1927. NOTES AND COMMENTS THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume XLV, Issue 3174, 6 December 1927, Page 4

The Guardian

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1927. NOTES AND COMMENTS THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY

Printed at Leeston, Canterbury, New Zealand, on Tuesday and Friday afternoons.

"Save for some accidental survival

there are no more slaves under our flag," says the London Evening Standard. "This is, indeed, a thing we take very much for granted. But the very fact that we take it for granted is only another aspect of what, more closely considered, can be described only as an extraordinary change in human nature. For less than a hundred

years ago there were not only great numbers of slaves in the British Empire; there were also white slaveowners, respectable and respected citizens, who saw nothing wrong or odd in the possession of a man's body as a chattel. And never in any period of the world's history has it been universally held, as we hold it, that slavery is in itself a thing wicked and abhorrent. We no longer even believe that slavery should be abolished merely on the grounds of expediency, because it is bad for the masters, or because it inevitably inflicts suffering on the slaves. We believe now it is wrong in itself, even were its conditions ideal, even were the slaves invariably well cared for and happy. Our attitude toward it rests on much more open argument; it rests on an instinct, and on a new instinct. This is a matter to be considered by those who reiterate the old saying that ' human nature does not change.' It may also be considered by those who decry 'our vaunted progress' and maintain that mankind was as well off under Augustus as it is now. If civilisation as well as individuals are brought to the bar of judgment it will have much to confess to, but it can also say, and with pride: This at least we did!"