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FOREIGN OFFICE, S.W.1. 21st January, 1928.

SIR,-In reply to your letter of the 10th instant, regarding slavery conditions on the frontier between the Sudan and Abyssinia, I am directed by Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain to state that the following is the most recent information in his possession on this subject :—

The records of the province of Kassala show that during the last ten years one hundred and seventy-three slaves have escaped from Abyssinia to Gedaref, a District Headquarters lying some seventy-five miles from the frontier on latitude fourteen degrees. The figure 173 represents registered cases only, and it is probable that other slaves. have escaped into the Sudan of whom no record exists. Escaped slaves who are registered at Gedaref are sent to join an Abyssinian ex-slave community which has been formed at Gharb el Gash near Kassala. Work is there found without difficulty for the men and husbands for the unmarried women. The community is reported to be flourishing and a number of children have been born there into freedom. In no case has any escaped slave been sent back to Abyssinia.

Refugees from Abyssinia sometimes appear in the Roseires and Kurmuk districts of the Fung Province. As a rule such refugees come in parties of two or three or singly, but there have been cases recently when larger groups numbering one hundred or one hundred and fifty crossed into this province from Abyssinia. These people are given the chance either of settling in various selected localities in the Roseires district, at least sixty miles from the frontier, where "refugee colonies" have been formed, or of moving to the north of the Fung province at a still greater distance from the frontier. The great majority prefer the former alternative and are allocated land for building and cultivation. In certain cases where large parties have entered the Sudan in a state of destitution, loans have been issued payable after the harvest and the past year's taxes remitted. These ex-slaves are free to return to Abyssinia if they wish to do so provided any taxes they may have incurred are not in arrear. Claims are frequently received from former owners for their return as slaves, and these claims are usually accompanied by charges of some kind of crime. The refugees are, however, never compelled to return unless a criminal offence has been fully proved against them.

A recent case has come to notice in which the Abyssinian authorities co-operated in returning to the Sudan an Anuak who had been abducted into Abyssinia. The facts of this case are as follows: In October, 1927, an Anuak, subject to Abyssinia, complained to the British Assistant District Commissioner at Gambeila that his brother had been carried off and sold to some Abyssinians north of Gambeila, and at the same time informed the Commissioner that the man responsible for the abduction was in the enclave on his way back to Abyssinia. The Assistant District Commissioner at once arrested the man accused and reported the matter

to the Abyssinian official stationed just outside the enclave. The latter thanked him for having effected the arrest and observed that, as the offence of slave dealing was regarded very seriously by his Government, the accused if returned to Abyssinia and found guilty would doubtless be severely dealt with. The Assistant District Commissioner accordingly handed over the prisoner and witnesses for trial at Sayo by Fitaurari Fanta, the local Abyssinian chieftain. The abducted Anuak was released and, as proof of the action taken by the Abyssinian authorities, was sent by Fitaurari Fanta to report in person to the Assistant District Commissioner at Gambeila.

There is no objection to the publication by your Society of the above information.

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Let it reach Mamur Gedaref.

DEAR SIR,-May God show you the justice.

The protector of the poor and their properties is the Government. The question is that all slaves of the Qabtia territory have run away towards Gedaref. Accordingly, we, your poor men, have been oppressed because it is difficult for us to carry on without slaves. On account of this I am sending my son to you in order that you may help him in the aforesaid

matter.

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From-Ras Gugsa.

Let it reach District Commissioner Matamma (Gallabat).

How are you? I am well praise be to God.

A certain telephone clerk of Ghilga, called Lij Zaman, reported to me that two daughters (girls?) together with 133 dollars escaped from him. One of the girls has been found at Matamma (Gallabat). He asked there to have the girl handed over to him, but the request was refused. I

therefore shall be grateful if you will kindly deliver the girl and send her

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The Sub-Mamur of Gedaref, Atbara.

After greetings and prayers for the mercy of Allah and his blessings, and after enquiry about you and your affairs I hope that you are well. Further, I inform you that six days ago slaves fled from us to the number of eight head, amongst them a woman who is our wife. We sent people after them as far as the frontier, but they crossed into your territory, and the people returned without them. They are accompanied by a thief called Fiki Ibrahim Senusi, an inhabitant of El Kurreita. Their tracks go towards the Atbara River in the direction of? the new Fellata settlement.

I request you to go after them and bring them to the District Office, as I have written to the District Commissioner, Gedaref, about them and about our wife.

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I inform Y.E. that bearer is my friend Sheikh El Bedawi Mohammed Khojali, whose two slave boys fled on 22 Rabi el thani; I appeal to your justice; they are said to have reached Roseires. I hope you will hand them over to my friend El Bedawi, and when he returns I will thank you (?) Sir.

Further I inform you that a boy of mine called Khamis together with his mother and sister are said to be at the village of Wad Galbas or of Sheikh Nasir. Let the Sheikh inform El Bedawi about them. I hope you will summon them before you and question them why they fled without good reason. Hand them to bearer, all of them fled without any fault (on our part). On their return inform me. The matter is left to Y.E. MUHAMMED ABD EL RAHMAN. Dejozmach.

27, Gumada el Gwal, 1345.

(December 4th, 1926.)

ST.

Review.

KENYA FROM WITHIN.*

By W. MCGREGOR ROSS.

THE title of this book is well chosen, as Mr. McGregor Ross has had experience in what is now Kenya Colony for twenty-three years, as Engineer, Director of Public Works, and for six years Member of the Legislative Council.

Few Colonies have been so much in the limelight as has Kenya, or presented so many problems. Mr. Ross traces its political history from early days, and the mistakes which have stained the record, largely, he holds, through lack of a firm policy on the part of Governments, and the truckling to a small, scheming political group of British people, whom Mr. Ross depicts as strident, aggressive, and grasping, who do not, he insists, represent the large majority of settlers, who are "well-disposed but inarticulate."

The author speaks of his book as "over-long," and it is not a little discursive, but the main points are clearly brought out. The chief problems have arisen in connection with land and labour. The Foreign Office began by taking possession of the whole of the land of the interior, and so created a non-African class of landed proprietors. When settlers crowded in, demanding land, the Government had no clear line of policy or of action, with the result that the natives lost their lands and all legal rights to them. Mr. Ross' suggested remedy is simple,-that Africans should be allowed to buy land without hindrance.

The constant and unblushing demand for the supply of native labour for the settlers, by all means, in complete disregard of the natives' interests, is notorious. Mr. Ross calls the Labour Circular of 1919 (which was followed by the unfortunate Memorandum of the Bishops, in part, at any rate, accepting the use of pressure to secure native labour), as" the high water-mark of exploitation by a British Government in our times." This demand for labour has not ceased, but the Government, with experience, has grown more wary.

Referring to forced labour taxation and the Defence Force Bill, Mr. Ross gives good reasons for questioning whether the Government record in Kenya is a thing to be proud of.

In one chapter the author amusingly describes the sustained attack made by the "political machine" on himself as Director of Public Works, with its not unsatisfactory result from his point of view. In another, entitled "The Dis-Educated," Mr. Ross draws, again not without a grim humour, a picture of the settlers who, under the influence of climatic conditions, have suffered vitiation of their faculties and the clouding of

* Allen & Unwin, Ltd. 18/- net.

their intellectual range, becoming self-sufficient, self-assertive, and acquisitive to an extreme degree, impatient of criticism, and yet convinced of an innate capacity to manage the affairs of others.

The author holds that the native unrest, to which the Harry Thuku rising gave expression, is not quieted, but only driven underground, and that native sentiment must be consulted, if disaster is to be avoided. This ought not to be difficult, if studied with goodwill and determination, as "the sunny disposition of the African predisposes him to an attitude of friendliness, where this is in the slightest degree reciprocated."

The settlers' demand for responsible government is no new thing. They have always aimed at obtaining full control of the country. As lately as 1923, the Government, when the Duke of Devonshire was at the Colonial Office, appeared to be resolute in opposing this, but the White Paper of 1927 seems to show a change of attitude, and the Commission. which has just gone out to East Africa to consider, inter alia, how to associate the immigrant communities more closely with the responsibilities of Government is big with issues for the future of the Colony.

Annual Report, 1927.

THE Society is able to congratulate itself on a year of active and successful work. In the first place there has been a considerable amount of increased publicity for, and broadening interest taken in, the subjects to which it has called attention.

Slavery in Sierra Leone.

This year the question of slavery in the Sierra Leone Protectorate obtained great prominence, owing to the surprising news which reached this country in July, that the right of a slave-owner to re-capture his runaway slave had been affirmed by a judgment in the Full Court of the Colony. The case was admirably stated in a letter to The Times by Sir John Simon, followed by letters from a former Governor, the Bishop of Sierra Leone and other correspondents, including the Society's Parliamentary Secretary. Two newspapers published the judgments of the three Judges in full, whilst scores of papers published substantial extracts, and it came as a genuine shock to the British Public to learn that in a British Protectorate a slave could be handed back to his master, and that despite the fact that an Ordinance purporting to put an end to the status of slavery had been passed only in 1926. The Government took very prompt steps to remedy the law, and instructions were sent out to Sierra Leone to prepare an Ordinance. This was prepared, and was unanimously passed by the Legislative Council, which put an end to slavery as from the 1st of

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