MODERN SLAVERY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21553, 26 July 1933, Page 8

MODERN SLAVERY

The Wilberforce centenary is being celebrated, but slavery still exists. It is estimated that to-day there are 5,000,000 slaves in Africa and Asia. Slave raids still occur. One hundred and fifty are known to have been made in recent years, two of the worst having taken placo in the Sudan last year. In each caso villages were destroyed, numbers of people were killed and others were carried off. A German scientist recently wrote a horrifying account of a scene he witnessed—a long line of chained captives, many in the last stages of exhaustion, being driven away. The Wilberforce centenary should act as a spur to the nations to end the evil as quickly as possible. Last year tho League of Nations, after an inquiry extending over ten years, passed a resolution for the suppression of slavery in all its forms throughout the world, the United States joining the convention. The practical problem lies in the absence of machinery to give effect to the aim. In most of the territories where slavery in one form or another exists, the custom of ages is behind the system, and the best-intentioned ruler cannot always end it at once. This is the caso in Abyssinia. The ruler of that country is anxious to emancipate all the slaves, but is confronted with difficulties not of his own making. A similar difficulty existed in the British colony and protectorate of Sierra Leone until 1927. The survival there of a form of slavery contrary to British policy was due to the colony's powers of self-government, which could not lightly be violated. However, all its slaves were freed at the dawn of 1928, and so vanished the last vestige of the evil that could be associated with the flag. But British territories still are under the menace of the raider, the maintenance of vigilance against whom in Kenya and the Sudan costs £25,000 a year. In regard to Liberia the Government of that country declared to the League that for 25 years it had employed energetic measures to abolish slavery and forced labour, which had been considerably diminished. But there is a strong suspicion that wherever slavery has existed as part of the' social system it dies slowly, and it will probably require years of continuous pressure by the League and constant action against raiders before the purpose is fully accomplished.