Part 17 (2/2)

he says, ”admitted my contention, but remarked that in the present state of the labour supply such scrupulous observance of the regulations would entail the entire stoppage of a large plantation, for which he could not be responsible.” Mr. Smallbones adds the following comment: ”I have ventured to relate this incident, because it shows the difficulties of the situation. The plantation on which it occurred is very well managed, and the labourers are very well treated there. Yet it has failed to make the conditions of labour attractive to the natives. And as long as the Government are unable to force a supply of labour according to the regulations, they will have to tolerate or even practise irregularities in order to safeguard the property and interests of the employers.”

There need be no hesitation in recognising ”the difficulties of the situation.” They are unquestionably very real. But how does the incident related by Mr. Smallbones bear on the contention of the Portuguese Government that no state of slavery exists? In truth, it shatters to fragments the whole of their argument. As has been already mentioned, Sir Edward Grey defined ”forcible engagement” as ”slavery.” Can it be for one moment contended that the engagement of these seven hundred men was voluntary and not forcible? Obviously not. Therefore slavery still exists, or at all events existed so late as August 1912.

The third point to be considered is whether the liberated slave is practically able to take advantage of the freedom which has been conferred on him. a.s.suredly, he cannot do so. Consider what the position of these men is. They, or their parents before them, have in numerous instances been forcibly removed from their homes, which often lie at a great distance from the spot where they are liberated. They are apparently asked to contribute out of their wages to a repatriation fund. Why should they do so? They were, in a great many, probably in a majority of cases, expatriated either against their will or without really understanding what they were doing. Why should they pay for repatriation? The responsibility of the Portuguese does not end when the men have been paid their wages and are set free. Neither can it be for one moment admitted that that responsibility is limited, as the Governor-General would appear to maintain in a Memorandum communicated to Mr. Smallbones on October 25, 1912, merely to seeing that repatriated slaves disembarked on the mainland ”shall be protected against the effects of the change of climate, and princ.i.p.ally against themselves.”

No one will expect the Portuguese Government to perform the impossible, but it is clear that, unless the inst.i.tution of slavery itself is considered justifiable, the slaves have a right to be placed by the Portuguese Government and nation in precisely the same position as they would have occupied had they never been led into slavery. Apart from the impossibility, it may, on several grounds, be undesirable to seek to attain this ideal, but that is no reason why the validity of the moral claim should not be recognised. In many cases it is abundantly clear that to speak of a slave liberated at San Thome being really a free man in the sense in which that word is generally understood, is merely an abuse of terms. The only freedom he possesses is that created for him by his employers. It consists of being able to wander aimlessly about the African mainland at the imminent risk of starvation, or of being robbed of whatever miserable pittance may have been served out to him. For these reasons it is maintained that the starting-point for any further discussion on this question is that the plea that slavery no longer exists in the West African dominions of Portugal is altogether untenable. It still exists, though under another name. There remains the question of how its existence can be terminated.

The writer of the present article would be the last to underrate the enormous practical difficulties to be encountered in dealing effectively with this question. His own experience in cognate matters enables him in some degree to recognise the nature of those difficulties. When the _corvee_ system was abolished in Egypt, the question which really confronted the Government of that country was how the whole of a very backward population, the vast majority of whom had for centuries been in reality, though not nominally, slaves, could be made to understand that, although they would not be flogged if they did not clear out the mud from the ca.n.a.ls on which the irrigation of their fields depended, they would run an imminent risk of starvation unless they voluntarily accepted payment for performing that service. The difficulties were enhanced owing to the facts that the country was in a state of quasi-bankruptcy, and the political situation was in the highest degree complicated and bewildering. Nevertheless, after a period of transition, which, it must be admitted, was somewhat agonising, the problem was solved, but it was only thoroughly solved after a struggle which lasted for some years. It is a vivid recollection of the arduous nature of that struggle that induces the writer of the present article so far to plead the cause of the Portuguese Government as to urge that, if once it can be fully established that they are moving steadily but strenuously in the right direction, no excessive amount of impatience should be shown if the results obtained do not immediately answer all the expectations of those who wish to witness the complete abolition of the hateful system under which the cultivation of cocoa in the West African Islands has. .h.i.therto been conducted. The financial interests involved are important, and deserve a certain, albeit a limited, amount of consideration. There need be no hesitation whatever in pressing for the adoption of measures which may result in diminis.h.i.+ng the profits of the cocoa proprietors and possibly increasing the price paid by the consumers of cocoa. Indeed, there would be nothing unreasonable in arguing that the output of cocoa, worth 2,000,000 a year, had much better be lost to the world altogether rather than that the life of the present vicious system should be prolonged. But even if it were desirable--which is probably not the case--it is certainly impossible to take all the thirty thousand men now employed in the islands and suddenly transport them elsewhere. It would be Utopian to expect that the Portuguese Government, in the face of the vehement opposition which they would certainly have to encounter, would consent to the adoption of any such heroic measure. As practical men we must, whilst acknowledging the highly regrettable nature of the facts, accept them as they stand.

Slight importance can, indeed, be attached to the argument put forward by one of the British Consular authorities, that ”the native lives under far better conditions in San Thome than in his own country.” It is somewhat too much akin to the plea advanced by ardent fox-hunters that the fox enjoys the sport of being hunted. Neither, although it is satisfactory to learn that the slaves are now generally well treated, does this fact in itself const.i.tute any justification for slavery. The system must disappear, and the main question is to devise some other less objectionable system to take its place.

There are two radical solutions of this problem. One is to abandon cocoa-growing altogether, at all events in the island of Principe, a part of which is infected with sleeping-sickness, and to start the industry afresh elsewhere. The other is to subst.i.tute free for slave labour in the islands themselves. Both plans are discussed in Lieutenant-Colonel Wyllie's very able report addressed to the Foreign Office on December 8, 1912. This report is, indeed, one of the most valuable contributions to the literature on this subject which have yet appeared. Colonel Wyllie has evidently gone thoroughly into the matter, and, moreover, appears to realise the fact, which all experience teaches, that slavery is as indefensible from an economic as it is from a moral point of view. Free labour, when it can be obtained, is far less expensive than slave labour.

Colonel Wyllie suggests that the Principe planters should abandon their present plantations and receive ”free grants of land in the fertile and populous colony of Portuguese Guinea, the soil of which is reported by all competent authorities to be better suited to cacao-growing than even that of San Thome itself, and certainly far superior to that of Principe. Guinea has from time to time supplied labour to these islands, so that the besetting trouble of the latter is nonexistent there.” He adds: ”I am decidedly of opinion that some such scheme as this is the only cure for the blight that has fallen on the island of Principe.” It would require greater local knowledge than any to which the writer of the present article can pretend to discuss the merits of this proposal, but at first sight it would certainly appear to deserve full and careful consideration.

But as regards San Thome, which is by far the larger and more important of the two islands, it would appear that the importation of free labour is not only the best, but, indeed, the only really possible solution of the whole problem. It may be suggested that, without by any means neglecting other points, such as the repatriation of men now serving, the efforts both of the Portuguese Government and of all others interested in the question should be mainly centred on this issue.

Something has been already done in this direction, Mr. Harris, writing in the _Contemporary Review_ of May 1912, said: ”Mozambique labour was tried in 1908, and this experiment is proving, for the time, so successful, that many planters look to the East rather than West Africa for their future supply. All available evidence appears to prove that Cabinda, Cape Verde, and Mozambique labour is, so far as contract labour goes, fairly recruited and honestly treated as 'free labour.'” It is an encouraging sign that a Portuguese Company has been formed whose object is ”to recruit free, paid labourers, natives of the provinces of Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and Guinea.” Moreover, the following pa.s.sage from Colonel Wyllie's report deserves very special attention:

”Several San Thome planters,” he says, ”realising the advantage of having a more intelligent and industrious labourer than the Angolan, have signed contracts with an English Company trading in Liberia for the supply of labour from Cape Palmas and its hinterland, on terms to which no exception can be taken from any point of view. Two, if not by now three, batches of Liberians have arrived at San Thome and have been placed on estates for work. The Company has posted an English agent there to act as curador to the men, banking their money, arranging their home remittances, and mediating in any disputes arising between them and their employers. The system works wonderfully well, giving satisfaction both to the masters and to the men, the latter being as pleased with their treatment as the former are with their physique and intelligence. There is every prospect of the arrangement being developed to the extent of enabling Angolan labour to be permanently dispensed with, and possibly superseding Mozambique importations as well.”

Colonel Wyllie then goes on to say: ”The company and its agents complain of the many obstacles they have had to overcome in the form of hostility and intrigue on the part of interested parties. Systematic attempts have been made in Liberia to intimidate the gangs from going to San Thome by tales of cruelty practised by the Portuguese in the islands.” More especially it would appear that the ”missionaries” have been advising the Liberians not to accept the offers made to them. It is not altogether surprising that they should do so, for the Portuguese have acquired an evil reputation which it will take time to efface. To an outside observer it would appear that an admirable opportunity is here afforded for the Portuguese Government and the Anti-Slavery Society, who are in close relation with many of the missionaries, to co-operate in the attainment of a common object. Why should not the Portuguese authorities invite some agents of the Anti-Slavery Society to visit the islands and place before them evidence which will enable them conscientiously to guarantee proper treatment to the Liberian labourers, and why, when they are once convinced, should not those agents, far from discouraging, encourage Liberians, and perhaps others, to go to San Thome? If this miracle could be effected--and with real good-will on both sides it ought to be possible to effect it--a very great step in advance would have been taken to solve this difficult problem. But in order to realise such an ideal, mutual confidence would have to be established. When the affairs of the Congo were under discussion the Belgian air was thick with rumours that British humanitarianism was a mere cloak to hide the greed of British merchants. Similar ideas are, it would appear, now afloat at Lisbon. When men's pockets are touched they are apt to become extremely suspicious of humanitarian intentions. Mr.

Wingfield, writing on August 17, 1912, said that the Portuguese Government was not ”convinced of the disinterestedness of all those who criticise them,” and he intimated that there were schemes on foot on the part of British subjects to acquire ”rocas” in the islands ”at very low prices.” It ought not to be difficult to convince the Portuguese authorities that the agents employed by the Anti-Slavery Society are in no way connected with any such projects. On the other hand, it would be necessary that those agents should be very carefully chosen, that besides being humanitarians they should have some knowledge of business, and that they should enter upon their inquiry in a spirit of fairness, and not with any preconceived intention to push to an extreme any suspicions they may entertain of Portuguese acts and intentions. It is suggested that the adoption of some such mode of proceeding as is here indicated is worthy of consideration. The Foreign Office might very properly act as an intermediary to bring the two parties together.

Finally, before leaving this branch of the subject, it is to be observed that the difficulty of obtaining free labour has occurred elsewhere than in the Portuguese possessions. It has generally admitted, at all events, of a partial solution if the labourers are well treated and adequately paid. Portuguese experience points to a similar conclusion. Mr.

Smallbones, writing on September 23, 1912, quotes the report of the manager of the Lobito railway, in which the latter, after stating that he has had no difficulty in obtaining all the labour he has required, adds, ”I attribute the facility in obtaining so large a supply of labour, relatively cheaply, to the good food we supply them with, and chiefly to the regularity with which payments in cash are effected, and also to the justice with which they are treated.”

The question of repatriation remains to be treated. It must, of course, be remembered that repatriation is an act of justice to the men already enslaved, but that, by itself, it does little or nothing towards solving the main difficulties of the slavery problem. Mr. Wingfield, writing to Sir Edward Grey on August 24, 1912, relates a conversation he had had with Senhor Vasconcellos. ”His Excellency first observed that they were generally subjected to severe criticism in England, and said to be fostering slavery because they did not at once repatriate all natives who had served the term of their original contracts. Now they were blamed for the misfortunes which resulted from their endeavour to act as England was always suggesting that they should act!” His Excellency made what Parliamentarians would call a good debating point, but the complaint is obviously more specious than real, for what people in England expect is not merely that the slaves should, if they wish it, be repatriated, but that the repatriation should be conducted under reasonably humane conditions. For the purposes of the present argument it is needless to inquire whether the ghastly story adopted by the Anti-Slavery Society on the strength of a statement in a Portuguese newspaper, but denied by the Portuguese Government, that the corpses of fifty repatriated men who had died of starvation were at one time to be seen lying about in the outskirts of Benguella, be true or false.

Independently of this incident, all the evidence goes to show that Colonel Wyllie is saying no more than the truth when he writes: ”To repatriate, _i.e._ to dump on the African mainland without previous arrangement for his reception, protection, or safe conduct over his further route, an Angolan or hinterland 'servical' who has spent years of his life in San Thome, is not merely to sentence him to death, but to execute that sentence with the shortest possible delay.” It is against this system that those interested in the subject in England protested.

The Portuguese Government appear now to have recognised the justice of their protests, for they have recently adopted a plan somewhat similar to that initiated by the late Lord Salisbury for dealing with immigrant coolies from India. By an Order in Council dated October 17, 1912, it has been provided that repatriated ”servicaes” should receive a grant of land and should be set up, free of charge, with agricultural implements and seeds. This is certainly a step in the right direction. It is as yet too early to say how far the plan will succeed, but if it is honestly carried out it ought to go far towards solving the repatriation question. Mr. Smallbones would appear justified in claiming that it ”should be given a fair trial before more heroic measures are applied.”

The repatriation fund, which appears, to say the least, to have been very badly administered, ought, without difficulty, to be able to meet the expenses which the adoption of this plan will entail.

[Footnote 105: Mr. E.W. Brooks subsequently wrote to _The Spectator_ to explain that ”the letter in question was in no sense an official letter from the Society of Friends. It was the product of one small meeting of that body, which appears to have been misinformed by one or more of its members, and was in no sense a letter from the Society of Friends, which, on the subject of Portuguese Slavery, is officially represented by its Anti-Slavery Committee, of which he is himself the Honorary Secretary.”]

XXV

ENGLAND AND ISLAM

_”The Spectator,” August 23, 1913_

Amidst the many important remarks made by Sir Edward Grey in his recent Parliamentary statement on the affairs of the Balkan Peninsula, none deserve greater attention than those which dealt with the duties and responsibilities of England towards Mohammedans in general. It was, indeed, high time that some clear and authoritative declaration of principle on this important subject should be made by a Minister of the Crown. We are constantly being reminded that King George V. is the greatest Mohammedan ruler in the world, that some seventy millions of his subjects in India are Moslems, and that the inhabitants of Egypt are also, for the most part, followers of the Prophet of Arabia. It is not infrequently maintained that it is a duty inc.u.mbent on Great Britain to defend the interests and to secure the welfare of Moslems all over the world because a very large number of their co-religionists are British subjects and reside in British territory. It is not at all surprising that this claim should be advanced, but it is manifestly one which cannot be admitted without very great and important qualifications.

Moreover, it is one which, from a European point of view, represents a somewhat belated order of ideas. It is true that community of religion const.i.tutes the main bond of union between Russia and the population of the Balkan Peninsula, but apart from the fact that no such community of religious thought exists between Christian England and Moslem or Hindu India, it is to be noted that, generally speaking, the tie of a common creed, which played so important a part in European politics and diplomacy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, has now been greatly weakened, even if it has not disappeared altogether. It has been supplanted almost everywhere by the bond of nationality. No practical politician would now argue that, if the Protestants of Holland or Sweden had any special causes for complaint, a direct responsibility rested on their co-religionists in Germany or England to see that those grievances were redressed. No Roman Catholic nation would now advance a claim to interfere in the affairs of Ireland on the ground that the majority of the population of that country are Roman Catholics.

This transformation of political thought and action has not yet taken place in the East. It may be, as some competent observers are disposed to think, that the principle of nationality is gaining ground in Eastern countries, but it has certainly not as yet taken firm root. The bond which holds Moslem societies together is still religious rather than patriotic. Its binding strength has been greatly enhanced by two circ.u.mstances. One is that Mecca is to the Moslem far more than Jerusalem is to the Christian or to the Jew. From Delhi to Zanzibar, from Constantinople to Java, every devout Moslem turns when he prays to what Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole aptly calls the ”cradle of his creed.” The other circ.u.mstance is that, although, as Mr. Hughes has said, ”we have not seen a single work of authority, nor met with a single man of learning who has ever attempted to prove that the Sultans of Turkey are rightful Caliphs,” at the same time the spiritual authority usurped by Selim I. is generally recognised throughout Islam, with the result not only that unity of thought has been engendered amongst Moslems, but also that religion has to a great extent been incorporated into politics, and identified with the maintenance of a special form of government in a portion of the Moslem world.

The growth of the principle of nationality in those eastern countries which are under western dominion might not inconceivably raise political issues of considerable magnitude, but in the discussions which have from time to time taken place on this subject the inconveniences and even danger caused by the universality of a non-national bond based on community of religion have perhaps been somewhat unduly neglected. These inconveniences have, however, always existed. That the policy which led to the Crimean War and generally the prolonged tension which existed between England and Russia were due to the British connection with India is universally recognised. It would be difficult to differentiate the causes of that tension, and to say how far it was, on the one hand, due to purely strategical considerations, or, on the other hand, to a desire to meet the wishes and satisfy the aspirations of the many millions of Moslems who are British subjects. Since, however, the general diplomatic relations between England and Russia have, fortunately for both countries, been placed on a footing of more a.s.sured confidence and friends.h.i.+p than any which have existed for a long time past, strategical considerations have greatly diminished in importance. The natural result has been that the alternative plea for regarding Near Eastern affairs from the point of view of Indian interests has acquired greater prominence. Those who have been closely in touch with the affairs of the Near East, and have watched the gradual decay of Turkey, have for some while past foreseen that the time was inevitably approaching when British statesmen and the British nation would be forced by the necessities of the situation to give a definite answer to the question how far their diplomatic action in Europe would have to be governed by the alleged obligation to conciliate Moslem opinion in India. That question received, to a certain limited extent, a practical answer when Bulgaria declared war on Turkey and when not a voice was raised in this country to urge that the policy which dictated the Crimean War should be rehabilitated.

The answer, however, is not yet complete. England is now apparently expected by many Moslems to separate herself from the Concert of Europe, and not impossibly to imperil the peace of the world, in order that the Turks should continue in occupation of Adrianople. The secretary of the Punjab Moslem League has informed us through the medium of the press that unless this is done the efforts of the extreme Indian Nationalists to secure the sympathies of Mohammedans in India ”will meet with growing success.”

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