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trates' courts, though it shows an increase over the preceding year, chiefly relates to I crimes of omission." The Commissioner suggests that as a substitute for the punishment of imprisonment employment might well be found for the delinquent at a specific wage from which the fine could be deducted.

LABOUR.

The average number of Natives in employment at any time during the year was over 83,300, an increase of 3,000 on the previous year. Of this number 38,400 were employed in connection with the mines. Scarcity of labour is felt at the seasons when the local Natives return to cultivate their own lands, causing a shortage to the farmers. The conditions of labour in the mines are said to be growing more attractive to the natives employed, who tend increasingly " to form permanent homes there." Domestic service is not taken up by the girls to any extent except in one district (Melsetter), as parents fear the evils of town life for their daughters.

NATIVE LEGISLATION.

The Chief Commissioner warns against the danger of over-legislation for Natives, and adds the important words that "our aim should be more in the direction of elasticity of native administration and tolerating of native customs, especially when the Native is in the transition stage."

RECRUITING.

Over 1,000 natives volunteered in the first quarter of the year for active military service, but many of them failed to pass the medical test. This appeal to the Natives for their help has, the Chief Commissioner says, brought home to them more than anything else the reality of the war, though they cannot appreciate its magnitude. They "await with calm confidence the determination of the struggle in favour of Great Britain." The amount of £880 in cash, besides contributions in kind, was given towards patriotic funds.

Friends' Industrial Mission.

THE report of this Mission in the island of Pemba, which has now been amalgamated with the Friends' Foreign Missionary Association, forms an interesting retrospect of the twenty-one years' work carried on in that island by the Friends, and recalls the valuable co-operation given by them in the struggle for the abolition of slavery in Zanzibar and Pemba in the closing years of the last century. It will be remembered that the Anti-Slavery Society sent out a special commissioner to Zanzibar in 1895 to study the slavery question, and his report, widely circulated, was of great use in arousing public attention to its urgency. As a result public meetings were held and resolutions passed in different parts of the country, which were sent in to the Government. The Society of Friends warmly took up the agitation for freedom, and formed a

special Committee to work with our Society, which was then vigorously pressing the Government to carry out their pledges to end the legal status of slavery in British East Africa.

In order to show by a practical experiment the advantages of free over slave labour, the Friends determined to start an Industrial Mission in Pemba. In November, 1896, a deputation waited upon Mr. (now Earl) Curzon, then Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, urging the abolition of slavery as essential to any real prosperity in the island, and at the end of that year, Mr. Theodore Burtt and the late Mr. H. Stanley Newman sailed for East Africa, to study the situation on the spot. The Report thus describes the conditions at that time :

"

Slavery with its various ramifications,-absence of home life, immorality, injustice, dirt, and disease was rife ; the prisons were crowded and dirty beyond description."

In April, 1897, a Decree was issued for the abolition of slavery in Zanzibar and Pemba, but it was from the first criticized as half-hearted and inadequate, and, as the Report says, "the system employed worked slowly and badly."

The reports, sent home by Mr. Burtt-who still remains in Pembawere useful as showing the way in which the Decree was being worked; "bitter opposition," as the Report records, " was experienced," and we remember that at one time the Friends' missionaries were far from being in favour with the authorities, owing to their open championship of the slaves. It is estimated that during the first ten years over 1,000 slaves were helped.

In June, 1897, Mr. Herbert Armitage began industrial work at Wesha, and afterwards a good clove and coconut plantation of 150 acres was secured at Banani, where Mr. and Mrs. Burtt, Miss Armitage, Miss E. Hutchinson, Mr. Wigham, and others have worked in the interests of the Pemba natives. Besides industrial and medical work, schools and religious services were carried on and training homes for both boys and girls established.

This Report shows how many disappointments have occurred in the progress of the Mission owing to deaths and breakdowns of workers, and frequent furloughs which have constantly interfered with its continuity, but "distinct progress has been made, especially on the spiritual side," and of the practical help rendered in putting an end to slavery and raising the people to a higher level there can be no question. "One very encouraging fact" is noted, viz., that the birth-rate in Pemba is increasing and is now well in advance of the death-rate.

Among the Mission workers named, Mr. Ernest Morland's name will be remembered as having been for some years Assistant Secretary to the AntiSlavery Society. He joined the staff in 1904, but his health sadly broke

down, and his death occurred in Zanzibar, soon after his resignation, in 1911. The staff of workers has, unfortunately, now been seriously reduced, and owing to the war the cost of living has gone up, as well as the rate of wages, and the price of produce has gone down; the clove and coconut crops have been poor, yet" the cultivation of the plantation has been well maintained,” though there will be no surplus on the year's working.

On the evangelistic and educational sides," the harvest is ready as never before in Pemba, but the labourers are few."

The Mission is now being handed over to the F.F.M.A., and we are glad to know that a work for freedom and African native welfare, so bravely begun, has been persistently carried on, despite climatic and other difficulties, and has borne useful fruit.

Labour Conditions in South America.

IT is several years since the revelations of the Putumayo called public. attention in this country to the scandals and cruelties in connexion with the collection of rubber in remote districts of South America. Doubtless these, at least in an extreme form, have ceased owing to conditions arising out of the war which have rendered the rubber industry unproductive, but a recent article in the Statist reminds us that the difficulties of labour in that country have not been overcome, and that, given a change in the conditions and a renewed demand for rubber, the same evils might once more declare themselves.

M. Vasconcellos, who has been for some time Acting-Consul General for Brazil in London, has been investigating the facts connected with the rubber industry in the Amazonas district of Brazil, and found that the labour question was a serious difficulty. The practice has been to organize expeditions from Manaos into the rubber forests by sending forward a body of men to clear about 500 miles of track. These were followed by experts who determined which trees were fit for tapping, and the rubber gatherers followed in their wake. The Consul-General described the system as cumbersome and exceedingly expensive, and concluded that the methods must be improved if Brazil is even to maintain her position as a rubber producer in the world markets. He went on to say that the present system is undoubtedly objectionable from many points of view:

"A large part of the actual collection is done by Indians; and there can be no doubt that these are recruited under conditions to which very serious objection may be taken. Wages in Brazil are fairly high, and the rubber gatherer gets nominally a very fair wage for the kind of work he does, and bearing in mind the total rate of wages and the cost of living in those regions. This would be true if he really received a substantial pro

portion of those wages. But he does not. He is sent up into the forest, where nothing is obtainable, and he is, consequently, compelled to take everything he needs from certain specified places organized by traders who work in conjunction with his employers, and who charge him extravagant rates for everything he requires."

Practically, he says, the system amounts to one of "truck," the labourers being paid according to the varying price of rubber, but as" they are debited with first one thing and then another, they receive only a small proportion of the nominal wage."

It will be remembered that this was the system which lay at the root of the evils of the Putumayo. The Consul-General suggests its abolition, root and branch, and the establishment in the neighbourhood of the great rubber forests of a group of small peasant farmers who could be relied upon to furnish a sufficient number of rubber gatherers under much better conditions than exist at present. He states that in the northern states of Brazil there are hundreds of thousands of individuals living almost in penury and having hardly any regular occupation" who would be glad to emigrate to Amazonas for the purpose indicated if they were offered lands which are now lying absolutely idle.

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The Swiss League.

WE are glad to receive another number of the publication of this Society, which was founded ten tears ago last July to deal with the ill-treatment of the natives of the Congo. In 1913, in view of wrongs inflicted on native races in other parts of the world the scope of the League was enlarged, and its name changed to Ligue Suisse pour la Défense des Indigènes. It then interested itself in the cause of the wronged peoples of Angola, the Putumayo, the New Hebrides, etc.

The Bulletin of the League is now only published at somewhat long intervals. From it we learn that the War has seriously interfered with the League's activities, but its leaders earnestly ask for the continued support of members, because "the importance of the native question grows greater every day in such a way that we shall find ourselves when peace comes confronted with a gigantic task. It will be necessary to fill up the gaps which have been made in our ranks and to augment our effective forces."

Reference is made to an interesting report presented to the last meeting of the League upon the necessity of constant and energetic resistance being offered to forced labour in the Colonies and upon the preparation, in view of the Peace Congress which will one day he held, of propositions leading to the recognition of the principle of free labour by the League of Nations, which should refuse to recognize, as unworthy of having colonies, peoples who will not admit this principle.

In another paragraph on the treatment of natives in German colonies, the writer refers to several pamphlets which have appeared in England on this subject. These he says that he should not comment on but for the fact that they are supported in the majority of cases by German testimony, which makes them valuable. Forced labour, it is stated, alike for the State and private plantations, appears to be the rule. To stimulate work recourse is had to flogging. The former Secretary of State for the Colonies, Herr Dernburg, himself admits that on the East African coast it makes "a very unfavourable impression" to see so many whites going and coming with whips in their hands. The legal number of strokes is twenty-five, but this dose may be repeated after an interval of six weeks, and as a matter of fact the number is often exceeded. Justice for blacks is a farce. Deputy Dr. Muller said in 1912, “Our civil and criminal administration in the colonies is indefensible. Our criminal procedure leaves the natives entirely without rights." Another characteristic of German administration is said to be to humiliate the Chiefs in the eyes of their own subjects. They are systematically insulted by floggings and chains, and are left absolutely at the mercy of native soldiers. Punitive expeditions are frequently resorted to and the villages are put to the sword and burned. With such a régime it is not to be wondered at that revolts have been extremely frequent in the Cameroons, East Africa, the country of the Herreros, etc. A Deputy named Noske declared in May 1912 that in the suppression of the revolts thousands of natives had been exterminated.

Mention is made in the Bulletin of the death of our late Vice-President, Mr. J. G. Alexander, with whom the Swiss League had at one time some correspondence, and benefited from his advice. Tribute is rendered to him as a man who "devoted his life to the struggle against opium, and to the defence of every righteous cause."

The Committee.

Two new members have been added to the Society's Committee, viz., the Rev. Canon J. G. SIMPSON (of St. Paul's Cathedral), and Mr. S. V. BLAKE.

Canon Simpson is welcomed as a clerical representative of the Church of England, in place of Canon Masterman and Canon Gamble (now Dean of Exeter), whose services we lost at the close of the Society's year by their resignations on account of the pressure of other engagements.

Mr. S. V. Blake is a Canadian Barrister who has for many years been in practice in London as a Privy Council agent. His uncle, the Hon. S. H. Blake, took an active interest in the Indians of Canada, and he is himself a member of the South African Native Races Committee.

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