SLAVERY IN ABYSSINIA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22318, 16 January 1936, Page 8

SLAVERY IN ABYSSINIA

No one with knowledge of Abyssinia and its mode of life will accept without reservation the report that the Emperor's present reforms, so far as they affect slavery, will cut deeply into the system. Conditions brought about by war have certainly favoured reform in countries much more advanced than Abyssinia, and, probably, the Emperor is now acting to the limit of his power. In this matter he is far ahead of his people, especially that part of them who, living in the outer marches, have from time immemorial submitted to the paramount power of chieftains, many of whom are not yet aware that their slave-owning customs are frowned upon by the League. As a plain matter of fact a portion of the troops which have been led to the field of war by the heads of minor sultanates are not free men in the western sense of the term, but ii yet has to be proved that in the western sense of the term they are "pressed" men. Wide areas of Abyssinia are "backward" and have made little, if any, change in the slave-owning customs which have come down from a distant past. The Emperor, however, proved before the war that he was eager to satisfy the conditions imposed by the League of Nations when his country was admitted to Geneva. Not only did he attack the vested interests of the slave system but also he created a slavery department to which an Englishman was attached as adviser. The first task was to stop slave-raiding into the Sudan. The best part of that job was already being done by British force's, but it was well that official Abyssinia was displaying activity. This was not all, however. It was declared that all children should be born free, that all slaves should be freed on the death of their owner, not seven years afterwards as had been decided a few years before. Further, steps were taken to apply pressure upon the Rases of the outer regions.