"NEVER GO BACK,"

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13901, 12 May 1909, Page 3

"NEVER GO BACK,"

FATE OF CHAINED GANGS. ...

So long ago as 1906 Mr H. W. Nevinsou went out as the special correspondent of "The Daily Chronicle" to investigate the allegations that the conditions under which the Portuguese cocoa plantations 011 the isles of St, Thome and Principe were cultivated were those of slavery. His inquiry resulted 111 establishing the fact mat the allegations were true, and that a proportion of ■ the cocoa consumed by the freedom-loving inhabitants 61 these islands Has imported from plantations worked under the vilest system of slavery.

These unfortunate creatures are brought, from the interior in gangs, chained for hundreds of miles along an arid track, where death awaits them from, hunger, thirst,V and disease at every turn. " The path through the Hungry Country," wrote Mr Nevmson, "is strewn with bones and skulls,, and 1 found there the fresh bodies of slaves, sonie murdered, some left to starve because through fever or fatigue, they had been unable to keep-up with the party 011 the march." ' The w retched remnants of these gangs are brought to the so-called '.' Emigration Agents" established at points in the country, under Portuguese regulations, .and then forwarded to other agents oji the coast. The slaves destined for the islands are brought before a Portuguese official and are asked whether tliey are willing to work on the islands for five years. Not the slightest attention is paid' to their answers, and, entering the office as slaves, they are shipped off as " contracted labourers." This' is the process the Portuguese call redemption. According to Mr Nevinson, the slaves die on the islands at the rate bf one in five every year.' At the epd of the five years for which they are contracted the survivors are called up before an official, and informed that they are .contracted -for another five years. "They never go back," says Mr Ncivinson.

It is this horrible system that the three great firms in Britain have refused to countenance by dealing in material watered by human blood and tears.