Page:The empire and the century.djvu/898

 which has opened up to cultivation and reclamation the great depopulated but fertile areas lying waste in the country, has on the one hand afforded to the runaway slave illimitable opportunities for setting up for himself; while, on the other hand, in the eye of the law as administered by the British courts, the forcible rendition of a fugitive slave is a crime. If done by a British subject it is participation in enslaving, if by a native it becomes a 'common assault' or 'illegal detention,' etc. Herein is a dilemma. The judicial authority, which may not recognise the status of slavery, is opposed to the executive which desires that the existing system shall only gradually expire in proportion as the new and better order of things becomes efficient to take its place. I frankly recognise the difficulty; but I think it is better to accept it than to perpetuate the system by legalizing it on the one hand, or to create chaos by arbitrarily and prematurely abolishing it on the other. I find its solution (a) in the combination in the person of the same officer of judicial and executive functions whereby, by the exercise of tact and common-sense, aided by his experience and knowledge of the people, he may be able to avoid dealing judicially with cases which he considers are unsuited for judicial action; and (b) by the use of the native courts in the last resort. All cases in which an officer considers that cruelty, or recent enslavement, or other good cause, gives just pounds for liberation he can deal with judicially; but if, after inquiry, he finds that the runaway slave is merely a criminal or vagrant, he would, while not denying his right to assert his freedom, decline to grant him land on which to settle, or if a vagrant in a city would allow the native courts to deal with the matter. Such cases are in practice very few indeed. The large majority of runaways are women, and the question can be dealt with as one of divorce, and not of slavery, while the Government forbids the marriage of soldiers and other Government employés with fugitive slave women. Self-redemption is encouraged by Govern-