(DOMESTIC) IN SIERRA LEONE: SESSIONal Paper.. CONDITIONS IN ABYSSINIA: LETTER TO F.O. ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND JULY, 1926. [The Editor, whilst grateful to all correspondents who may be kind enough to furnish him with information, desires to state that he is not responsible for the views stated by them, nor for quotations which may be inserted from other journals. The object of the journal is to spread information, and articles are necessarily quoted which may contain views and statements for which their authors can alone be held responsible.] Special Slavery Number. Quarterly Notes. We have called this a special Slavery Number of the Reporter, as it gives evidence, recently received, of slavery in so many different parts of the world, whether under the name of Domestic Slavery, Forced Labour, or other synonym. There is the more cause for thankfulness that the draft Slavery Convention, dealing in a thorough manner with the whole problem, is under the serious consideration of the League of Nations, and has received the hearty support of our Government. The Annual The Society's Annual Meeting is being held this year at the time of going to press with this issue; the report of Meeting. the proceedings cannot, therefore, appear until the autumn. The recent success which has attended the efforts of the Society in connection with the Draft Slavery Convention of the League of Nations, and the attitude of the Foreign Office on this question, gives great encouragement. and Mr. St. Loe Strachey, one of the Vice-Presidents of the Society, is to move a resolution of appreciation of the action of His Majesty's Government on this matter. On the other hand the Society feels much concern at the anti-Native policy of General Hertzog's Government of the Union of South Africa, in passing the Colour Bar Bill, which constitutes not only a violation of British obligations, but is without precedent as making the colour of a British subject a disability in the eye of the law. A resolution of protest is to be moved at the meeting by Lord Olivier, to whose speech in the House of Lords on May 29th last (reported on page 87) attention is directed. Meetings and During the last two months Mr. Harris has been speaking at a large number of meetings in different parts of the country. In March he went to Ireland, and addressed meetings in Dublin and Belfast; much interest was there shown in the work of the Society, and good work was done, which we 3 believe may lead to useful developments of the work in Ireland. Other meetings at which Mr. Harris has spoken, have included Bristol, Wormwood Scrubs Prison, Bournemouth, Lincoln, and Folkestone. Nov. 17th and 18th-Darlington and Bishop Auckland. * Queen Victoria AN interesting passage occurs in the recently published and volumes of Queen Victoria's Letters, on her strong feeling Native Races. in favour of a right and generous treatment of the Native Races of the Empire, which is worth quoting. On 24th December, 1874, the Queen, writing to the Earl of Carnarvon (then Secretary of State for the Colonies), referred to her sympathy with the pro-native attitude of Bishop Colenso of Natal, to whom she had written to express 'her sense of his noble disinterested conduct in favour of the natives who were so unjustly used and in general her very strong feeling (and she has few stronger) that the natives and coloured races should be treated with every kindness and affection, as brothers, not-as alas! Englishmen too often do-as totally different beings to ourselves, fit only to be crushed and shot down! The Queen knows that Lord Carnarvon entirely shares her feelings, but she would be glad if, in some way or other, he would make these sentiments of the Queen known generally. It would shame those disgraceful feelings above alluded to and would encourage those who take the right course, and it would also conciliate the native races themselves. In general, all her Colonial Governors should know her feelings on this subject of the native races Slavery in the Sudan. WHITE PAPER.* THIS official paper contains the replies from the Sudan Government to the enquiries set on foot by the League of Nations in regard to the question of slavery. In his covering letter of August, 1925, the Acting Governor General gave extracts from the Penal Code against Kidnapping, Abduction and Forced Labour, and Circulars relating to Slavery of 1907, 1919, and 1925. In the last of these, which cancelled the earlier ones, it was laid down that it had always been the fixed policy of the Sudan [Government that all slavery should in due course come to a natural end, * Cmd. 2650. but, while doing nothing to delay the natural ending of slavery, it was not desirable to try to bring it about too quickly. No one born after the reoccupation of the country in 1898 is otherwise than free, and no master has the right to retain Sudanese servants against their will. The policy of the Government was that, where servants, brought up in the status of slavery wish to break the relation and apply to the Government, “no obstacle is to be placed in their way," but the Government need not take the initiative, except on the servant's application. The District Commissioner may attempt to reconcile the parties, but is himself to remember and to remind the servant that the latter has an absolute right to freedom. But the Commissioner must not attempt reconciliation where the master has hired out the servant to another in violation of the Penal Code, or has ill-treated the servant, or in a case where the servant was born since 1898. Other provisions relate to complaints by masters of theft by a runaway servant, which should be viewed with grave suspicion, opportunity for servants to complain if they wish to, etc. The Acting Governor General also referred to the special Sudan department for repression of slavery which functioned from 1898 to 1921, when, the slave trade having been entirely abolished, it became unnecessary and ceased to exist. In an important memorandum of last year on slavery in the Sudan a clear distinction is laid down between "slavery properly so-called," i.e., the capture of human beings, their sale and purchase and ill-treatment, and Domestic slavery. The first kind, “ utterly unjustifiable," has been practically stamped out in the Sudan during the last twenty-five years, and "slave raiding by Sudan subjects may be said to have ceased altogether"; isolated cases of sale are found from time to time, but have always been treated very drastically by the Courts, and ill-treatment has always beeen punishable, regardless of status. The Memorandum contends that domestic slavery has always existed, though to an ever diminishing extent, and has certain compensating advantages, that hasty action against it would be dangerous, and so on. The Sudan Government intends to hasten the end of domestic slavery, which is dying out by natural process, but cannot lightly neglect considerations of prudence which still arise. It is pointed out that slaves freed from domestic slavery too often fall into idleness or crime and the women to prostitution. The whole matter, it is declared, has received, and will continue to receive, the most careful attention of the Sudan Government, and the Governor reiterates the assurance that its fixed policy has always been to secure the complete suppression of slavery of every kind and description in the Sudan. The question is really one of the pace at which it is advisable to proceed, but no justifiable measure will be neglected. A special Slavery Commissioner, Mr. C. A. Willis, was appointed last year to collate information and report. He was to examine all records and obtain all possible information about slaves, domestic or otherwise, in the Sudan, to consider the possibility of establishing a centre in the Red Sea province for the temporary accommodation of manumitted slaves from Arabia, and to visit Jeddah in order to investigate the question of pilgrims to the Holy places. Domestic Slavery in Sierra Leone. AN important Sessional Paper* containing despatches on this question has been officially published in Sierra Leone. The most important is a long despatch from the Governor, Sir Ransford Slater, to the Secretary of State, dated 30th June, 1924, going into the history of the question of slavery in the Colony and Protectorate, discussing local law, and making recommendations. For some years past the question of slavery has been in the minds of the Administration, and seven years ago Mr. Wilkinson, the then Governor, wrote that he thought the questions of slavery and forced labour should be taken up, with a view to final settlement within a reasonable time. He recommended voluntary registration of slaves as the first step, and Lord Milner, who was then at the Colonial Office, agreed with the recommendation. A few months afterwards, however, in reply to enquiries as to any steps which had been taken, Mr. Wilkinson wrote in a somewhat different strain, stating that it had not been possible, owing to depletion of the staffs, to institute a registration of servitude and he had not been able to go beyond making an enquiry. It was obvious, he said, that the matter would have to be " handled with infinite tact and care." In 1921 the Acting Governor again urged the importance of the question, but did not agree with the recommendation for registration of slaves. Mr. Winston Churchill in that year declared that the law on the subject was far from satisfactory and more vigorous measures might be practicable. Sir Ransford Slater states that when he became Governor in 1922 he was surprised to find that "in Sierra Leone, of all Colonies, having regard to the history of its first settlers, there should still exist, even in its hinterland, an admitted form of slavery." The legal status of slavery was not abolished, as was shown by the facts that the law fixed a price for redemption of slaves, and permitted slaves to pass to the heir-though bequests of slaves were illegal. He discovered that there was a total absence of any public opinion against slavery, even among the Churches and Missions, which had made no representations, so far as he could find. It appeared that neither masters nor slaves saw anything wrong in domestic |