NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY FRIDAY, MAY 24, 1920. FORCED LABOUR

Northern Advocate, 24 May 1929, Page 4

NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY

FRIDAY, MAY 24, 1920. FORCED LABOUR

Registered for Transmission Through ■the Post as a Newspaper.

Because wo emancipated our slaves a hundred years ago, British people are apt to feel that slavery has vanished from the earth. That is not so, for there arc today millions of men and women who belong to masters exactly like cattle, and millions more who are not “property’’ or legally slaves. This information is obtained from the Report, on Forced Laihour recently issued by the International Laibour Office. This report is to be discussed by the conference which meets this month to frame an International Convention. That forced labour still exists even in British colonies is clear from the review of the position contributed by Mr Ormsby Gore to the Native Labour Conference recently 07'ganised by the League of Nations Union. The fact is that in territories where the social system is organised on a tribal basis the chief has always been entitled to call on his tribesmen for labour both for his own private purposes and for public works. The former privilege has been in many parts commuted for a tax, the proceeds of which are paid to the chief for Iris maintenance, while as each country advances voluntary labour is. gradually taking the place of forced labour for public works. Porterage, too, the only means of transport in primitive tracts, is giving way to motor roads am! railways, and the recommendation in the report that forced labour for any purpose should

ho given tlio full wages prevailing In the locality should, if adopted, have an excellent effect, in removing the temptation to continue the use of forced labour any longer than is absolutely necessary. In British colonies, at least, the only remnant of it left will soon be the liability of the whole population to be called out for the clearance of land to combat the advance of the tsetse fly, or for some similar purpose which is of direct and obvious advantage to the community. But, as is pointed out in the Commissioner’s report, .if direct compulsion is at an end, there are indirect means of compelling the native to work. Forced labour for the benefit of private persons or companies such as led to the notorious abuses in the Belgian Congo and in Portuguese Africa has now been very definitely ruled out, but there are insidious ways by which the same result may be obtained. There is what the negro calls “white man’s slavery.” Taxation, for instance, is in some cases imposed with the express intention of driving natives into private employment. Strict vagrancy laws in some countries have the same effect. So also deprivation of land and restrictions on cultivation and cattle owning. All such measures when adopted with the object of forcing men to engage themselves in the service of others are condemned in the report. There is surely none who will question this condemnation, for slavery and what has been called “nearslavery ’’ have two calamitous results: They wipe out the slave race and they demoralise the master race.