SOCIETY IN LIBERIA.

Northern Advocate, 31 July 1924, Page 7

SOCIETY IN LIBERIA.

WHERE BLACK IS "WHITE"

MAJESTY OF THE LAW,

When slavery was abolished in America, Liberia, in West Africa, was chosen by a body of American philanthropists as a suitable colony to which to send the negro slaves who had been freed. A small country was marked out on the map, and the negroes were given a free passage to it. They were lent so much money to start a country with, helped by the expert advice of American engineers and other bf■ficials, and then left to try their hands at running a new State.

The result, so far, has been odd. Liberia really is an independent country. It has a flag of its own, a fleet r.f its own —one boat, none too sound — and during tlje war it sent out a solemn proclamation to the effect that it wished to preserve friendly relations with other Great Powers!

Liberia has % Parliament- Kouse, wit-li a grand stairway crumbling to bits. It has a capita l , and not a drain in it, so Mr. H. P. Reeve relates in his "Black Republic." It has courts of law— which, according to European ideas are are a dangerous farce.

But Liberia's pride are her courts of law, for in that happy country everyone aspires to be a "long coat," as officials and magistrates are called from the obsolete frock coats that make their dress of stftc. In the hands of the "long coats" lies all the power of "justice."

A prisoner may be sentenced to work out his term of imprisonment on the magistrate's farm. Suppose more labour is required to get in the magistrate's harvest, and there are not enough prisoners to go round. It is a simple matter to convict a witness, convict the plaintiff —convict anyone.

In one case, not only the defendant was convicted, but the plaintiff too, while even a stray spectator in the court was raked into the judicial net for contempt of the majesty of the law. Hard labour in the lord chief justice's back garden was the only penalty that fitted the crime. The original negroes sent from America started a curious aristocracy of their own ir. the new country, calling themselves •'whites" as a mark of superiority to the native negroes of the place. The distinction is still kept up by their descendants. A citizen's skin may be as black as coal, but if his parents or grandparents came from America he counts socially as "white." And since the great passion of these "whites" is to go to law with each other over trifles, it follows that the position of magistrate has its advantages.