! ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19012, 1 August 1933, Page 4

! ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.

We take pride as a country in the fact that, a hundred years ago our Parliament passed an Act that abolished slavery throughout the Crown’s domains, comments the Manchester Guardian on the centenary of William Wilberforce, who died on July 29, 1833. That great and helpful gesture has bred in us a certain complacency. We are apt to think that having taken the' lead in emancipation the ideal is achieved. But in this centenary year of the Act for the 'Total Abolition of Colonial Slavery, there is still much to be done, even in regions where, if anywhere, the Act should run. 1

All are not yet free “under the flag.” Recently, but only recently, the way has been paved i ending slavery on the, north-' east frontier of Burma. But we have hardly yet begun .to see the end of the Chinese system of Mui Tsai which, under the euphemism of “ child adoption,” thrusts its ugly head into the Crown colony of Hong-kong. We can say with justice that we set an example that had its suprome consequence in the American Civil War.

We can read with a sense of satisfaction that is not mere hypocrisy “A Century of Emancipation” —the'book with which Sir John Harris (and who more suitably?) celebrates the centenary. But it will not do to rest there. Moderate estimates of the number of our fellow-creatures who endure what at the best must be termed slavery reach still into million^.

Their servitude is undergone in Abyssinia (though decreasingly there, thanks to Ras Tafari’s enlightenment), in Liberia, in Arabia, in China. Neither the example of any one country nor such occasional outrages on the conscience of free peoples as the Putumayo horrors caused can suffice to make an end of the monstrosity.

It is not enough that the British Foreign Office should in the last century have negotiated GSO anti-slavery treaties with other Powers or that the navy should have spent millions on police work against slave traders. The problem is one for the League of Natiorfs, and to the League it is now happily entrusted. If nothing else made the counsels of Geneya essential, the need to complete emancipation and * to see that serfdom does not recur would, suffice.