Obituary: Bishop Tucker. By the sudden death of Bishop Alfred R. Tucker, on June 15, the Anti-Slavery Society has lost one of its most active and esteemed corresponding members, and one who was, when in Africa, in constant touch with the Society's work, as he was always in deep sympathy with it. The Bishop was an enthusiastic anti-slavery man; as he himself said, when speaking at the Society's Annual Meeting in 1902, his knowledge of native life and character had engendered in him "an almost passionate desire to remove every let and hindrance to the advancement of the native races in the dark continent of Africa. And foremost amongst those hindrances was the institution of slavery." When the question of slavery in Zanzibar and Pemba was prominently before our Society, Bishop Tucker, who was then at Mombasa, was a powerful advocate for a full measure of emancipation, and took a leading part in 88 HOOTER MA ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND. urging it upon the Government, and through the Press upon the British public. He was at that time in constant correspondence with Mr. Allen, Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, and when the 1897 Decree for the abolition of the legal status of slavery in Zanzibar and Pemba was passed, he, like the Society, took the strongest exception to the clause excluding women who occupied the position of concubines from the benefits of the Decree. In 1898 he championed the cause of a slave girl at Mombasa who claimed her freedom, taking it up as a test case, which he himself conducted before the Commissioner's Court, basing her claim both on legal grounds and on that of the cruelty of her master. The decision given was important for several reasons, one being that it made it clear that on the Zanzibar mainland the lex loci recognizing slavery was regarded as of superior authority to the Common Law of England. This point of the recognition of slavery by British authorities was one upon which the Bishop felt especially strongly and often wrote. In 1899, in consequence of a fresh diocesan division, Dr. Tucker became Bishop of Uganda, where he maintained his keen. interest in the problems of slavery. When the Liberal Government came into power in this country in 1906 the Bishop once more pressed for the fulfilment of the pledge which had been given for the abolition of the legal status of slavery in British East Africa, and in the following year an Ordinance for its abolition throughout the Protectorate was at length passed. In 1908 the Bishop published his deeply interesting book, Eighteen Years in Uganda and East Africa, which, describing as it did the marvellous progress of Christianity in that country, formed, as the Times has remarked, "a fascinating record of missionary enterprise." As Mr. Churchill pointed out after his visit in 1907, the development of Missions in Uganda had been perhaps more successful than in any other part of the British Empire; it was like "a new world where all the hopes and dreams of the negrophile and philanthropist had at last been fulfilled." In 1910 the Bishop called the Society's attention to the unsatisfactory state of things in Uganda in regard to the demand for forced labour from the natives, pointing out that much of the so-called voluntary work was really compulsory, the only "volunteers" being the chiefs, who did not a single stroke of the work. This is much the same point as has recently come before us in East Africa, and on which the Society's letter to the Colonial Office has been published. The Bishop finally left Africa in 1911, when he became a Canon of Durham. The record of his work in East Africa is a splendid one, and the antislavery cause owes him a profound debt of gratitude, and deeply laments his loss. Recently published by the Society. PORTUGUESE SLAVERY. What is Slavery? By the Right Hon. The EARL OF CROMER. Memorandum from the Society to Sir E. GREY, June, 1914. BRITISH COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION. BRITAIN'S DILEMMA IN THE NEW HEBRIDES. Back to Slavery? An Appeal to Mr. HARCOURT, 11th June, 1914. NEW BOOKS DAWN IN DARKEST AFRICA. By JOHN H. HARRIS, F.R.G.S. (New Edition.) With an Introduction by the Rt. Hon. THE EARL OF CROMER. (Smith, Elder & Co. Price 6/- net.) PORTUGUESE SLAVERY: BRITAIN'S DILEMMA. By JOHN H. HARRIS, F.R.G.S. (Methuen & Co. Price 1/- net.) Every copy sold through the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society is an advantage to its funds. TO BE OBTAINED AT THE OFFICES OF THE SOCIETY. The Anti-Slavery & Aborigines Protection Society President: SIR THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, BART., G.C.M.G. Vice-Presidents: HIS GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. RT. REV. LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD. RT. HON. LORD WEARDALE. RT. HON. JOSEPH A. PEASE, M.P. T. F. V. BUXTON, Esq. GEORGE CADBURY, Esq. SIR H. H. JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G. JOHN HOLT, Esq. THE DOWAGER LADY MONKSWELL. SIR JOHN MACDONELL, K.C.B. SIR ALFRED E. PEASE, BART. H. C. STEPHENS, Esq. J. ST. LOE STRACHEY, Esq. MRS. J. P. THOMASSON. H. W. W. WILBERFORCE, Esq., J.P. Chairman : HON. JOHN C. LYTTELTON, M.P. Vice-Chairman : FRANCIS WILLIAM FOX, Esq. SIR COLIN SCOTT MONCRIEFF, K.C.M.G., AND E. WRIGHT BROOKS, Esq., J.P. W. A. ALBRIGHT, Esq. J. G. ALEXANDER, Esq., LL.B. MRS. C. E. ALEXANDER. MRS. S. J. BLUMLEIN. NOEL BUXTON, Esq., M.P. SIR W. P. BYLES, M.P. JOEL CADBURY, Esq. MRS. JOEL CADBURY. Committee: LORD HENRY CAVENDISH-BENTINCK, M.P. REV. W. H. DRUMMOND. REV. M. J. ELLIOTT. R. W. FELKIN, Esq., M.D. HENRY GURNEY, Esq. R. C. HAWKIN, Esq. ADMIRAL SIR GEORGE KING-HALL, K.C.B., C.V.O. MRS. KING LEWIS. DONALD MACKENZIE, Esq. REV. CANON J. H. B. MASTERMAN, M.A. P. A. MOLTENO, Esq., M.P. W. CAREY MORGAN, Esq. ALFRED W. OKE, Esq. JOHN M. ROBERTSON, Esq., M.P. A. MACCALLUM SCOTT, Esq., M.P. Parliamentary Committee: Organising Secretaries: REV. J. H. AND MRS. HARRIS. Bankers Messrs. BARCLAY & Co., LTD., 95, Victoria Street, S.W. Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London |