the joint inter-racial Councils which have been formed for the improvement of relations in America (as in South Africa). He thinks also that public indignation all over the world at these lynchings has had its effect, and "undoubtedly," he adds, "the League of Nations has created a new atmosphere on this question."

Jerusalem Missionary Conference.

AMONG the subjects discussed at the Conference was that of Inter-Racial relations which, according to Professor Don Tengo Jabavu, of the Fort Hare Native College, who was one of the delegates from South Africa, was debated with refreshing candour and with admirable toleration by speakers holding diametrically opposite opinions." He quoted in an article in the African World two paragraphs, which he considers typical, from the findings of the Conference :

“All Christian forces, and particularly the International Missionary Council, dedicated as they are to prepare for the establishment among all mankind of the Kingdom of God, are bound to work with all their power to remove race prejudice and adverse conditions due to it, to preserve the rights of peoples, and to establish educational, religious and other facilities designed to enable all alike to enjoy equality of social, political and economic opportunity. It is the duty of the Christian forces everywhere to learn more fully the mind of Christ on the problem of inter-racial relations and to press forward boldly the realisation of permanent world-wide understanding."

Professor Jabavu adds that :

"A moderate statement of this kind is sure to produce much good in a country like South Africa, where there is an urgent need for the education of European public opinion under the leadership of the Churches and the younger generation in the Students' Christian Association towards a more Christ-like attitude on the question than at present obtains."

Poem on
Slaves.

We are asked to point out in correction of the paragraph on page 3 of our last issue, with regard to Mrs. Emily Knight, author of The Zulu Slaves poem, that the Hull local papers record her active interest in reviving the Antislavery movement as far back as 1912, when one of her poems was published. Articles by her which appeared in the Hull Daily News in 1926, entitled "Slaves of to-day," written from knowledge she herself had obtained, aroused activity. As a descendant of the Wilberforce family Mrs. Knight feels that she has inherited a right to work for the slaves. Mr. George Knight, her husband, is also an active worker and has been responsible for strong protest resolutions, adopted at three mass meetings of organised bodies in Hull, references to which appeared in the local papers. He has also given addresses at places of worship, etc. We are asked further to point out that the second donation of £1 entered to Mrs. and Miss Phyllis Bowser in last year's subscription list should read as :-" Proceeds from sale of The Zulu Slaves in Leeds."

Annual Meeting.

THE Society's Annual Meeting was held on the afternoon of the 15th of May, at the Hotel Victoria, Mr. Charles Roberts, President, in the Chair. The Honorary Secretary said that apologies had been received, among others unable to be present, from Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, M.P., the Earl of Lytton, Sir Leslie Scott, M.P., and Bishop Welldon, Dean of Durham. The Bishop wrote that he had," in the last few days, enjoyed the opportunity of pleading the cause of the Society at a meeting in Hull."

Mr. CHARLES ROBERTS said that after getting through some necessary and formal business, the gathering would be turned into a Conference on the work of the I.L.O. in its connection with native labour. They were all very sorry indeed that Mr. Grimshaw was unable to attend, but were looking forward to hearing a speech from the Deputy-Director of that Office. He would move the adoption of the Annual Report and Accounts, and then the election of the Committee and Officers. In moving the adoption of the Report, Mr. Roberts said:

I think we can congratulate ourselves on some marked progress during the year. If anybody asked for justification of our existence, I imagine that a short answer would be "Look at the row of freed slaves-in Tanganyika, in Nepal, in Burma, and in Sierra Leone-something under half a million in quite recent times-since the war." That is a not inconsiderable achievement. During the last year two most notable facts of course have been the formal abolition of slavery in Sierra Leone, and I do not think any one of us will forget the invaluable service done in that respect by Sir John Simon. In the words of Wordsworth's well-known sonnet to Thomas Clarkson, a former President of this Society, “It was an obstinate hill to climb." The hills are now not quite so obstinate; we have improved the gradient, though it is up-hill work, and there is still a good deal to be done before the work which he began is finally completed.

It is incidentally a somewhat lamentable reflection on our high ideals to find that Liberia, which was intended to be a home of freed slaves, is one of the main homes of slavery. There is a good deal of uphill rock-work in connection with Abyssinia which will take a good deal of climbing, and in some other parts of the world, for instance in China, there is a vast amount of territory where the road is uncharted and untroddden and under present conditions is quite impassable, but there is, nevertheless, the satisfaction of feeling that there is at the present moment quite visible a real and effective world League against slavery. I do not wish for a moment to under-rate the influence of this Society; I would rather magnify my office, but I do not suppose any one of us would claim that the actual work of liberation has been done solely by our unaided efforts. There is a current of goodwill throughout the world and if there is a searchlight directed upon any of the dark places of the earth, the real evils are

shown up, and you can be quite certain that there is a determination of civilised States to eradicate those evils. We ought to express our thanks to the great Departments that we mainly have to deal with the Colonial Office, the Foreign Office and the India Office. I do not suppose as a Society we are at all times popular with those Departments. It is our business to act as a gadfly, and no doubt able Administrators think that at times we are a nuisance. I daresay we stir up questions which they would sooner leave alone, and we ask questions and generally agitate in a way which disturbs the comfortable leisure of well-ordered Departments, but we are very good for them, nevertheless, and I think it would be improper on our side not to recognise the genuine goodwill towards the work of liberation and the very effective help which has been rendered by those Departments in maintaining the highest ideals of the British Empire. I think also that I can claim this for our Society, that we are trying to avoid the besetting sin of many organisations, the tendency to get into ruts, tread familiar paths and not be continually seeking new channels of influence. In this respect I am glad to think that we have a good case. There is undoubtedly a real increase of interest in the country at large in these questions of racial justice, one has only to know about the remarkable meetings that have been held; one of between two and three thousand in Hull only last week, where Lady Simon made one of her excellent appeals, and I think I can congratulate both her and Lord Henry Bentinck for their courage in becoming a Cinema " turn " for the Society. We are very much indebted to Lady Simon for the warm-hearted manner in which she is carrying on the work. Quite apart from the task of securing the final suppression of slavery in dark corners of the world, if we turn to the more difficult side, I think we can say that a steady stream of questions is directed by our friends in both Houses of Parliament in order to maintain the high ideals of the Empire. That work requires continual diligence. There is a desire on the part of all of us to leave the field open for ability and talent, whatever may be the race, colour or creed, to protect the aborigines in different countries, safeguard their rights in the land, see that their labour is not unjustly exploited and to give them the chance of the right sort of education. That work is really like watching the embankment of a river. Unless you are watching all the time you will discover some twist in the current, that some alteration in the stream is undermining your banks, is breaking down your defences, and before you know where you are, the river has got out of hand and is uncontrollable. During the past year, members are well aware, I think, that we have taken some interest in the welfare of the aborigines in Australia, and we hope that the aborigines are to be regarded in future as a Federal responsibility. We have watched with great interest the fight which has been made in Rhodesia by Mr. John White, who is with us here, to protect native labour and to prevent abuses in connection with juveniles.

We are waiting for the Report of the East African Commission, and we have taken a good deal of interest in questions relating to Abyssinia.

These are some, but only a few of the problems with which the Society is faced.

I ought not to conclude without referring to some serious losses that we have sustained. We all of us remember the very eloquent speech made by Mr. St. Loe Strachey, a Vice-President of the Society, only two years ago. We have lost Sir Harry Johnston, who, with his high experience of administration, was always ready to help with wise counsel and advice, and Lord Mayo, another Vice-President, and I also ought to make special reference to M. René Claparède of Geneva, whose death is a very great loss.

In moving the adoption of the Report I hope you will not be unduly troubled by the state of the finances. For once we meet with a small balance in hand. For that I have to thank the generosity of our supporters. We should have had the usual deficit, I think, had it not been for the generous response which they have made to the Society's appeal. They have given us a little more than was required to balance the expenditure of the year, but that was intentional, because we know there is work in front of us in this coming year for which we really require to have some funds in hand.

As a matter of fact, I think it is very much to the credit of the officials of the Society that they are able to do a quite notable bit of work on very limited resources and with great economy, and, I think, with great efficiency. One of the pieces of work for which we have asked, and I am glad to say obtained, the necessary funds, is in connection with our work in Geneva.

We are very glad to have Mr. Butler here to speak to us on the special relations of the International Labour Office. We have found that Geneva has opened up to us a channel of usefulness which it would have been impossible to have reached otherwise. Any Englishman who ventures to criticise the conditions in the territories of other countries is always open to the retort that under cover of England's well-known philanthropic intentions, she is really engaged in a conspiracy for British aggrandisement. We escape from that charge-quite unjust as far as we are concerned--by using the international channels which Geneva provides, and we have found that, though the work is expensive at Geneva, the work that has been done has been most fruitful since the establishment of the League of Nations.

We have to thank Mr. Grimshaw and Mr. Butler for the immense help which they have been able to give us, and we hope to be able to give some help in future to them. We all know that the Slavery Convention has been successfully piloted through. The last statement which I have seen on the point is that that Convention has been actually ratified by all parts of the British Empire and by sixteen nations in all, with some other adhesions in addition, and I believe all nations have promised early ratification. There remains the other Convention dealing with forced labour, and we should be very grateful if Mr. Butler can usefully inform us how we can best help in the difficult task of framing this Convention. We are looking forward to his speech to throw light on that.

Lady SIMON Seconded the adoption of the Report.

Mr. ROBERTS then moved the election of the Committee and Officers whose names were as printed in the Annual Report. He also moved that the name of Sir John Simon be added to the list of Vice-Presidents. Sir John was very willing to become a Vice-President, and he did them great honour in consenting to serve. During the year they had had the great privilege of having Lord Meston associated with the Society, with his great experience as an Administrator. He was willing to give counsel and advice to the Secretaries, especially when questions of emergency arose, and was glad to associate himself with the Society as Deputy President. Lord Meston would have spoken that day, but he was suffering from laryngitis. The motion was seconded by Mr. THRESHER, and carried.

Mr. H. B. BUTLER said: I do not think it needs any long demonstration to members of this Society that any work in connection with slavery or with native labour is bound to be largely international. Although the primary impulse for the suppression of slavery came from this country, it has only been brought actually to fruition through the co-operation of every civilised Power, and it is only through intensifying that international collaboration that any real solution will be found of the further problems in connection with native labour which are now awaiting solution. It was the recognition of that fact which led to the inclusion in the Covenant of the League of Nations of Article 23, which, among other things, requires every State Member of the League to guarantee just treatment of the native races in its territory. It is a further development of the same thought that in Article 421 of the Treaty the extension of labour conventions to Colonies and Protectorates is envisaged, subject to such modifications as may be necessary to adapt them to local conditions. Therefore, from the very start, both the League and the International Labour Office have been intimately associated with the problems of slavery and of native labour. As a consequence, when the Mandates Commission was first created, the International Labour Office was invited to appoint an assessor to assist them on questions affecting labour. We were fortunate enough to have at our disposal a man with the knowledge and wisdom and sympathy and understanding of Mr. Grimshaw, and I think that Lord Lugard, as a member of that Commission, will bear me out when I say that he has made very valuable contributions to the work in connection with the administration of the mandated territories. I only wish both for my sake and for yours that he could have been here to-day. He very nearly escaped from his Nursing Home in order to come, but in his own interest I am glad to say that he was restrained by his doctor, though I do very much regret that he is not here to-day to speak to you with a knowledge and authority which I cannot claim to possess.

Well, the Mandates Commission having been constituted and having begun to explore some of these problems in connection with the Mandated territories, it became almost inevitable that the view of the Office and of