MILLIONS OF SLAVES.

Matamata Record, Volume XIII, Issue 1108, 24 March 1930, Page 3

MILLIONS OF SLAVES.

STORIES OF CRUELTY. i .League of JSation’s Task. -None can say with any approach to how many slaves there are in .the world to-day—whether there he .3,000,000 or 6,.0.00,000. All that jsce do know is that the number of men, women and children whom somebody owns and .can at any time sail as property runs into several millions—in all probability the actual figure is somewhere in-.the neighbourhood <_of .5,000,000 persons, writes a correspondent in tthe Christian Science .Monitor. The hark spots in the world are China, .Arabia and Abyssinia. A missionary with 20 years’ experience of China .and Tibet has placed the number of -girl slaves in China at something over 2,000,000. These child slaves are purchased mainly for domestic purposes. It is this system of China wTlfch has proved .so embarrassing to the . British Administration of Hong Kong, and is, in fact, the basis of the much-discussed Mui Tsai system of “ adopted daughters.” It is estimated that there are about 10,.000 of these little Mui Tsai slaves in the British colony of Hong Kong. Stories of cruelty, oppression and degradation are frequently published in the local papers of Hong Kong in connection with this system of slavery. Whenever cruelty has been reported, the British Government has always prosecuted, but prosecutions are comparatively few because of the difficulty of obtaining corroborative evidence. Nobody 'can form any but the roughest estimate of the number of slaves in Arabia. It is probably somewhere between 500,000 and 700,000. The details of this slavery in Arabia have been made known to the world primarily by missionaries. It would appear that the chief demand in Arabia is for quite young children. The most difficult»as well as the most serious areas are those of Abyssinia, or the Kingdom of Ethiopia, a country inseparably linked with the names of King Solomon and Queen of Sheba. Here again the estimated figure is very large. A former British official with exceptional knowledge estimated the" number of slaves in the Ethiopian Kingdom at 2,000,000. A few months ago the British Govr emment published a. White. Book in which it gave & ' category of the raids which had taken place within recent years. The total of these raids was 139; 65 of these were raids into the Sudan, 71 into Kenya Colony and three into British Somaliland. Some of these raids were organised on a formidable scale, and on one occasion could almost have been called an invading army, all of them well equipped with modern rifles. The destructive nature of these raids may be gathered from the fact that in a single raid .into Kenya Colony 57 British subjects were killed. When Abyssinia was admitted to the League of Nations some five years ago it was upon the definite undertaking that these raids should be stopped forthwith, and that Abyssinia should commence in earnest the task of abolishing slavery throughout the Abyssinian Kingdom. So far from having accomplished this, very little has been done, and some of the most serious raids have taken place during the last few months. Thus the task before the League of Nations is both far-reaching and complicated. Its first attack upon slavery was made in 1922, when a motion was moved by Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland. The League then embarked upon an inquiry into the existence of slavery in “ all its forms.” This inquiry was undertaken by a body of colonial experts of whom Lord Lugard was one of the most prominent. The revelations made by this Commission led to a League convention against slavery. This convention in turn had a far- ( reaching consequence in that it led the International Labour Office to undertake two conventions, one on forced labour and another on contract labour. The forced labour convention is well advanced, and it is expected that it will be ready for signature in June of next year. If so, steps will then he taken to prepare a final draft of the ancillary convention covering contract labour. The, resolution recently passed' by Commission 6 of the League invites the Council of the League to prepare by means of a skilled inquiry all the available material on “ slavery in all its forms.” The range of the inquiry will be a wide one, for it will include every form of slavery. Thus has Geneva responded to the cry of the slaves.