Convict Labour.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18850, 21 January 1933, Page 11 (Supplement)

Convict Labour.

(Manchester Guardian’s I> SHOCKING CONDITIONS have recently been revealed in a number of Southern States as to the ill-treat-ment of negro and white prisoners and conditions of virtual peonage. The preoipitatlng incident was the murder of Arthur Maillefert, a young white man, who was killed in prison at Jacksonville, Florida. Maillefert was punished for attempted escape by being strung up in a small wooden structure, like a ■oofiln stood on end, beneath the burning tropical sun until he died of exhaustion. The guard who thus punished him has Just been sentenced to twenty yea 's in the penitentiary, the maximum sentence possible under the law, but no informed person supposes that the system of similar punishments for refractory prisoners has been ended, or is likely to be ended, until a public opinion has been created throughout the South which Is hostile to it. For complicated reasons, growing primarily out of the conflict between the whites and negroes, that public -opinion at present hardly exists. The worst aspect of the conviot system In the South Is perhaps the renting out of prisoners to private contractors, who use them to work on roads or as labourers on cotton plantations, in sawmills, and so on. Many of these contractors are cruel and brutal men, who rule strictly by use of i Leg-Irons, Revolvers and the Whip. There are well-authenticated cases where they have beaten men to death for refusing to work or attempting to escape, and even In a few instances because of “malingering when in fact the man was too ill to work I It has often been pointed out that the condition of these convicts (of whom most, but not all, are negroe*) is worse than wa» that of the black slaves before the Emanciication Proclamation of 1863, for the slaveowner had an investment of a thousand dollars or so in his human property, and it was to his interest to keep the slaves healthy and even to a certain extent contented, while the contractor who hires orison labourers can make more money by working his men to exhaustion, or even to ■'the point of death, and then replacing them with others. \ Equally important is the common practice among plantation owners of obtaining labourers by paying the fines of negroes arrested for some trifling offence, and letting these men “ work out ” the amount ■of money which has been paid on them behalf. Such employers often juggle their books so that no matter how long and hard the negro works he never gets out of debt, and while this is the case he Is a Prisoner on the Plantation. It Is often the case that he has been given a suspended sentence to prison by the Court, which is in a conspiracy with the planter, and if ho were to flee would be picked up and put into gaol. But even 11 this is not so, his chance of getting away is slight, for the plantations are patrolled day and night by armed white men on horseback, and bloodhounds are used, Just as they were seventy years ago, to find anyone who ..has run away. When labour is scarce It is not at all unusual for the white sheriff to arrest a number of negroes who have been guilty of no crime whatever. Then, by prearrangement they are given their choice of six months or a year In gaol on some trumpedup charge or going to work for some nearby ootton planter for 30 dollars a month a sum which Is never adequate to cover the negro’s needs for clothing, tobacco, medloal supplies, etc., purchased at high prioes in the plantation store owned by the planter.

Slavery Again in the Southern States.

New York Correspondent.) These conditions, often exposed in the ps~t, have been described again in a striking hook, “ Georgia Nigger,” by John L. Spivak, an experienced and reputable journalist and a former member of the staff of the New York World. Mr Spivak, whose statements are corroborated by numerous other witnesses and are accompanied by documentary and photographic proof, describes the hardships which even under the best circumstances are endured by the convicts. These men travel to and fro in a huge cage on wheels like that in which wild animals are exhibited in a zoo. They work in a group, chained together so that all must move in unison, and an untoward gesture by one individual may cause agony to his neighbours. They are given the coarsest food, filthily prepared and served. Their sanitary arrangements are primitive in the extreme, they are rarely permitted to bathe —a real hardship in a semi-tropical area nor are they given clean clothing except at infrequent intervals. When one of the guards (usually a hairilliterate, badly underpaid representative of the “ poor white trash ” of the South) decides that one of his charges needs punishment, this is meted out in a sadistio fashion. Men are beaten or whipped; they are Trussed Up Like Fowls and Flung Down to' lie for hours in the burning sun; they are hung up by the wrists; and so on. Tho " sweat-box ” which caused the death of Arthur Maillefert is in common use throughout the South, though usually the victim .s taken out before death has put an end to his suffering. The methods of punishment used on the plantations where negro labourers are working out their debts are not dissimilar. The chief difference Is that when a man Is a convict and is killed it is reported that he was “trying to escape, while a man killed on a plantation simply disappears or else his body is found and the (white) coroner’s jury brings In a verdict of death from cause unknown. One of the shocking aspects of this matter Is that Borne of the States which lease out convicts to contractors make a handsome profit on the transaction, a fact whic.i makes it more difficult to abolish the practice. The Federal Government is also responsible, since it could put an end to much of this exploitation by prohibiting the use in Inter-State commerce of agricultural products .which are the result of convict labour. (There is now a similar restriction against factory products manufactured in the prisons of the North). Whenever .an American periodical puDlishes an article revealing the conditions among Southern convicts there is a flood of violent protest from Southerners, ranging from demands to “ let us alone ’’ to assertions that the conditions described are now a tiling of the past. It Is true that the State of Florida some years ago passed a law prohibiting the leasing of convicts. This law was dhf result of another case-dike that of Maillefert, In which a Northern Boy was Beaten to Death while working as a convict for a private contractor. Such a law, however, does little to relieve the suffering of the prisoners who are simply transferred from private operations to State enterprises such as building and repairing roads, working in the buildings and grounds of State hospitals and asylums, and the like. That the 1< 1 0 ■. Ida law did not produce a genuine reformation is Indicated by the murder of Maillefert In that State only a few months ago. Meanwhile other Southern States continue to lease out prisoners and to leave them r.o the far from tender mercies of men who profit by working them as hard as possible.