therefore asking the Governor of Kenya to communicate to me the discussions in Select Committee of the Council when available, and to suspend action on the Bill thereafter pending the receipt of further instructions.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us why it is that the Bill, for which we have been pressing for years in order to safeguard the rights of the natives in their own land, should somehow have become converted into a Bill in which the native lands are still further expropriated by whites; what is the occasion for this change in the nature of the Bill; and will he say that the original purpose of the Bill to secure for all time the native rights in their reserves should be retained in every feature in the Bill?

Mr. AMERY: I cannot understand what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman means when he suggests that the whole purpose of the Bill has changed.

Sir ROBERT HAMILTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that a copy of this Bill is placed in the Library of the House and made available to Members ?

Mr. AMERY: Yes, I will see that a copy is placed there.

Slave Traffic in Tripoli.

In reply to enquiries made by the Society, we learn from the Italian Embassy that information of slave-trading activity, "however limited in extent and intermittently exerted" had reached the Government in Tripoli, having been carried on in territories not yet submitted to direct Italian control. It is stated that, after long and difficult enquiries, “five Arabs suspected of carrying on that trade were arrested in January last, and after a careful examination they were found guilty of having sold, out of Tripoli :—

sold.

Another negro girl of 16 had been brought to Tripoli but not yet

"The five arrested were denounced to the Judicial Authorities, and when the law case will be ended it will perhaps be possible to have further

details.

"In spite of all efforts made, a form of domestic slavery is still in existence in some parts of Libya, but almost exclusively in territories not

yet submitted to effective Italian control. It must however be noted that this slavery is generally accepted by the slaves in question, who agree to service for indefinite terms."

The Death of Mr. Edmund Wright Brooks.

WHILE this issue of the Reporter was in the press, we learned with sorrow of the death, on June 22nd, of Mr. E. W. Brooks, who for long has been one of the leading workers in the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society, and one of its warmest supporters. For many years before the amalgamation he acted as Treasurer of the Aborigines Protection Society, and in 1909 became Joint Treasurer of the united Society. He joined the Anti-Slavery Society's Committee in 1894, and only resigned the office of Treasurer in 1926, having thus rendered prominent and constant service for a period of over thirty years.

At the end of the last century Mr. Brooks was deeply interested in the question of the abolition of Slavery in Zanzibar, to which Society he gave so much attention, and was Chairman of the Friends' Industrial Mission in the Island of Pemba in 1897. In 1905 he undertook a journey with two other members of the Society of Friends to the Governments and Parliaments of France, Belgium and Germany, presenting to them an appeal to intervene on behalf of the suffering natives of the Congo Free State. A few years later, in 1910, he led a deputation from the Anti-Slavery Society, which included the late Mrs. King Lewis, Messrs. Nevison, Joseph Burtt, Joseph King and J. H. Harris, to Lisbon, with an appeal to the Republican Government of Portugal that they should attempt to bring in such reforms into the Portuguese Colonies as would lead to the abolition of Slavery. These efforts proved unavailing, but the result came as no surprise to Mr. Brooks, who had predicted that the Republican Government was no more likely to introduce reforms than the Monarchist Government which it had replaced.

In 1914 Mr. Brooks was one of those who took up warmly the question of the right of the natives of Southern Rhodesia to their land, and strongly supported action being taken by the Society for submitting their case to the Privy Council. He saw to it that through the help of himself and his friends, funds were not lacking for the long struggle.

Well known as a worker in, and generous supporter of, many good. causes, such as those of Temperance, the Armenians, and the sufferers from the War, there can be no doubt that the suppression of Slavery and the protection of backward and oppressed native races was one of the leading interests of his long and useful life and the place of such a man will be very difficult to fill.

Reviews.

A SIDE-LIGHT ON ANGLO-AMERICAN RELATIONS, 1839-1858.”* Edited by ANNIE H. ABEL, Ph.D., and FRANK J. KLINGBERG, Ph.D.

WE gave a notice in our January issue of this forthcoming book, twothirds of which appeared in the Journal of Negro History for April, 1927, containing correspondence of Lewis Tappan and other American antislavery workers with their fellow-workers in England. It should be made quite clear that this book is not edited by Mrs. Abel alone, but is one of joint editorship and joint labour representing months of work on the part of Dr. Klingberg, Professor of History in California University, as well of Mrs. Abel; it was a joint effort from first to last.

The book has a special interest for our Society for two reasons, first, that the papers were discovered by Dr. Abel among the old letters stored in its possession, and, secondly, that the correspondents in this country were largely officers and members of the old British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society which found its home in New Broad Street,-where its offices continued until 1905-men like John Scoble, Secretary of the Society, and L. A. Chamerovzow, his successor, Peter Bolton, some members of the office staff, Joseph Sturge and others whose names were well known in the Society.

The editors make some interesting comments on the period embraced by the letters as one of increasing intercourse between Great Britain and America, when little war bitterness was left, visits were frequently exchanged from the one country to another by sportsmen, literary people, philanthropists and many others, and the two countries found much to draw them together. America is seen in the letters to be very sensitive to British opinion, and the question of slavery was one of the main interests. "The anti-slavery enthusiasm," the authors tell us, "was very general throughout the United Kingdom."

The letters contain many interesting lights on the slavery system in America. It existed, as Tappan pointed out in a letter to John Scoble in 1850, in despite of the principles of the framers of the Constitution, and was never intended to extend beyond the limits of the original thirteen States in the Union. It was the invention of the cotton gin which so stimulated the growth of cotton and the demand for it from Great Britain, that the system was extended over new States, and the number of slaves increased from half a million to three millions. All the slave States forbade slaves being taught to read, and in 1850 G. W. Alexander (a name well known to the Anti-Slavery Society) wrote of a man who had been in prison for fourteen or fifteen years for giving a slave a free pass. Henry Ward Beecher is more than once referred to as a popular and talented young

*The Association for the study of Negro Life and History, Inc., Washington.

clergyman, who was doing much, with voice and pen, in the campaign against slavery, and although "in the human view the system of slavery seemed to be in the ascendant," Lewis Tappan wrote (1851) that the leaven of anti-slavery was working among the masses, and before long would "leaven the whole lump."

There are many references to the immense influence exercised by the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin. In a letter which John Scoble wrote. to his Committee after studying the anti-slavery question in America in 1853, he wrote that Mrs. Stowe's book was "doing mighty work here as well as in Europe," and though attacked with virulence by the slavery party, it maintained its ground against all opposition. There never was a time, he wrote, in the U.S.A., when anti-slavery exertions were more needed or would yield more precious results.

JOTTINGS."

By ELIZABETH HEPBURN.*

THIS little book, written by a warm friend of our Society, gives an attractive account of her life in South Africa whither she went out as the wife of a missionary to North Bechuanaland nearly sixty years ago. Mrs. Hepburn, who has given devoted service to the Natives, includes a chapter about Khama, the well known Chief of the Bamangwato, whom she held in high esteem and friendship. The last chapter deals with the "Langberg Tragedy" of 1897 when the so-called rising of a discontented Bechuana tribe was ruthlessly suppressed by armed Government troops. Some seventy "rebels" were killed and many wounded, while some hundreds of both sexes were sent to Cape Town to be indentured as farm servants. Mrs. Hepburn took a prominent part in protesting against the Government policy and herself organised a deputation to the Acting Prime Minister to remonstrate, and, also, in trying to mitigate the sufferings of the women prisoners. These things she mentions because she thinks they have their lesson for the present day," and pleads for the service to the African people of understanding friendship.

NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE.†

By SIR WILLIAM N. M. GEARY, Bart.

SIR WILLIAM GEARY'S book is to be commended as a clear and business-like account of Nigeria since its beginning in the middle of the last century, a highly interesting story of progress in the country from the days of the slave trade to its present happy condition, under British colonial rule, which is unhesitatingly described as a benefit to the West African. It is largely drawn from Blue Books, supplemented by Sir William's own experience as a Barrister in several of the West African colonies. The story of

* Simpkin Marshall & Co.,

Methuen. 16s. net.

the last 30 years, says the author-i.e., since 1895, when Mr. Chamberlain was at the Colonial Office, is "pleasant reading for an Englishman, both from the patriotic and humanitarian point of view." He pays a tribute to the character of the Officials, and to the natives whom they govern, whose confidence, he says, " we have gained by our administration, for they know that under it their lives and property will be safeguarded."

Sir William defends the system of indirect rule as one which is preferable for efficiency, and has fully justified itself. He admits that under native rule there is a different standard of administration, and there may have been abuses and malpractices by subordinate Native Officials, but he holds that there would be equal opportunity for such under the expensive system of direct administration. But periodical supervision is essential.

Sir William has a good word, too, for the educated native (at whom the finger of scorn is so often pointed), who, he says, has done well in the learned professions as doctor and lawyer, in trade and in government service.

We note with interest that Sir William Geary, as a European lawyer, regrets that Supreme Court jurisdiction was replaced in 1914 throughout Nigeria by the Provincial Courts system, and deprecates the refusal to allow natives to be defended by counsel at their trial in the Provincial Native Courts. Even granting that the general jurisdiction of these courts be left intact, he suggests that all capital cases should be tried by a Circuit Judge of the Supreme Court, and be allowed the benefit of Counsel.

On another question on which our Society felt it its duty to express a strong protest, Sir William Geary writes decidedly, namely, the preferential duty imposed on palm kernels after the war. He considers it "a discredited and uneconomic form of taxation," and advocates generally the reduction of taxation, and in particular the abolition of export and the lowering of import duties. On the other hand, the author defends the tax on spirits for revenue, and regrets the prohibition of trade spirits to natives, using an argument which appears to us singularly weak, that because the English governing classes are not total abstainers, they are acting insincerely in imposing this burden on the West African native.

Sir William ascribes the peaceful rule in Nigeria, and its trade prosperity, to the policy and statesmanship initiated by Mr. Chamberlain, carried out by his successors, and, locally, by trusted and well-disciplined officials.

[It is interesting to compare the following extracts from a report of the delegation of the United Kingdom Branch of the Empire Parliamentary Association which visited Nigeria, dated February last :

"The first impression resulting from the lengthy journey is undoubtedly the pace at which the development of Nigeria is taking place. This development is not being carried through by the European alone, but in many cases by the African almost without European direction."