AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 June 1923, Page 10

AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.

ABYSSINIA S REPROACH. EXCLUSION FROM LEAGUE. Geneva, May 17. It is reported that the League of Nations will not consider Abyssinia’s application for membership until the slave traffic is abolished there. There are more than 2,000,000 slaves of both sexes in the country. The revival of the slave traffic in Africa, on which subject the League of .Nations has promised to act next September, is causing the French and British Governments serious concern. Thousands of human beings are being marketed in Abyssinia, it is declared, and the French Government has discovered that monthly shipments of slaves are passing through the port of Ladjourah. in French Somaliland, from which traffic the local Sultan, it is alleged, derives a fee of 5s per head on all slaves shipped to Arabia. Farther south on the east coast of Africa the French local authorities are trying to prevent the passage of convoys of slaves between the Island of Madagascar and the Mainland. It is stated that more than 300 slaves have been carried across in the last four months.

British naval units are endeavoring to deal with the situation in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, and are meeting with some measure of success. British vessels recently have been shelling villages along tlie Oman coast in connection with the campaign against slave-run-ning operations. They discovered a convoy of slaves proceeding from French Somaliland, and believed to have come from Abyssinia.

• As regards the traffic along the Oman coast. it is understood that these slaves are obtained from Persia and Baluchis-