white men, but as between white men and men of every shade of
complexion.

A speaker at a public meeting lately expressed a sentiment which is more
or less carelessly repeated by many. I quote it, as helping me to define
the principle to which I have referred, which marks the difference
between an offence or crime committed by an individual _against_ the
law, and an offence or crime sanctioned, permitted, or enacted by a
State or Government itself, or by public authority in any way.

This speaker, after confessing, apparently with reluctance, that "the
South African Republic had not been stainless in its relations towards
the blacks," added, "but for these deeds--every one of them--we could
find a parallel among our own people." I think a careful study of the
history of the South African races would convince this speaker that he
has exaggerated the case as against "our own people" in the matter of
deliberate cruelty and violence towards the natives. However that may
be, it does not alter the fact of the wide difference between the evil
deeds of men acting on their own responsibility and the evil deeds of
Governments, and of Communities in which the Governmental Authorities
do not forbid, but sanction, such actions.

As an old Abolitionist, who has been engaged for thirty years in a war
against slavery in another form, may I be allowed to cite a parallel?
That Anti-slavery War was undertaken against a Law introduced into
England, which endorsed, permitted, and in fact, legalized, a moral and
social slavery already existing--a slavery to the vice of prostitution.
The pioneers of the opposition to this law saw the tremendous import,
and the necessary consequences of such a law. They had previously
laboured to lessen the social evil by moral and spiritual means, but now