The Slaves of Sierra Leone

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 84, 7 January 1928, Page 15

The Slaves of Sierra Leone

j j _ T came to most people as something of a shock the other day to jl discover that slavery still existed in the British Empire and that 5 a British court was obliged by law to return a runaway slave to fl his master,” says the London “Evening Standard.” “It seems to have been no less shocking to the persons immediately concerned, and prompt action was taken. Now the Legislative Council of Sierra Leone passed a Bill by which slavery is abolished in the Protectorate as from the beginning of next year. “After this discovery we cannot feel quite sure that another such may not be made at any time in some obscure and neglected corner of the Empire. But it is highly improbable. Save for some accidental survival, there arc no more slaves under our flag. Servitude is now practically abolished wherever the influence of Western civilisation has been extended, and that means over nearly the whole of the world. “This is, indeed, a thing that we take very much for granted. So much was shown by the astonishment aroused by the Sierra Leone discovery. But the very fact lhat we take it for granted is only another aspect of what, more closely considered, can be described only as an extraodrinary change in human nature. “For less than a hundred years ago there were not only great numbers of slaves in the British Empire; there were also white slave-

owners, respectable and respected citizens, who saw nothing wrong or odd in the possession of a man’s body as a chattel. “Less than seventy years ago the Federal and the Confederate armies took the field in America to decide (for that was, at bottom, the real issue) whether men’s bodies should be possessed as chattels. And never in any period of the world’s history has it been universally held, as we hold it, that slavery is in itself a thing wicked and abhorien . “And now all that is gone. We no longer even believe that slavery ought to be abolished merely on grounds of expediency, because it is bad for the masters or because it inevitably inflicts suffering on tie slaves. Wc believe now that it is wrong in itself, even were its conditions ideal, even were the slaves invariably well cared for and happy. Our attitude towards it rests on much more than argument, i res s on an instinct, and on a new instinct. “This is a matter to be considered by those who reiterate the old saving that ‘human nature does not change.’ It may also be considered by those who decry ‘our vaunted progress and ma ntain that mankind was as well off under Augustus as it is now. If civilisations as well as individuals are brought to the bar of judgment it will have much to confess to, but it can also say and with pride: This at least wc did.