ITALY AND ABOLITION Of SLAVERY

Evening Star, Issue 22367, 17 June 1936, Page 12

ITALY AND ABOLITION Of SLAVERY

Sir John Harris, secretary of the Anti-slavery Society, in' a letter to 4 The Times 1 says:— “ Every lover of human liberty will welcome the proclamation made by Marshal Badoglio abolishing slavery throughout the Tigre, Arnhara, and Gojjam provinces of Abyssinia. It is unfortunate, however, that nothing has been published by the Italian Government upon the action to be taken to give practical effect to the decision. Slavery dies hard; it has never yet been _ abolished by proclamation alone. If this manifesto is to be anything other than a 4 dead letter ’ several things will need to be done. These include:— 44 (a) Financial Measures.—The parallels are tho British vote of £20,000,000 to set free 700,000 slaves within four years; the recent emancipation of about 10,000 slaves in Burma, which has cost the Indian Government Its. 5,16,568.8; the emancipation in Nepal in 1920, when 57,000 slaves were set free, for which the Prime Minister of Nepal obtained a vote of £500,000 to carry through ■ emancipation within seven years. No information has yet been made available as to what sum has been sot aside by tho Fascist Conu- ■ cij to cany through a more extensive measure of emancipation than any of the foregoing. “ (b) Slavery Courts.—No arrangements have yet been announced for the creation of slavery courts for settling the many claims and disputes that must inevitably arise, nor do wc know what consequential procedure is to be adopted for the issue of thousands of manumission papers. “ (c) Nothing has yet been published upon the creation and maintenance of freed slave homes, such as that established by Lord Cromer in Egypt. “ When information is supplied upon these and similar questions the public will know whether the proclamation is of a practical or of a propaganda value. 44 If practical steps are taken to give effect to the proclamation there will bo no lack of British appreciation, even by those of us who find it so difficult to forgive and so impossible to forget the indifference and even actual opposition shown through many years by Italy towards efforts to secure emancipation in Ethiopia—indifference and opposition which continued from 1925 until tho invasion took place, including opposition to Sir Austen Chamberlain’s proposals for stronger measures against the slave traders.