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International Slavery and 
Colonialism, 1888-[21]1919

SLAVERY IN AFRICA
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A SPEECH
BY
CARDINAL LAVIGERIE
Made at the Meeting held in London, July 31, 1888. Presided over by
LORD GRANVILLE, Former Minister of
English Foreign Affairs.
BOSTON:
Cashman, Keating & Company,
1888.

SLAVERY IN AFRICA
A SPEECH
by
Cardinal Lavigerie
Made at the Meeting held in London July 31, 1888.  Presided over by 
LORD GRANVILLE, Former Minister of 
English Foreign Affairs.

BOSTON:
CASHMAN, KEATING & COMPANY,
1888.

Slavery in Africa
A Speech
By
Cardinal Lavigerie
Made at the Meeting held in London July 31, 1888, LORD GRANVILLE, former 
Minister of English Foreign Affairs presiding.

An anti-slavery meeting was held in Princess's Hall, London. on 
Tuesday, July 31st, over which Lord Granville, former Minister of 
Foreign Affairs presided, his Eminence Cardinal Manning, Archbishop 
of Westminster, and many other illustrious. Englishmen being present. 
Among them were travellers and African explorers, and, at their head, 
the most renowned of all, Commander Cameron, who has spent seven 
years in visiting the interior of Africa and in opposing slavery, and 
who has written an excellent work on his travels, which has long since 
been translated into French. 
"The Times" records that Lord Granville, the honorable president, 
opened the meeting with an address which was frequently interrupted 
by bursts of applause, and in which he presented Cardinal 
Lavigerie to the assembly as the standard-bearer of French anti-slavery. 
He reminded them that the cause of the abolition of slavery had ever 
been dear to England, and that she is even now taking practical 
measures to repress it in the Indian Ocean. Yet he declared notwithstanding 
that slavery, which, in latter times, has been almost abolished 
along the coast, has increased in the interior to an inconceivable extent; 
and he announced that the Archbishop of Carthage and Algiers, and 
Primate of Africa, was come to England to make known the situation. 
He fully admitted that it was the duty of all civilized nations to 
interest themselves in such a state of affairs; that at the Congress of 
Vienna in 1815, and at that of Verona in 1822, the European governments 
had solemnly pledged themselves to do so; that it was true that 
the Congress of Berlin had not felt itself in a position to attack the

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question again, being ignorant of the exact state of things; but that
to-day the moment seemd to have come for giving such a question
the importance that it deserved. In concluding he paid a graceful
compliment to Cardinal Lavigerie, who spoke in these words:
My Lord:* Allow me to thank you at once for the great kindness
of your words. It will be one of the most valued remembrances
of my life that I was presented to this assembly by a man whose name
is the honor or England in the eyes of his own country, and in those
of all the governments of the civilized world. [Applause]
Kindly allow me also to thank my eminent colleague, Cardinal
Manning, for the support lent me to-day by his presence and his
name which is made venerable by the records of a noble life, wholly
devoted to the service of his country and to that of the Church of
which he is the Shepherd. [Applause]
Laides and gentlemen: It is not a politician who comes before
you to-day. I have never been concerned, or am I concerned at this
moment, with other interests than those of the soul, humanity, and
religion.
Neither am I an orator. Absorbed as I have been, for almost a
quarter of a century, by the duties of my ministry, in a half-civilized
continent, I have nearly forgotten my mother-tongue. I feel, to-day, a
two-fold regret, insasmuch as I have not learnt yours, and can only express
to you the feelings which move me by the accents of my voice, 
and, as you have just heard it so happily put, by the bonds of affection
which bind me to those of your brethren, who come, year by year,
in large numbers, to take up their abode beneath our Algerian sun.
[Applause]
I am, therefore, only an old shepherd, almost worn out, by labor
and by years, who whould plead before you the cause of a part of his
flock, which is given up to cruel sufferings, and threatened with entire
destruction.
I am about to speak to you of the horrors of the African slave-trade.
Twice already I have solemnly raised my voice to denounce them;
the first time at Rome, at the feet of the Sovereign Pontiff, the great
Leo XIII, my father as well as that of all Christians; the second time
in France, my birthplace. This double duty of filial respect and
patriotism fulfilled, I turn towards you, Christians of England. In
spite of all that divides us, I am sure beforehand that our feelings will
be the same in a cause which is that of humanity, justice, and liberty.
[Prolonged applause].
I come, therefore, to you, because you first, inspired by these sentiments,
have declared war on slavery in the West Indies. For three
centuries it oppressed thousands of human beings, who were cruelly
dragged from Africa. It was upheld by all the sophistries of cupidity,
and, therefore, seemed unconquerable, You it was, and your fathers,
*Lord Granville

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who, dismayed by no obstacle, undertook to uproot it.  The world knows the names of the writers who led this noble crusade, and of the statesmen who supported them, --the names of Wilberforce, of Clarkson, of Buxton.  [Applause.]  In uttering this last name, I cannot forget that it is that of the founder of your Society, of this League against slavery, under whose auspices we are at this moment assembled.  For more than half a century it has fought nobly for this holy cause.  It has just recorded a victory while beholding, first Cuba, then Brazil, yield to the ideas and sentiments which it has spread everywhere, in common with the writes of France and those of the United States of America.  Now, according to a common proverb, "Noblesse oblige," and, therefore, England, which has made every effort to destroy slavery in the colonies, cannot remain indifferent to slavery in Africa, which is a thousand times more horrible.
     She it is , moreover, who first drew attention to this question, by the accounts of her explorers.  They were the first to make known to Europe the atrocities which were taking place, without her knowledge, in the heart of our continent.
     After having done away with slavery in America, and having established cruisers in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, which were to prevent the transport of slaves into Asia, the zeal of the Christian nations grew cold.  The generous indignation died out, which had forced princes, as well as the furious opposition of the traders, to loose their prey.  Men seemed to have forgotten that slavery still existed upon earth.  They had even forgotten the Mussulman slave-trade, which, under a less cruel form, still existed in countries nearer to us, when, suddenly, fifteen years ago, they learned, through your travellers, that is was flourishing, with untold horrors, in the heart of Africa, which was then almost unknown.  The explorers affirmed this, and they called upon the Christian world to interfere in favor of these unfortunate beings, who, though not, indeed, one with us in faith, are, like ourselves, God's creatures.
     At the head of those who opened this new war was the noble and intrepid Livingstone.  [Loud applause.]  It was my wish, as an African of long standing, to visit the tomb of the great explorer, beneath the arches of Westminster.  You have laid him amongst your greatest men.  You did well; for Livingstone is the glory of this century, and of your country, by his courage, his noble intellect, and the self-sacrifice of his life.  [Prolonged applause.]  Yet, if you are the inheritors of his glory, you should be the executors of his last wishes.  [Applause.]  I have read with emotion, which has brought the tears to my eyes, the last words traced by his hand, and which England, by order of her governors, has had officially engraved on his tomb.  In the destitution in which he was about to die, he wrote as follows:  "I can do no more than pray that the richest blessings of Heaven may fall upon all those, be they English, American, or Turk, who shall help to wipe form the world the deadly stain of slavery."  [Applause.]

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I thank you for your applause. I look on it as a forerunner of
the success of our united efforts. [Fresh applause.]
Lastly, I am not come to excite your pity only, or to recall the
duties which such a past lays upon you; but I come, also, to appeal to
your justice, towards which England has undertaken sacred responsibilities,
through the new empires which she has lately founded or conquered
in Africa. 
Such are the reasons of my confidence; but, before entering on
the body of my subject, I must correct an expression which I used in
beginning. I said that I come to plead the cause of the poor blacks.
This expression does not precisely correspond with my idea, and I
withdrew it, for two reasons.
Firstly, because the cause of the slaves needs not to be pleaded
before English Christians, for it is gained already in their hearts. [Repeated
applause.]
Secondly, because the cause has been already pleaded with matchless
eloquence by the facts themselves, and by the narratives of your
explorers.
Africa needs not advocates but witnesses; and it is as a new witness
that I present myself before you. I do not intend to repeat anything 
that you know already through your own writers, or through
those of Germany. I do not mean to make a summary of their accounts
or to recall the sentiments which they inspire. Yet, in the case of such
horrors, their exact truth may sometimes be questioned, and Livingstone
himself expressed a fear that he might be charged with exaggeration.
Now, doubt in such a case is its ruin, because doubt brings with it
hesitation, and hesitation at this moment means the destruction of the 
interior of Africa. If we allow the massacre of the inhabitants to be
completed, it will be too late to do anything. The important point is
to carry conviction to men's minds; and in order to make this conviction 
unchangeable, we must bring forward new witnesses who agree
with the previous ones.
I come, therefore, to give you my testimony about that part of
Africa of which the evangelizing has been entrusted to me.
This testimony, however, is not mine alone. In the regions of
which I am about to speak to you, I have a legion of eye-witnesses.
These are my sons, the missionaries of Algiers, or, as they are called in
the language of the people in Africa, "the White Fathers of Algeria."
[Applause.]
When I arrived in that country more than twenty years ago I
perceived that, unless I intended to confine my ministry to the Mussulman 
countries which are still almost completely closed against the
Gospel, I must make my way into the interior, to the pagan populations,
and I knew that, however great my strength, I must soon sink,
if I undertook such an enterprise alone. I collected about me a few
young men, whose souls were burning with the purest Apostolic zeal.
They were bound by oaths which oblige them to live the life of the
natives, and to suffer for them unto death. There were but three in

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the beginning; but it is to the glory of the human nature that, in its case,
heroism is as contagious as evil. To-day they number three hundred
[applause] under different names, Fathers, Brothers, Novices or assistants;
three hundred living. One hundred are dead; theirs the
greater glory. Of these, eleven shed their blood by martyrdom, the
others yielded to the climate, to illness, to want, and to fatigue. If I
speak thus, it is not from a feeling of complacency which should be contemptible,
but to stamp their testimony with the seal of sacrifice, and
to leave no doubt about the horrors they reveal. I remember the
saying of a Christian philosopher in my country, who, speaking of the
foundation of Christianity, and of the objections brought against its
history, refuted them with this argument drawn from the martyrdom
of the Apostles and the Evangelists. "Witnesses who have their throats
cut must be believed," said Pascal. It is the testimony of witnesses 
who have their throats cut that I am going to give you to-day in addition
to what you know already. [Applause.]
To avoid confusion and to make quite clear the different parts of
Africa which this testimony concerns, I must tell you, in the first place,
in what regions my missionaries are established. For more than ten
years they have occupied Sahara and the region of the great lakes,
from the sources of the Nile to southward of the Tanganyika, as well as
the Belgian Upper Congo. From thence they write to me, and it is 
about these regions which are of vast extent, that I wish to speak to
you, leaving to other travellers, or missionaries, living in other parts of
our continent, to inform Europe of what they see.
To speak, in the first place, of the former, -- I mean the missionaries
of Sahara, -- they bear witness that, in spite of what others may
say, slavery still flourishes to the same extent as formerly, in all the
countries of North Africa, which lie south of the European possessions.
The pursuit of slaves for these countries extends as far up as the
Niger, in all the regions where the negroes have not been completely
subjected to the rites of the Mussulman religion. The sale, on the
contrary, takes place publicly in all the Mahometan provinces. Consequently,
all the towns in the interior of Morocco have markets to
which journey the caravans of slaves. A few years ago, -- scarcely
five years, -- these markets were held in the towns along the coast,
and as far as Tangiers, just opposite to your Gibraltar. If they have
since fled far from our sight, to seek refuge in the towns of the interior,
you know to whom it is due; it is to the honorable Secretary of the 
Association which brings us together to-day,* who, by his eloquent
and indignant remonstrances, has forced these infamous traders to
hide, at least, their work. [Prolonged applause.] Yet the markets
are still held in the interior, and several times each year the Mussulmans
are seen there openly laying in a supply of wretched human
cattle. It is the same in the oases of Sahara; that is to say, in all
those which lie on the frontiers of Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli, and as
far as Egypt.
*Mr. Allen, Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society.

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To be accurate, and to say nothing but the exact truth, as my
character of witness obliges me to do, the domestic slavery in this
region if far from showing the marks of incessant butchery, which it
presents, as I shall prove to you, on the high plateaux in the heart of
Africa. When they are once bought and received into the Mussulman
families, they are treated with a certain amount of kindness. It
is for the interests not to destroy their slaves, who cost
them dear on account of the distance. Perhaps, also, they neighborhood
of the Europeans alarms the slave-holders. They may fear lest
the cries and groans of their victims should reach our ears.
There is, however, a peculiarity which lends to this trans-Saharian
traffic a character of atrocity; that is, the crossing of the desert, which
requires whole months of travel by the flocks of women and children
that the caravans drag after them. A frightful journey, in which they
travel on foot over dry sands, beneath a scorching sun, and through a
country in which food is often wanting, and water still more often.
There is enough for the slave-traders, but the women and children
receive only just enough to keep them from dying; for if they died
they would cheat their executioners of the profit that they look for.
The Touregs are generally the conductors of these human flocks.
Their hearts are as hard as the steel of their lances, and a handful of
raw sorghum, with a mouthful of water, is all that they give to the
slaves, who march painfully beneath the terrible yoke. Some fall;
that is death. The experienced eyes of the trader knows at once
whether his victim is likely to escape him before the journey's end.
If he thinks so he despatches him with a blow of his weapon. The
hyenas and jackals will come to devour their flesh, leaving whitened
skeletons to mark the way between Morocco and Fezzan.
Yet the slave traffic in Sahara and the Northern provinces, of
which Timbuctoo is the centre, is nothing in comparison with that on
the high plateaux of the interior. It is of this particularly that I 
must speak to you. There, at this moment, our missionaries are witnesses
of deeds which cause a whole continent to writhe in anguish.
Twenty years ago people did not know what the heart of Africa
was like. They spoke of it as a desert uninhabitable and sterile. It
has proved, on the contrary, as my missionaries daily repeat to me, to
to be the most beautiful part, the richest, and the most happy. It had
been judged by the lands along the coast. There, indeed, the climate
is unhealthy, often deadly, work difficult, and, for a European, well-nigh
impossible. Ancient traditions, traces of which are found in
Hesiod and Heroditus, seem to indicate that the interior of Africa
did not resemble its coasts; and this was equally suggested by the
presence of its great rivers, the Niger, - the Congo, the Zambezi, and
especially the Nile, - all of which justly excited the curiosity and conjectures
of geographers, historians, and philosophers. As has since
been proved, they were not mistaken as to the importance of these 
mysterious streams of water.
Besides the low lands of the coast, it has been found that the

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centre of Africa rises on two plateaux; one, three thousand English feet
above the level of the ocean; the other, of immense size, measuring
thousands of miles in length, and over-topping the first by about two
or three thousand feet, which makes a total altitude of four or five thousand
feet above the sea. These two plateaux are inundated every
year, at fixed periods, by the heavy rains carried in the clouds from
the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and they are dotted over with great
lakes, or, to speak more accurately, inland seas, which are enormous
reservoirs hollowed out by the hand of nature. From these seas, or
great lakes as they are called, flow the four rivers of Africa with their
numberless tributaries. That is what makes these countries so beautiful
and fertile. With the help of these four rivers, together with a 
lively imagination, certain persons in latter times, have fancied that
they recognized the ancient terrestrial paradise. The altitude there
tempers the heat of the sun. On the banks of the Nyanza and the
Tanganyika, the heat during the day does not exceed thirty-two degrees
centigrade, and every evening the temperature falls to seventeen or
eighteen degrees. The soil is of uncommon richness. I say nothing
of the appearances which point to the existence of numerous mines,
and promise rich treasures to industry; nor do I speak of agriculture.
With the help of the sun and water, it yields, without difficulty, all the 
necessaries of life. Wherever water flows, four harvests can be reaped
each year. This is the experience of our missionaries, in the case of
the wheat which they cultivate in order to have at hand the material
for the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The beauty and strength of the woods
excite the admiration of explorers. All these advantages united must
naturally draw and settle there a thick population. In the progress
of time this has proved to be the case. Nowhere in Africa are seen
more villages, or any more thickly inhabited. Peace dwelt there; the
families were patriarchal; fire-arms were unknown; they were met
with only towards the coast, or on the banks of the Zambezi, where
the Portuguese had brought them.
It is a sad coincidence, that, at the very moment when the great
explorers and the first missionaries penetrated into these regions
twenty-five years ago, carrying with them faith and civilization, the
slave-traders, who were, perhaps, informed by the men who had
guided the travellers, made an invasion in their turn. Their starting-points
were Egypt and the Kingdom of Zanzibar.
Their principal chiefs, the Metis, are a terrible race; springing
from the Arabs and the blacks of the coast, and Mussulman in name, 
they are exactly fitted by nature to profess hatred and contempt of
the negro race, which they rank below the animals; they consider that,
if treated according to its deserts, it merits nothing but slavery, and if
it offers resistance, torture and death. They are fearful men, without
conscience or pity, and alike infamous for their brutal corruption and
for their cruelty; in them the African proverb is justified: "God made 
the whites, God made the blacks, but the demon alone made the
Metis." [Applause.]

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    Eleven years ago our Fathers arrived on the high plateaux of the
interior, at Tabora, at the Tanganyika, at the Nyanza, on the Upper
Congo, to behold the work of death, which was already shaping itself,
grown, and, in the end, destroy everything from one place to another.
In those early times these beautiful countries were store-houses doubly
productive to the Metis.  The life was easy, and ivory, which was the
chief object of their commerce, extremely abundant.  It had never been
sought for so high up, or at such a distance, and in certain provinces
like Manyuema, not far from the Tanganyika, it was found in such
quantities that elephants' tusks were used to fence in the gardens
and to support the poles of the natives' tents.  With the ivory began
the ruin of this unhappy country.  It was not enough to buy it for a
trifling sum or to seize it by force; it must be carried to the coast.
Now, man is the only means of transportation in this part of Africa.
The roads are only steep paths, and the domestic animals are killed by
the bite of the tsetse.  In order to have men the traders made slaves.
The slightest pretext was enough to give excuse for a quarrel, or, in
other words, for a premeditated massacre.  These brigands fell, without
pity or mercy, upon an inoffensive people, massacred all who resisted,
manacled the rest, and by means of threats and violence, forced the
men to serve as beasts of burden to the coast, where they were sold,
together with the ivory which they had brought.
    This was the beginning of the woe; but cupidity and blood have
their own intoxication, a frightful intoxication which is not quieted
until it is quelled by force.  [Applause.]  This fact had been proved
to us already by the history of pagan tyrants.  This intoxication of
blood, this disregard of human life, disgraces the centre of Africa to-day.
The population is oppressed, carried off, and, so to speak, incessantly
mowed down.  First one village,then another; first one province,
then a second, until, in a short time, everything is covered with blood
and ruins.  Our missionaries on the Tanganyika write us that not a
day goes by without caravans of slaves passing before their eyes, to be
dragged to a distance as bearers of ivory, or to the markets of the
interior as human cattle.  By slow degrees these markets have been
opened everywhere; at present, it is principally women and children
that are sold there. Since the ivory is becoming exhausted, and is
getting scarce, men are no longer necessary; moreover they run away,
when they have fallen into the hands of their new masters, and are put
to death.  The cruelties perpetrated in this way are beyond description,
and the scourge of such a "hunt," since that is the name generally
given to it, and the only one which gives a true idea, exceeds all other 
scourges.  Never has such murder, butchery, and such disregard of
blood, been seen in any page of history, or in any part of the known
world.  [Applause.]
    Already, in the last quarter of a century, thousands of human
beings have fallen in this way.  Yet the proportion is constantly
increasing, and the figure given by our missionaries for the high
plateaux of the interior exceeds that of Cameron for the trade of the

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Zambezi and the Nyassa.  Now, Cameron, who is one of the Englishmen 
most worthy of credit in such a case, for his long experience of the
African trade, for his courage and noble heart, estimated that, even
in his time AT LEAST five hundred thousand blacks were then sold
every year in the markets of the interior.  He is here, besides, to confirm 
his testimony, as well as the entire agreement of our feelings and
views.  He has been good enough to write me a letter, which I received 
as I was starting to come to you.  I beg him to authorize me
to make it public.  It may be that many things divide us, commander,
but about this we cannot fail, as I remarked a little while ago, to agree
in everything.* [Prolonged applause.]
     The cruelty, as a consequence of the intoxication of blood, of
which I have just spoken, shows the same increase as the numbers.
Formerly the invaders were satisfied to take those who fell in their
way from a population which was without suspicion.  At preset, I
hear from my eye-witnesses, of scenes in which ferocity views with the
fury of wickedness.  The blacks of the villages in the interior, knowing, 
by this time, what their enemies want, take flight into the jungles,
or into the brush near their villages.  They hope there to escape from
their tyrants' blows.  Hear the methods which the slave-traders make
use of to BRING THEM DOWN.  It is a wicked expression; but it is the
refinement of cruelty which forces the tongue to use, in the case of
man, the same terms which have hitherto been reserved for wild beasts.
Besides, it is the custom in the interior of Africa; the blacks themselves, 
when they own slaves, employ the terms of the traders, and
give their slaves no other name than that of MY BEAST, MY ANIMAL.
    This infernal army, then, surrounds the great thickets in which
the natives have taken refuge, and they set fire to them.  Soon, from
all quarters, are heard cries of terror and despair, and every one, who
is not scorched by the flames, or suffocated by the smoke, rushes out
from the burning fire and falls into the hands of his executioners, who
wait to slay some, and to shackle the rest.  You will find similar accounts 
by your explorers, and you will no longer wonder that the
thickly-settled and fruitful provinces of the heart of Africa have been
reduced, one after another, to lonely wastes, where henceforward the
bones alone of the inhabitants shall bear witness that human activity,
peace, and industry, have dwelt there. [cross] [A general shudder.]
    Therefore, the complete depopulation of Africa is no remote possibility.  
If Europe is untouched by motives of humanity, she should,
at least, bear in mind the difficulty in which she will soon be placed, to
know how to draw from these favored regions the wealth which they
promised.  When the population is once destroyed, all labor, and, consequently, 
all agriculture and real industry, will be impossible to the
         * The text of this letter, which was written in French, will be found in APPENDIX I.  It is both interesting and important, by the entire agreement which it establishes between the accounts and views of French Catholic missionaries and those of an English Protestant officer.
[cross] The very day on which this speech was delivered, I received a letter from a missionary of Tanganyika, Pere Guilleme, from the station of Kibanga, and I feel bound to take from it, and publish, 
without delay, the passage that constitutes APPENDIX II.

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white man, who will be unaided by the manual labor of the natives.
Without the inhabitants, the traveller will find neither food nor shelter
on his journeys, and the paths will disappear, choked by an impenetrable
barrier of tropical vegetation. Such is the work of to-day, and the 
position of to-morrow. I repeat it once for all, with all the force of
conviction, if Europe does not quickly put a stop to these excesses by
force, the heart of Africa will, in a few years, be only a desert. [Prompt
assent.]
For this I am here, and for this I send forth before you, English
Christians, the cry of indignation and distress, which I have already
uttered before the Christians of France. [Applause.]
The duty of rescuing Africa falls first, without question, upon the
governments of Europe. [Applause.] The honorable president of
this meeting reminded you, before I began to speak, that in 1815 at
Vienna, and at Verona in 1822, they solemnly pledged themselves no
longer to tolerate slavery in the world. Yet the will is wanting;
[applause] and why is it wanting? Does there exist a greater, nobler, or
a more generous work? Upon what question can they more honorably
consult and come to an agreement, than upon the repression of such
frightful evils?  [Applause.] We hear often of their alliances; and
the nations, none of whom wish, in reality, for war, seem to see in them
only the prelude to struggles, in which they shall destroy one another.
Must we, then, fall back upon the bitter irony of our Montesquieu,
when speaking more than a century ago of colonial slavery, he said:
"Narrow minds exaggerate too much the injustice done to the
Africans; for, were it such as they describe it, would it not have
entered the heads of the Princes of Europe, who make so many useless
treaties with one another, to make one general one for the sake of
mercy and pity? [*Esprit des Lois liv. XV. Chap. V.*]
It is true that the European governments think of Africa; but
up to the present time, they seem to have thought of it only to take
possession of it. It is easy to meet in Congress in order to draw lines
upon a map, and to parcel out empires; but Christian States cannot
forget that duty corresponds with right. The chief nations of Europe,
England, Belgium, France, Germany, and Portugal have settled and
proclaimed by common consent their present and future rights over
Africa. From that moment they had duties towards her. [Applause].
The first of these duties is that of not allowing the race of natives to
be cruelly destroyed, nor shutting up once more, and changing into
pathless deserts, the country which explorers had thrown open to
civilization. Nevertheless, the voice of self-interest does not speak
loudly enough to the governments, which are busy with other cares;
to use the words of Montesquieu, we must force them to listen to the
cry "of mercy and of pity." To do that the cry must be uttered by
every one, and with such vehemence that they will be forced to obey it.
[Hearty applause.]
This is, without a doubt, the proper work of the Anti-Slavery Society

13
which has brought us together to-day, and it is that of the eminent
men who preside over and direct it under the auspices of the Heir even
of the throne. [Applause.] Still, and association of men, be they ever
so powerful, cannot accomplish everything, and if I ventured to address
you, ladies, I should say that a work of "mercy and pity" is especially
your own. Better than men you know the road to the heart, because
you feel more acutely than they; yet this is not the only reason in the
question of African Slavery. At present, the principal victims of this
slavery are women and children. Our Missionaries repeat this over
and over again. Scarcely two days ago I received, in London, a letter
from the Superior of our Tanganyika Mission, who repeated the same
formula: "Here, at present, it is almost entirely women and children
that are sold; the men are killed." In this division I do not hesitate
to say that the women are more to be pitied than the men. Death frees
the men at a single blow; slavery holds a thousand deaths in reserve for
the women and children. It delivers them, defenceless, into the hands
of their masters, for the vilest debauchery, and for every deed of
atrocious cruelty. [Expressions of disgust.]
In a letter which I wrote a few days ago, I described the tortures
of these unhappy women of the interior of Africa, at the hands of those
who buy them. Let me now read you a passage from that letter:
"Here," I said, "is an example of this cruelty, drawn from the
lowest steps of the social ladder, in the case of a poor black. It is told
by one of our Fathers, and I have already published it, two years ago.
"In the rains of Masika," he writes, "the fields of the neighboring
plain (of Tabora) were turned into a swamp. It was impossible to
pass without sinking into the mud. Nevertheless, a negro of a neighboring
village commanded his wife, who was also his slave, to go there
and pick up wood to cook the supper. She set out, but she had no
sooner entered the fields than she began to sink, and, in a short time, she
had sunk up to her arms, without being able to extricate herself, or
even to move lest she should sink deeper and perish. Her plaintive
voice called for help; but those who passed by only laughed at her. As
she did not come back, her husband went to look for her, taking with
him a stick with which he doubtless meant to kill her. He found her
in this pitiful condition, and, without doing anything to help her, he
threw her his stick from a distance, that she might defend herself, as
he said with cruel irony, against the hyenas that were coming in the
night; he then went composedly home. The next day all trace of the
unfortunate woman was gone."
Let us mount the steps of the ladder: one of our Fathers narrates,
with horror, that a petty prince of Bukumbi said to him one morning,
in the coolest way imaginable, and without seeming to think it extraordinary,
"Last night I killed five of my wives." [Signs of indignation.]
We come now to the most powerful. This is what I have to tell
myself about the king of Uganda in the letter from which I have taken
the preceding extracts: "Reverend Father Levesque, former Missionary
of Uganda told me, that once, when he was at the Court of King
Mteca, while he was awaiting his audience in the outer enclosure, the
doors of the brazah, or royal hall, were suddenly thrown open, with a

14
loud noise, to let pass two armed soldiers, who were dragging by the
feet a poor female slave.  The king had just condemned her to have
her ears, nose, and, lastly, her head cut off immediately, because she had
spoken too loud before the opening of the audience.  The sentence was
carried out on the spot, in the presence of the crowd*.  The cries of the
unhappy woman went to the heart of the Missionaries; but they excited
from the other by-standers a noisy burst of laughter." [Signs of
horror.]
  You will see how far these horrors are confirmed by the testimony
of an eye-witness, the explorer Speke, in the case of the negro court
of Uganda, where a thousand or twelve hundred women are victims to
every caprice of the tyrant.
  "For some time," he writes in his"Sources of the Nile," "I have
lived within the enclosure of the royal palace, and, consequently, the
customs of the court are no longer a dead letter to me.  In spite of
that, shall I be believed when I declare, that, since I changed my quarters,
not a day has passed without my seeing one, two, or even three, of
these unhappy women, who make up Mteca's harem, led to death?
Drawn or dragged along, with a cord around their wrists, by the body-
guard which leads them to the slaughter-house, the poor creatures, with
eyes full of tears, utter cries that break your heart.  Hai Minange!
(Oh! My Lord!) Kbakka! (My King!) hai N'yavis! (Oh! My
Mother!)  In spite of these piteous appeals to public pity not a hand
is lifted to save them from the executioners, though here and there one
hears a remark made in a low voice on the beauty of the victims."*
  Christian women of Europe, women of England, to you it belongs
to make such horrors everywhere known, and to rouse against them
the indignation of the civilized world.  [Applause.]    Allow no peace
to your fathers, husbands, and brothers; but make use of the authority
which they possess by their eloquence, fortune, or position in the State,
to stop the shedding of your sisters' blood.  If God has given you a
talent for writing, use it in such a cause; you will find none more holy.
Do not forget that it was a book written by a woman, a novel, "Uncle
Tom," which was translated into every language in the world, that put
the seal to the freedom of slaves in America. [Applause.]  Now, what
is the practical end for which we must unite at this time the States of
Europe?  I repeat in one word and very distinctly : to use force for the
destruction of African slavery.  [Applause.]  The evil is too deeply
rooted, and too widely spread, to be cured henceforward in any other
way until it has finished its work.
  By means of persuasion the Missionaries may, perhaps, convert a
few isolated and petty nations; but they are too few to make their
action felt in the vast extent of the African interior.  In the meantime,
the destruction goes on so fast that everything will have disappeared.
  I say the same thing in the matter of charity and the ransoming of
slaves.  Some persons have suggested this from a motive of generous
charity, in order to save, at least, some victims from their sad fate.
God forbid that I should turn aside Christians from a sentiment so in
harmony with their law.  Charity is its first precept.  Yet, on one
*John Haming Speke; "Sources of the Nile," Third Edition, Chap. XI., Page 327.

15
hand, how shall we find sums large enough to ransom so many slaves,
and, on the other, would not this very ransoming be an encouragement
to the cupidity of the slave-traders?  If the ransom is made sure the
slave-hunt will find a new reason for spreading.
  I say again, it is force that is needed, a pacific force certainly, and
intended only for defence, but an armed force.  This has been proved
in the colonial trade where all was useless until the English, French, and
American vessels raised an insurmountable barrier to the slave-traders.
They still keep this up in the Indian Ocean to prevent the transport
of slaves into Asia.  It is true that they do not succeed in stopping it
completely, because the passages are so short that they can be made
by the Arab dhows under cover of darkness.  Nevertheless, the cruisers
excite fear.  Upon this I must warmly congratulate the British government
whose perseverance is shown by the late blue book.  [Loud applause.]
For slavery on land, however, the cruisers are insufficient.  According
to the idea of your great Gordon [prolonged applause] about
the abolition of the slave-trade on the Nile, we must add to them
barriers of earth to close the entrances to the slave countries against the
caravans, and some light troops which can be moved about to all the
places where this infamous hunt is conspicuous.  This is the opinion of
all those who are acquainted with our African question, and it is that
expressed to me by Commander Cameron, in his letter of this morning.*
[Applause.]
  Let me suppose, however, that the governments, which have often
various ideas and interests, cannot, or will not, come to an agreement; in
that case, I say with equal distinctness and equal frankness that the
same duty passes from the governments to the Christian peoples.  [Loud
applause.]  They can fulful it, as we see in the case of the Christian
Missions, in which the governments have lost interest, and which have
been taken up by the people.  Here, England gives an example to all by  
her generosity and her alms.  France and other European countries do
likewise by their fearless Missionaries and their works of apostleship.
Why should they not do as much for a work which falls in so naturally
with that of the preaching of the faith?  Why should we not see individual
devotion spring up amongst them, equal to supplying that
which the governments could not accomplish.  [Applause.]  The
latter have not sent a single man to the upper plateaux of Africa up to
the present time.  Why should not private associations, like those of the
middle ages, send men there to teach the blacks to defend themselves
against their oppressors?  [Applause.]
  Has not Stanley shown us what a single man, aided by a few hundred
blacks, can bring to pass, by his boldness and perseverance?
[Prolonged applause.]  Did not Emin Pasha know how to raise and
direct forces to preserve order about him?  [Fresh applause.]  If I
wished to speak of a more modest devotedness, I could name, without
fear of awakening your jealousy, a French hero, who, for nearly nine
months, has faced all the privations, fatigues, and dangers of the African
equator in order to raise an army of blacks, and to protect the tribes
that surround him, by his devoton and courage.  His name is Joubert.
  *See Appendix.

16
[Applause.] Others could go to work separately, or band together, as
they did formerly, for the same crusade.  I see that such will not be
lacking from amongst you. I have already received several such offers
since I have been in London. [Applause.] May these offers multiply;
may we thus have Stanleys, Emins, and Jouberts on different points of
the African interior, and the problem will be solved. It is not, as might
be supposed, great armies that are needed: it is men, even single individuals;
but strong in virtue, in initiative ability, and in courage, and
capable of training the blacks to resist their enemies. [Fresh applause.]
  Something indispensable will still be wanting to them and to us,
and this should be the work of all.  Warlike courage and boldness in
facing dangers and fatigues are the endowments of the few; charity is
the duty of all; and here it is necessary in order to supply material help
to those who are willing to shed their blood and sacrifice their lives.
  You can better contribute to this end than by joining the work
which brings us together to-day, and which offers, on so many grounds,
the highest pledges of honor; to Catholics, especially, by the presence of
an eminent cardinal.*  Nothing prevents the forming of such in 
other countries; [prolonged applause] only, remember, that at this
moment, while I speak to you, blood is flowing in streams beneath the
African equator; remember that it only depends upon Europe to stop
it, and that if she does not do so without delay, she will be responsible
before God and before history. Nineteen centuries ago the world heard
an expression of indifference, of selfishness, and of fear fall from the lips
of a people, who might have stopped by a single word, the shedding of
innocent blood: "May his blood be upon us and upon our children."
The blood, indeed, flowed; but the people who thus allowed it to be shed,
lost all that a people can lose, honor and country, and to-day we see it
scattered to the four winds of the universe.  Let us beware lest the
blood of Africa should hold over Europe a like curse. May God save 
her, therefore, from the scourge which threatens to destroy her forever!
May he save her by inspiring the governments with generous resolutions,
and by raising up from amongst the peoples Christian devotion
and courage.  [A salvo of enthusiastic applause.]

  After this speech, and on the motion of Cardinal Manning, seconded
by other orators, and particularly by Commander Cameron, the meeting 
unanimously voted the following resolution:

"The time has now arrived when all the nations of Europe, which at
the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, and at the conference of Verona in 1822,
passed a series of resolutions severely condemning the slave-trade, should
take serious measures in order to come to a practical result. As the Arab 
brigands, whose sanguinary devastations are now depopulating Africa, are
subject neither to laws nor to a responsible authority, it is the duty of the
governments of Europe to make their disappearance certain in all the territories
over which the said governments have any power. This meeting also
proposes to appeal to Her Majesty's Government in order, that, together

17
with the European powers, who claim at this moment possession or territorial
influence in Africa, it may adopt such measures as will assure the 
abolition of the fearful slave-trade, which is even now carried on by these
enemies of the human race." ["Times."]

*His Eminence Cardinal Manning is a member of the Directing Committee of the
Anti-Slavery Society.

APPENDIX I.
To His Eminence Cardinal Lavigerie.
  My Lord, I see, with great joy, that your Eminence is come to
London to commend to us, Englishmen, the question of the slave-trade.
During the three years that I have passed in travelling through Africa,
I have often been witness to the evils caused by the trade, and I had
previously spent four years in pursuing the Arab dhows, which carried
slaves into Asia.
  The greater part of those who still reflect upon the horrors of the
trade, fancy that this question concerns the transport of slaves by sea
only, and that on land they are neither ill-treated nor unhappy.
  My Lord, I have seen the slaves on board the Arab dhows, bent
double, their knees drawn up to their chins, covered with wounds and
bruises, dying for want of food and drink, the dead bound to the living,
and the small-pox adding its terrible contagion to the miseries with
which they were overwhelmed.
  Yet this is nothing in comparsion with the horrors that are seen on
land; villages burnt, men slain in defending their homes, whole provinces
devastated, women violated, little children dying of hunger, or
if a mother has got leave to carry her child away with her, and the
brutal driver finds that she cannot carry both her burthen and her
child, the latter is thrown to the ground, and its neck is broken before
its mother's eyes.
  Thousands of poor people carry heavy loads of the very spoil, perhaps,
which their cruel masters have stolen from those who are now
their slaves; they are forced to walk when they are covered with
wounds and even dying, and besides their loads they carry forks*
fastened on their necks.
  The stoppages give them no relief. They are obliged to put up
their masters' tents, and then to lie down, in the cold and rain, often
without having tasted food. When it happens that a poor slave can no 
longer put one foot before the other, instead of taking off the fork
which he carries on his neck, the trader leaves it on him, so as to make
it impossible for the unfortunate creature to escape from death. Sometimes
men or women, left in this way by the roadside are devoured,
while still alive, by savage beasts, less savage, however, than those who
thus leave them to perish without help.
  Some of those who wish to defend the land trade, say that it is
necessary for the ivory traffic. I know very well that some Arab dealers

*These forks are heavy pieces of wood placed on the neck of the slaves, as we put a yoke on
our oxen.


18
who go into Africa to get ivory, become slave-traders for want of free
men to carry the ivory which they have heaped up.  Still, those employed
in this labor are not a tenth part of the slaves made to-day.
  The negro-traders, who do so much harm to the Scotch missions and
to the European merchants on Lake Nyassa, are neither Arabs nor
dealers in ivory.  They are degraded Metis, who want slaves because
that, with them, they can live without working, and give themselves up
to the brutal pleasures to which they are accustomed.  They now find
means of disposing of their human spoil in favor of persons who have
undertaken to find "free emigrants."  All the Mussulman countries,
and some of those of the heathen blacks, buy the slaves and think little
of the ivory.
  The slaves who found, formerly, an almost free market in Egypt,
are now carried into Tripoli, and south of the barbarous provinces
through Sahara, the sands of which are strewn with their skeletons.
  The great native chiefs, like Karongo and Muanga, without the inducement
which comes from foreign traders, follow the slave-hunt for
no better reason than their caprice.  Thus, every negro wishes to own
another, and the idea of slavery is mixed up with the African blood.  I
should add that all the systems are useless by which people try to palliate
slavery; that, whether the subjected persons are called "free emigrants,"
or "apprentices" or by any other title, they are all the same
under different names, and all give rise to the slave-hunt in the interior
of Africa.  If these systems are not abolished, or radically changed, we
shall never succeed in suppressing it everywhere.  Now, if the governments
cannot abolish the land trad by force, as the English government
has already done on the west coast of Africa, and as she is now
endeavoring to do in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, then men of
every religion, of every country, and of every nation, must band together
to send expeditions into Africa for the express purpose of abolishing
slavery.
  Some (like the Missionaries) may use moral force in working for
this end, but the rest must use material weapons.  If we had several
small armies, well armed and disciplined, on the great lakes, and at
different points of the interior, we should soon succeed in stopping the
transport of slaves into the distant countries.  Until now, nothing has
been done with this object; but one hundred Europeans could control
Lake Nyassa, and this is true of the other great lakes, and of several
places situated on the principal roads.  Germany has just become mistress
of a vast region in Africa; but so far she has shown no desire to
assuage the sufferings of those whose sovereign she has become.
  I trust, my Lord, that you will succeed in exciting a lively interest
in the question of the trade, and that you will be fortunate in finding
means to abolish it.
  The man who makes certain the liberty of the negro race, will be the
worthiest servant of God that the world has ever seen.
With profound respect,
I am the obedient servant of your Eminence,
LOVETT-CAMERON, C.B.D.L.
Commander R. N.

APPENDIX II.

  Since I have reached Ujiji, I ought to say a word about it in
passing; but I find myself incapable of describing this city as I have
seen it, and my pen refuses to record all the horrors that are committed
there.  Ujiji is the most populous Arab centre of Tanganyika.
There come together all the caravans of slaves taken in the interior
and travelling towards Zanzibar,  There all the Metis (Mussulmans)
assemble to decide together in what direction, and in what country,
they will make their raids.  From thence go forth all the bands of
robbers who now overflow Manyuema, and are completing the destruction
of that country once so populous.  A true Sodom; the theatre of
every crime and every debauchery, of every horror and every vice.
What an unhappy day for Africa when the Mussulmans first set foot in
the interior!  With them came their immoral religion, their contempt
for the negro, and their shameful vices and diseases, before unknown 
to the negroes.
  Formerly, I had, at different times, visited the market of Ujiji;
but, at that time, the slaves were few, and I had not seen this odious
traffic in all its horror.  At the time of my last journey, the city had
just been inundated, in the fullest sense of the term, by caravans of
slaves coming from Manyuema, from Maroungou, from Uvira and from
Ubuari.  The slaves were cheap on account of their numbers, and
persons came to propose to me to ransom some of them at a low price;
but almost all were worn out with fatigue and misery, and dying of
hunger; some of them would have been incapable of crossing the lake,
even to reach the Mission.  I was so poor that I had to refuse almost
all, for I had scarcely money enough to ransom the captives that I had
come to seek, and whom I was bound to prefer, since they had been
already instructed by us.
  The square was covered with slaves for sale, fastened in long lines,
men, women, and children, in frightful disorder, some tied with cords
and others with chains.  In the case of a few who came from Manyuema,
their ears were pierced, and a slender cord passed through, to keep them
together.
  In the streets one met living skeletons at every step, dragging
themselves painfully along with the help of a stick; they were no
longer chained because they could not run away.  Suffering and
privation of every kind were written on their emaciated countenances,
and everything showed that they were dying of hunger rather than
of disease.  One could see by the great scars upon their backs the
ill-treatment which they had undergone at the hands of their masters,
who, to make them walk, did not spare them their share of the rod.
Others were lying down in the street, and awaiting the end of their
wretched existence near their master's house, who, knowing that their
death was at hand, no longer gave them any food.  Seeing these unhappy
creatures, who have not the hope of those who know God to
soothe their wretchedness, how the heart of a Missionary bleeds, as


20
he thinks of so many souls that are lost for want of laborers, and of
material means to deliver them!
It was, however, in the direction of the Tanganyika in an uncultivated 
piece of land covered with a high growth, and separating the 
market from the banks of the lake, that we were to see all the horrible
consequences of this abominable trade.  This space is the cemetery of
Ujiji, or rather the receptacle into which are cast the bodies of the
dead and dying slaves.  The hyenas, which are very numerous in this
country, take care of their burial.  A young Christian, who was still
unacquainted with the town, wished to go on as far as the banks of the 
lake; but at the sight of the many bodies strewn along the path, and
unable to bear such a terrible sight.
When I asked an Arab why there were so many dead bodies in the
neighborhood of Ujiji, and why they were left so near the city, he
answered quietly, and as if it were the simplest thing in the world,
"Formerly we were in the habit of throwing the bodies of our dead
slaves in this place, and the hyenas came every night and carried
them off; but this year the number of dead is so large that there are
no longer beasts enough to devour them; THEY ARE SICK OF HUMAN
FLESH!"
Persons wishing to communicate with Cardinal Lavigerie on this
subject may address as follows: -
HIS EMINENCE CHARLES CARDINAL LAVIGERIE,
 11 Rue du Regard, Paris, France.

THE PUTUMAYO
(THE JUDGEMENT OF MR. JUSTICE SWINFEN EADY.)

In the High Court of Justice
COMPANIES WINDING-UP.

IN THE MATTER OF
THE COMPANIES CONSOLIDATION ACT, 1908.
AND
IN THE MATTER OF
THE PERUVIAN AMAZON COMPANY,
LIMITED.

ROYAL COURTS OF JUSTICE, March 19th, 1913. 

"The thanks of the nation are due to those who have been responsible for exposing and, we trust, ending one of the ghastliest crimes of latter-day commercial civilisation. Foremost among these is the ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, which, with little help and in the face of much obstinate scepticism, forced the facts upon public attention." - DAILY NEWS.
"We offer our heartiest congratulations to the BRITISH ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY on the success of their efforts to secure a complete investigation into the methods by which the business was conducted." - THE SPECTATOR.
"This compulsory winding-up of the Company means that a complete and independent investigation will be obtained of its affairs and management. The result is a signal triumph for the BRITISH ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, to whose courageous action the proceedings were due." - DAILY CHRONICLE.

ISSUED BY
THE ANTI-SLAVERY AND ABORIGINES PROTECTION SOCIETY, 
DENISON HOUSE,
VAUXHALL BRIDGE ROAD, LONDON, S.W.

[Transcript of the Shorthand Notes of HARRY COUNSELL & CO., The Gateway, New Court, Carey Street, London, W.C.]

THE JUDGMENT.

Shares 551 and 1,900
versus
Shares 80,000 and 300,000 to 400,000

MR. JUSTICE SWINFEN EADY: This is a Petition by certain Shareholders in a Company called the PERUVIAN AMAZON RUBBER COMPANY, Limited, for a Compulsory winding-up order. The Company is already in Voluntary winding-up, and one Julio Arana is Liquidator. The present Petitioners allege their prejudice by a continuance of the Voluntary winding-up and ask for a Compulsory order. They hold only a small number of Shares: the Petitioners together hold 551 Preference Shares and there are certain other shareholders who support them, but they hold only some 1,900 shares or thereabouts, whereas on the other hand the shareholders who oppose are something like 80,000 Preference Shares and between 300,000 and 400,000 of the Ordinary Shares. Then there are certain creditors - two creditors - who are the nominal holders of bills, which I am told really belong to a company called Russian Trust Company: they claim to be creditors on the bills for something like £27,000, or thereabouts, and they, too, oppose the Petition. So that I must take it that it is a Petition which is opposed by the majority of the shareholders and by the creditors. It is presented by shareholders holding only a few shares, and supported by shareholders holding only a few shares.
The Company was formed in the year 1907, and it was formed to acquire as a going concern the export, import and general business of Messrs. J. C. Arana & Hermanos, of Iquitos, Peru, Manaos, and other places. There were four

2
partners of that firm. The senior partner was Julio Cesar
Arana, the Liquidator; his brother, Lizardo Arana, was a
partner; also his brother-in-law, Pablo Zumaeta, and one
Abel Alarco. Those were the members constituting the firm
and they were the Vendors to the Company. The Company
having been formed in September, 1907, appealed to the public
for capital in December, 1908; they issued a prospectus
inviting applications for Participating Preference Shares. It
appears that in 1909 certain articles were published in a journal
called Truth containing certain allegations, specially with
regard to atrocities alleged to be committed in the Putumayo
district in the sphere of the Company's operations.
The Company's own Commission.
In the month of June, 1910, the Company appointed a
Commission to enquire into these matters: in other words, they
directed certain gentlemen, whom they selected and appointed, to
make enquiry into the truth of these allegations. The report
of the so-called Commission--the report of these gentlemen--
was made on the 16th of May, 1911. Both sides have referred to the
report. In consequence of the report the facts came to light
and a meeting was called to wind up, and in September 1911,
resolutions for winding up voluntarily were passed, and Mr. Arana
was appointed liquidator.
The State of Things Disclosed.
The report of the Company's officers, it is conceded,
disclosed a disgraceful state of affairs. The British Government
directed Sir Roger Casement, the British Consul General, to
investigate the matters, and I am told that he too has made a 
report and that report is published in a Blue Book. The report
is not evidence in this court with regard to the various matters;
it was objected to on behalf of the Respondents, and has not
been read. The report of the Company's own Commissioners

3
has been read and commented upon by both sides, and no
question is raised with regard to the admissibility in evidence
on this petition of that report, the report to the Company upon
which the Company itself went into liquidation.  The state of
things disclosed by that Company's report is, stated shortly, to
verify the allegations made previous to the enquiry being held.
Reading first at page 14, article 34 of the report deals with
the organisation of the Company: "The Company's territory
in the Putumayo was formerly administered from two main
centres, La Chorrera and El Encanto, each of which has its
manager with powers equal to and independent of those of his
colleagues; supreme authority was vested in the Manager of
the Iquitos office"-the manager of the Iquitos office is Pablo
Zumaeta, Arana's brother-in-law. He had held the Company's
power of attorney: and with regard to that, in Clause 134 of
the report it is said: "The Commissioners are of opinion that
the power of attorney given by the Company to the general
manager in Iquitos is much too full and should be revised,
especially as regards the payment of large sums of money."
So that he was the representative of the Company at Iquitos
with a full and ample power of attorney; in the opinion of the
Commissioners, too ample. As I say, paragraph 34 states
that supreme authority was vested in the manager of the
Iquitos office. Then paragraph 35; "In theory the scheme of
administration outlined above sounds excellent apart from the
difficulties and delays involved by the general manager's
residing in Iquitos, say from seven to ten days from the scene
of operations. In practice, however, it produced abominable
results from the commercial as well as from the humanitarian
point of view.  Misunderstanding and ill-feeling between the
local managers and the Iquitos office appear to have been
unceasing, and the managers both in Putumayo, and Iquitos
were at best criminally ignorant of the state of things obtaining
in the huge territory that was subject to their administration."
Then it states: "The general manager in Iquitos informed
the Commissioners that he had only been up to the Putumayo
once since the formation of the Company in 1907, and that

4
was when they met him at El Encanto on December 25th
last. The local managers on the other hand have no such
excuse; they were living on the spot and their first duty was
obviously to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with local
conditions and requirements."

Slave Driving.
Then the report gives details: "The chief's of sections
appear to have been practically free from all effective control.
. . . . . Labour supervision as carried out by such men under
the conditions above described and in the absence of any
Governmental control rapidly became indistinguishable from
slave-driving." Then the Commission give particulars of the
different considerations given to the Indians who brought
down rubber. "Advances not worked off during the 'fabrico'
are, as a rule, carried forward to the next, except in case of
sickness.  Unfortunately it has frequently been the custom to
chastise the Indians with whips, sometimes unmercifully, when
they did not deliver what the chief of section considered a
sufficient quantity of rubber.  This has been the cause of
many Indians running away rather than face the ordeal.
When this happens an armed force is sent out to hunt them
down, and they are more or less severely punished when
caught." Then, it states: "One of the severest hardships
inflicted on them was the transport of the rubber from
ontlying sections to the ports . . . . . Some of the outlying
stations on the other hand are situated fully 20 hours' walk
from the nearest river port: from these the rubber is carried
on the backs of the Indians over tracks which are not easy
to negotiate even for the unladen man. In some cases at all
events carrying is done by men, women and children: the
loads are excessive, and for food the carriers are dependent on
what they bring with them." Then it speaks of the difficulty
of the Indian food supply: "In consequence of this in many
sections the Indians have not had sufficient food, and their
resultant weakness rendered them an easy prey to malaria and

5
the epidemics of small-pox and measles that have visited the
district." Then clause 43 is a summary: "The general conditions
that have obtained in the Company's territory can only
be characterised as disgraceful.

Absolute Power.
As has already been show absolute power was put int
the hands of men who recognised no responsibility save that
of extorting rubber for their own benefit. Forced labour of
the worst sort, that imposed by fear by private individuals for
their own benefit was the basis. The Indians were considered
as possessing none of the ordinary rights of humanity, women
in particular would be assigned to employees on their arrival
in a section, and would often not be allowed to accompany
them when removed to another post, even when desirous f
so doing." Then it deals with the allegations in Truth.

Marks visible of the Backs of Men, Women
and Children.
"With regard to the allegations against the Company's
agents published in Truth and other pages, the Commission
are convinced that they are substantially correct. In fact,
during the journeys of inspection worse crimes than those
recorded were brought to light with the assistance if
interpreters, which no interpreters were needed to explain the
marks visible on the backs of the men, women and children-
marks it was hard to believe had not been impressed with
a hot iron. The managers, whether in the Putumayo or at
Iquitos, cannot shift from themselves the responsibility for this
state of things; if they were unaware of what was going on,
their ignorance admits of no excuse and can be attributed
only to the fact that no proper visits of inspection were made:
if they were acquainted withe the facts, no condemnation is too
strong for them."

6
Then in clause 47 the Commissioners say: "They are
pleased to be able to report that at the time of their
departure from the Putumayo the worst of the time of the chiefs of
sections and of the employees had been dismissed, and
energetic steps were taken in the direction of improvement
of communication and planting of 'chacaras,' whilst the
pernicious system of payment of chiefs on the basis of the
amount of rubber collected was being abolished and the work
of preparing ground collected was being abolished and the work
of preparing ground for plantations as soon as the seeds were
ripe, was being pushed forward. Under any system of civil
government, crimes must be expected to occur, but the
long-continued series of abuses which was laid bare by the
Commissioners' investigations could only have been possible
in the absence of any Government control." That is the
state of things described in this report as to which there
is now no contest that it existed.
Now, I have to look back a little to see the part that
was taken by the liquidator in the establishment of the system.
Arana has now returned to England and has made an affidavit,
and the facts that I take now I take from his affidavit.

Julio C. Arana.
He says he was the founder of the business.  "I was the
founder of the business of J. C. Arana & Hermanos, which
the above named Company (hereinafter called 'the Company)
was formed to acquire." Then he speaks of carrying on
business as a general merchant on the upper reaches of the
Amazon River in the interior of Peru and Brazil in the year
1881, his headquarters from that date down to 1889 being at
Yuri Maguas, and from 1889 down to the incorporation of the
Company at Iquitos, that is on the Amazon River in Peru.
"In the year 1903 I opened a branch office in connection with
my said business at Manaos." Then he states his connection 
with the Putumayo district. "In the year 1899 I first bought
rubber from the Putumayo, and in or about 1900 I increased

7
my purchases.  In the last-mentioned year I entered into
business with the firm of Larranaga Ramires & Company,
which had recently been established in Colonia, Indiana."
Then: "I entered into business relations with the said
Colonies, exchanging merchandise for rubber, buying produce
and making advances; I then heard for the first time that the
Indians on the Igaraparana and Caraparana had resisted the
establishment of civilised habits in their districts," and so on.
Then: "In the year 1903 I took as partners in my said
business, my brother Lizardo Arana and Pablo Zumaeta and
Abel Alarco, and the business was thenceforward carried on
under the name of J. C. Arana & Hermanos. The operations
of the firm from that time extended very rapidly, the rubber
collected was consigned for sale to Europe, and in particular
to London, that coming from Brazil being generally sold in
Manaos, where it then fetched a better price; and in the year 1907
I and my partners decided to make one the business to a
Limited Company." That is the early history of the matter,
and it was in the year 1907 that this Company was formed.
Then he deals specifically with his connection with Putumayo.
"Although I have been in the habit of traveling backwards
and forwards from Manaos to Iquitos and other places on the
upper reaches of the Amazon river and its tributaries ever
since the year 1887, and since the year 1898 with increasing
frequency, I have during the whole course of my life only
spent a few days in the Putumayo district." Then he mentions
his first visit in the year 1901, and then he speaks of the
years 1903 and 1905. In paragraph 6 he deals with a visit
in 1908, and it is to this visit that I specially draw attention.
This is a year after the Company was formed. He says:
"My next visit to the Putumayo district took place in the
year 1908," and he speaks to the circumstances of the visit;
the Peruvian Consul at Manaos was instructed by his
Government to go and ascertain whether the defenses of the
country were in order. It was said that the Colombians had
been guilty of a breach of the modus vivendi which was in
existence between Colombia and Peru.

8
British Consular Complaints.

Then he says "I was requested by the said Zapala and
de Castro to accompany them and a Peruvian naval officer, and
several other officials also accompanied the mission" He went
there, therefore, at the request of these officials. "Up to the
time of my said visit the only allegations as to the existence of
atrocities by the Company's employees in Putumayo was derived
from (1) Complaints made by the British Consul at Iquitos
against one Ramon Sanchez whom I at once dismissed; this
incident being dealt with to the entire satisfaction of the said
Counsul." Upon that, this appears to be the case, that at this
time in 1908 complaints of atrocities were formally made and
they reached the British Consul at Iquitos-the very place where
Pablo Zumaeta was the Company's representative. There is no
explanation whatever of any steps which Pablo Zumaeta took
with regard to this matter. He was the Company's representative
before, he continued the representative after, and it is
inconceivable that format complaints of atrocities dealing with
the natives should have reached the British Consul and should
have been made the subject of formal complaint, without the
Company's representative at Iquitos knowing about them.

Pablo Zumaeta.

I am quite aware that Arana in his affidavit says: "Neither
I nor any member of my firm ever had any suspicion of the
real characters of these men or of the cruelties which they are
alleged to have practiced upon the Indian inhabitants of the
district." But it is certainly scarcely credible that a member of
the firm, Pablo Zumaeta, then resident at Iquitos, should not
have been made acquainted with these formal complaints of
atrocities which had reached the British Consul, which were
formally made to Arana when he visited the place himself,
and upon which he says he dismissed Ramon Sanchez. Ramon
Sanchez was his own partner in another firm. It was he who


9

was in joint command of the army of invasion from Barbados
who were imported by Arana's other firm, apparently to
manage the Indians and to assist in the collection of rubber.

The other complaints which Arana heard in 1908 were the
complaints made by two journals, La Felpa and La Sancoine
newspapers. With regards to those he says that the journals
themselves were of very low credit and were papers to which
no credence ought to be attached. Then he says "I made
careful inquiries on the occasion of my said visit as to the
atrocities alleged in these publications, but I heard nothing
which led me to the conclusion that the said charges were
well-founded. On the contrary I came to the conclusion that
such charges were absolutely without foundation, nor on the
occasion of my said visit did I hear anything of the desire
which is alleged to have existed among the Barbadians who
had previously been sent into the district by the firm of
Arana Brothers and Hermanos to return from the district.
In fact, at that time, the position in the district, so far as the
Company was concerned, appeared to be perfectly satisfactory,
and I was firmly convinced that there was no foundation at
all for the charges which had been made in the said papers."

This Affidavit of Arana's is Eloquent by
its Silence.
This affidavit of Arana's is eloquent by its silence.
Although it denies that there was any truth in the atrocities 
referred to in these papers it states that there was so much
truth in the atrocities mentioned by the British Consul at
Iquitos that Ramon Sanchez was immediately dismissed: but
there are no further particulars of what the atrocities were
that were then brought home to the knowledge of Arana, and
there is not a syllable of any remonstrance with Pablo Zumaeta
or of his leaving the Company's employ at all.  That was in
1908.  These natives from Barbados who were apparently
imported to manage the Indians, had been imported by Señor

10
Arana's firm and had been there several years at the time of
the visit in 1908. It appears in paragraph 10 of the affidavit
that they were imported in the year 1904: "These centres
were originally placed under the management of the said
'caucheros' or settlers in the district whom we found there.
These settlers were mostly Columbians who had penetrated the
country down the river from Columbia. In the year 1904 my
firm introduced into the district some labourers who had been
engaged by us in Barbados in order to assist the caucheros,
under whose control they were placed, My said firm never had
any direct control over the methods by which the rubber was
collected, and neither I nor any member of my firm had any idea
that these methods partook of the savage and cruel character
which now appears to have been the case. The first contingent
of labourers arrived from Barbados in November, 1904, and were
placed under the directions of the above mentioned Ramon
Sanchez (a Colombian) who was assisted by Armando
Normand. The two latter were settlers, Sanchez being a
partner in Larranaga Arana & Co., and Norman an employee
of that firm." That was the position with regard to the
importation of these men from Barbados.  Then in 1909, the
next year, the articles appeared in Truth, and with regard
to those Arana says this in paragraph 11 "At the end of the
year 1909 the articles in Truth appeared. I was then on my
way to England, and on my arrival, the Board of the Company
sent express directions to our head agent at Iquitos (who at
that time was Pablo Zumaeta) that if any such practices as
were referred to in the said articles existed in the Putumayo,
they were at once to be put an end to, and we were assured
by the said Pablo Zumaeta that the said statements were
entire fabrications and that no such practices existed."

Collecting Rubber in an Atrocious Manner.
This is he same Pablo Zumaeta that had been left in
command at Iquitos after the summary dismissal of Sanchez

11
for these very atrocities.  Then he refers to the Commission,
to the Commission going out, and to the report.  After the
Commissioners had reported it was followed by the winding up.

In my opinion the position is this: Señor Arana, with
his three partners were jointly concerned in selling a business
that had for years before the sale been concerned in collecting
rubber in the atrocious manner disclosed in the report, and it was
the profits arising from that business, and in part from the
rubber so collected, that were set out in the prospectus of the
Company.  In my opinion it is quite impossible to acquit all
the members of the firm of knowledge of the way in which
the rubber was being collected.  Certainly the atrocities must
have been brought home to Pablo Zumaeta long before the time
of this Company's Commission, and if Arana personally was
unaware of the extend to which these atrocities were being
committed, he ought to have known and he ought to have
ascertained.

The Last Person.

In my opinion, having regard to his connection with the
Company, and his business in the district and his position as
Vendor, he is the last person that ought to be in any way
connected with the winding-up of the Company.

The matter does not stop there.  There are other matters
that are in part referred to in this report and in part not.  The
other matters are on the financial aspect of the question. The
Company issued a prospectus in December, 1908, and in that
prospectus they state that at the 30th June, 1907, from which
date the Company took over the business, the excess of assets
over liabilities, exclusive of the Putumayo estates, amounted,
according to the accounts to that date furnished by the firm
of J. C. Arana & Hermanos, to over 509,000, [pounds] upwards of
half-a-million of assets over and above liabilities, excluding
the Putumayo Estates.  The profits for the two years ending
the 30th June, 1907, are stated to average upwards of

12
£95,000 a year.  For the year 1908, although this was a
prospectus issued in December, the accounts were not yet
completed, but it says "from cabled information received it is
believed that the profits for that year, exclusive of Putumayo,
will amount to not less than £84,000."  After a short interval
-- that was at the end of 1908 -- we have the Profit and Loss
Account for the year and a quarter from September, 1907, to
December, 1908, and the balance there for the 15 months
is brought down at a loss, the balancing item of loss is £ 2,223.
That was down to the end of 1908.  At the end of 1909
there is an estimated profit of £35,000, and then before any
further accounts are submitted to the shareholders, because
remittances do not come forward to cover acceptances the
Company goes into liquidation.  The announcement of the
intention to go into liquidation is conveyed in a circular of the
31st August, 1911, whereby the Secretary of the Company
says: "I regret to inform you that not having received the
expected remittances of rubber which were promised, the
Company finds itself unable to meet its engagements in
London.  In order, therefore, to protect the interests of
creditors and shareholders the Board now proposes that the
Company be wound-up voluntarily."  So that the Company
starting with such prospects as this Company was alleged to
have in 1908, in September, 1911, passes into liquidation,
being unable to meet its liabilities.

The Financial Position.
  The report of the Company's Commissioners is not altogether
silent with regard to the financial position.  Paragraph 78 of
the report is in these terms: "The Commissioners wish to
draw the particular attention of the Directors to the fact that
the promoters of the Company, D. Julio Arana, D. Lizardo
Arana, D. Pablo Zumaeta and some of their relations, appear in
the books at June 30th, 1910, as having overdrawn their personal
accounts to the extent of many thousands of pounds."  That is
the position of these vendors to the Company, overdrawing their

13

own accounts to the tune of many thousands of pounds, and yet
the Company is obliged to go into liquidation because it cannot
meet its acceptances.  According to the audited accounts it
would appear that the overdraft, beyond what was warranted,
was something like £22,000 in excess of what they were entitled
to draw; and yet, Senor Arana, one of the persons who has
effected this overdraft, remains in control as liquidator.
  Then there is another matter to which I think I ought to
draw attention.  On the balance sheet of the 31st December,
1908 there is this memorandum: "Note. -- The Vendors are
claiming in respect of an amount of approximately £55,000.
which is not admitted as a liability by the Company, and is
therefore excluded from the figures shewn in the balance sheet."
That appears in the report for the year ending 1908.  Again,
upon the balance sheet as at the 31st December, 1909, there is
this note: "Note. -- The question referred to in a note on the
last published balance sheet for an amount of about £55,000
is appended," and that is dated the 5th December, 1910, -- that
is the date of the auditor's report upon it.

A Claim by Mrs. Arana.
  It now appears that that is a claim by Mrs. Arana, the
wife of Julio Arana, and it appears that Pablo Zumaeta,
acting apparently under his power, but as some of the
Directors of the Company allege, in excess of his power of
attorney, executed some document, a mortgage or some other
document, in favour of Mrs. Arana for £55,000 or £60.000.
The debt is disputed.  It has been disputed, as appears from
the notes on the two balance sheets to which I have drawn
attention.  It is difficult to see upon what footing Mrs. Arana
could have supported that claim against the Company.  The
claim is put upon the ground that the Company took over the
debts of Arana's firm, and that this was a debt due by the
firm to Mrs. Arana, but if the Company took over the debts
of Arana's firm, that was only on a contract between the



14
Company and Arana ; it was not a contract upon which
Mrs. Arana could have sued the Company: there was no
novation: and from anything before me it would appear that
Mrs. Arana had no direct claim against the Company under
any circumstances, and that the two notes put upon the balance
sheets were justified and correct, notwithstanding that it is
now alleged that this matter has now been settled and that
Mrs. Arana has in some way acquired some security.  It is
obvious that a security so acquired ought to be impeached and
would be impeached in the ordinary course, it would be
questioned and looked into.  But who is to do this?  It has
been given to her and given to her by her brother -- Arana's 
brother-in-law -- Pablo Zumaeta : and yet it is said, notwithstanding
these matters, that Arana is a proper person to be
and remain liquidator.
  I am quite satisfied upon the whole of the case, both with
regard to the manner in which the operations of the Company
were conducted in the Putumayo district and in Brazil, and
with regard to the way in which the financial transactions in
this country have been concerned, that it is a case in which
there ought to be a Compulsory order to be followed by the
fullest investigation, and that Senor Arana is the last person
to whom the conduct of that investigation ought to be allocated.
Under those circumstances I make the Compulsory order.
Mr. MATHEWS: There will be the usual order as to costs.
Mr. JUSTICE SWINFEN EADY : Yes.

A SPECIAL PUTUMAYO FUND.

  In order to discharge existing liabilities and
continue vigorously the agitation for effective reform, the
ANTI-SLAVERY AND ABORIGINES PROTECTION SOCIETY has decided
to create a Special Fund for this purpose.

£1,000 REQUIRED.
(Two promises of £50 have already been received.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Putumayo Fund.

i have pleasure in giving a donation of .............................................. pounds
................................. shillings and .............................................. pence towards the
SPECIAL PUTUMAYO FUND.
                                                 Signed .......................................................................

                                                 Address ....................................................................
                                                              .....................................................................

Cheques should be made payable to the Society and crossed
MESSRS. BARCLAY & Co., LIMITED, 95, Victoria Street, S.W.




British Easy Africa

BACK TO 
SLAVERY?

An Appeal 
to 
The Rt. Hon. Lewis Harcourt, M.P.
His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State 
for the Colonies

Issued by 
THE ANTI-SLAVERY AND ABORIGINES 
PROTECTION SOCIETY

Denison House, 
Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, S.W.

   TO THE RT. HON. LEWIS HARCOURT, M. P,
H. M. PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES
                                                         11 JUNE, 1914
SIR,--
The Committee of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society 
has had under consideration the evidence and report of the Commission 
upon Native Labour in the Protectorate of East Africa.

   With most of the recommendations of the Commission the Society finds
itself in hearty agreement, but in several respects the Commission is less 
pronounced than we should have desired. In view of the fact that ultimate 
decision upon several points of vital importance to the Protectorate is left 
with His Majesty's Government, we beg to appeal to you for a declaration
upon specific issues, either to the Society direct, or in some other manner 
which may seem to you desirable. The Committee of the Society believes 
that it is asking for nothing to which His Majesty's Government would
take exception, but it does feel strongly that the permanent welfare of the 
Protectorate would be enhanced by a declaration from yourself in the near 
future.

Labour Supply.
The main contention of the planters in East Africa is that there is an 
ample supply of labour in the Protectorate, but that the natives are so 
content with their lot in the Reserves that they will not emerge in sufficient
numbers to labour for the white man, and that, in view of this position of 
affairs, it is the duty of His Majesty's Government to take adequate steps to 
force the labour out of the Reserves. The Society begs to challenge at the 
outset the contention that is part of the duty of an Administration to secure
a labour supply for industrial development.  Any form of administrative
recruitment is bound, sooner or later, as pointed out by the Commission,
to lead to compulsion, and in the opinion of the Society, forced labour for
private profit is slavery. The Committee trusts that the Colonial advisers
of His Majesty's Government may also accept this view, which is, we beg 
to point out, that of Sir E. Grey, and, moreover, is endorsed by that eminent 
administrator, the Earl of Cromer.

The best incentive to a flow of free labour is a good name, and it is worthy
of notice that in the evidence before the Labour Commission several 
witnesses expressed the opinion that with better treatment there need be little
                                              1

2
fear with reference to the labour supply.  Mr. Ainsworth, the Provincial
Commissioner of the Nyanza Province, stated: --
  "He had yet to learn that there was any actual shortage of labour in
the Protectorate; he considered, however, that there was a considerable
amount of waste or unemployed labour.  Where natives had not been properly
looked after, or where the work or climate was uncongenial, it was only
to be expected that they would show a disinclination to return there, and at such
places there might be some difficulty as regards the labour supply."
  The Committee begs to call attention to two further passages only
from the mass of evidence upon this point.  The Labour Inspector at
Mombasa, Mr. J. M. Pearson, says, with an authority that cannot be
questioned: --
  "In nine cases out of ten it is lack of confidence both in the employer
and in the Government protection to which he looks, that keeps the native
from work.  It has been said times without number that such-and-such
tribes have no idea of work -- and all owing to their shyness.  It was said
of the Teita, it was said of the Mweru Kikuyu, and those tribes provide the
bulk of the labour on the Mombasa water-supply to-day.  I am convinced
that if, with the proper organization of labour and the kindred remedies
suggested below, the natives' confidence could be restored, there would be no
lack of labour in this country.  If the native believed in fair treatment and
in Government protection, his natural curiosity, his inherently childish
greed, his spirit of adventure, would once more awake.  Once at work in
good conditions, he would not care to leave them."
  Dr. Norman Leys exposes, with all the force of sound medical opinion,
some of the palpable causes which militate against that confidence which
Mr. Pearson rightly regards as being essential : --
  "The law," says Dr. Leys, "in its actual practice, rarely punishes a
European, even for brutal assaults.  The last case of the kind in my experience
occurred in Fort Hall during August.  A boy called Maniki was believed
by his master to have stolen some of his property and was given at
least fifty lashes.  Large patches of skin sloughed off.  The boy was lodged
in jail and was medically treated there for three weeks.  The charge against
him was then withdrawn, and he was released.  Nor was his master prosecuted
for his brutality.  The boy did not charge him and apparently, as the
law stands, no one else can.  This, the usual ending to such a case, has
the worst kind of consequences.  One of them is to adversely affect the
labour market."
  The Committee of the Society begs to suggest that a more extended
system of investigation into the condition of employment and the prompt
punishment of acts of cruelty and oppression by bad employers is not only
imperative, but would soon have the effect of accelerating a flow of free labour
to the farms of just and humane employers.  The Committee has learned
with much satisfaction that His Majesty's Government has decided to increase
the administration staff in the Protectorate by 30 per cent., and
begs to ask whether this increase has yet taken place.



3

RESERVES.
   We observe that the members of the Commission found themselves
unable to advise His Majesty's Government as to whether existing Reserves
are, or are not, too large, and with regard to the undemarcated Reserves,
the recommendation is that these should be demarcated, but with a view to
reserving sufficient land for the present population only.  We cannot help
feeling that if the Commission had been able to take the evidence of the same
proportion of native as of white residents, the members would have been
able to reach a more decisive conclusion.
  The Committee is of the opinion that not only should there be a
reserve of land for the existing population, but that any demarcation which
may take place should provide an adequate margin for the increase of population.
It is, however, by no means clear that existing areas are large enough
for the present population.
  The Hon. C. Dundas has emphasized this with regard to the Kyambu
Reserve: --
  "The area of the Kyambu Reserve was some 300 square miles, and the
population according to this year's census showed 39,282 men, women and
children, an average of five acres per head.  A good deal of the land was full
of bracken and would be of considerably greater value if the natives were
induced to plough it up.  The population was apparently increasing, but
had not recovered more than one quarter of its former standing prior to
its decimation by smallpox, but when it was once more normal. the Reserve
would not be sufficient to maintain it, unless the agricultural methods of the
natives were improved."
    Mr. C. R. Lane, dealing with the general question of Reserves, says: --
  "Reserves were, in his opinion, very wealthy, but filling up rapidly
with stock, and in a few years would be too small.  He would not advocate
enlarging the Reserves; reducing them in size might assist the labour supply,
but would ruin the natives."
Mr. Ruffell Barlow gives a third and convincing reason for maintaining
adequate Reserves: --
  "If the Native Reserves were cut down in area or the natives forced
to leave their homes for long periods, they would become attached to the
settlements, the influence of which was to civilize them down, whereas,
given a fair chance in the Reserves, Christian missionaries and good government
would civilize them 'up'."
  The Hon. C. W. Hobley and Mr. Watts both point to the injustice of
cutting down the Reserves, the latter remarking: --
  "The reduction of the Reserves was a most unjust suggestion.  There
should be ample room for expansion, for, say, two or three generations.  He
referred only to the Kikuyu Reserves, not having sufficient knowledge of
any others to form an opinion upon them."

4
Mr. C. S. Hemsted in his memorandum has pointed out that once the
Reserve areas are reduced it is well-nigh impossible to place more land at
the disposal of the native tribes:--
"The reduction of Native Reserves once undertaken is irrecoverable."
In connexion with the question of Reserves, there is some evidence,
not so emphatic as we should have wished to see, that a feature of administrative
policy is that of encouraging the native to cultivate and export his
own produce. The planters argue that this policy will prejudice East African
exports owing to the fact that native grown products are and will continue
to be of a low grade quality. We submit that the general progress
of the Colony is the paramount consideration for the Government, and that
it is the duty of the merchant and the administrator to encourage, by every
means, the native producer, particularly by giving him instructions as to
methods of preparing marketable produce. This policy, we beg to remind
His Majesty's Government, has proved signally successful in West Africa.
As an example we may mention the cocoa industry of the Gold Coast. We
believe His Majesty's Government is aware that in 1908 the cocoa export
for the Gold Coast was composed of 5 per cent. good, 15 per cent. fair, and
80 per cent. common, and that in 1912 the proportions had altered thus:
35 per cent. good, 50 per cent. fair, and 15 per cent common.
The Committee begs to urge that no expropriation of Reserves shall be
allowed to take place without the fullest inquiry as to the desires of the
existing inhabitants. That certain white settlers are bent upon this policy
is abundantly clear, a typical example being Mr. Boyes of Kyambu, who
naïvely suggests that:--
"The whole population of the Reserve near Nairobi, adjacent to the
Railway, should be shifted and be given land elsewhere, and he suggested
the Bamboo Forest, where they would still be in their own country and to
which they would be pleased to go; while the land vacated by them should
be granted to white settlers in holdings of from 200 to 300 acres, which would
enable 1,000 white settlers to live within a forty miles' radius of the capital."
We hold that the natives have at least an equal right with Europeans
to live in fertile and healthy localities, but, as Mr. O. F. Watkins pointedly
remarks:--
"The early European immigrant thus found that the most thickly
populated areas, the low-lying, fertile, but to him unhealthy lands, were in
native occupation. The high, cold country, eminently desirable in Northern
eyes, was comparatively bare. He christened these European areas. The
malarial lands he called native areas. Then he went home and formed
companies."
We trust it may be possible to receive an assurance that natives occupying
existing Reserves will not be removed without the fullest inquiry upon

5
the comparative healthiness, fertility and size of the areas to which it may be
proposed to move any of the tribes.
THE TREATMENT OF LABOUR.
The Society desires to place on record it high appreciation of the attitude
and conduct of the majority of His Majesty's officials, several of whom
appear to hold firmly to the best traditions of British Colonial statecraft,
whilst exhibiting a readiness to advance original proposals for the economic
and moral progress of the Protectorate. But at the same time the Committee
of the Society deplores the fact that the evidence shows that in
many parts of the Protectorate there is a lack of sympathetic supervision
of native health and life; that compulsory labour is of frequent occurrence,
and that incidents of cruelty are by no means rare, whilst the attitude of
mind adopted by some settlers towards native rights points to the importance
of providing some machinery for the protection of native health,
liberty and rights.
We should appreciate being informed as to the steps taken by His
Majesty's Government to secure an improvement in the means of travel on
the railway lines. The Committee fails to understand why natives travelling
to labour centres should be locked in railway coaches, and begs to suggest
that it should be made a punishable offence to convey labourers at any
time locked in covered goods vans; that such should ever have been at
any time a practice constitutes a scandal, the remedy for which brooks no
delay.
The Committee begs to urge that some further effort should be made to
watch over the welfare of labourers travelling by road, and that arrangements
should be made for the supply at given distances of food, water, fire,
shelter and medical attendance. That this would be as much in the
interest of the settlers as in that of good government is shown by the following
passage in the evidence of Dr. Philp:--
"In his opinion the Nairobi-Fort Hall road alone was annually
responsible for more deaths than would supply the present demand for
labour in this country. The sickness on that road was chiefly malaria and
dysentery."
The chief points upon which the Society would appreciate assurances
are as follows:--
(a) That the Reserves will not be curtailed, or any of the people at
present on Reserves removed, without their approval.
(b) That His Majesty's Government will accept the proposition that
forced labour for private profit is a form of slavery and will not
therefore be tolerated.

6

We beg to ask if any information upon the following subjects can be 
supplied to the Committee :-
(a) Under what conditions will compulsory labour for public works 
be demanded?
(b) What steps are being taken to improve travelling facilities for the 
labourers?
(c) Whether His Majesty's Government proposes to appoint more 
officials whose sole duty will be that of protecting native 
labourers?
We have the honour to be, Sir, 
Your  most obedient humble servants,
(Signed) TRAVERS BUXTON,
Secretary.
JOHN H. HARRIS,
Organizing Secretary. 

Butler & tanner Frome and London

THE PRESENT-DAY 
Enslavement of Native Races 
INVOLVES 
WIDESPREAD OPPRESSION AND CRUELTY,
THE ANTI-SLAVERY AND ABORIGINES PROTECTION 
SOCIETY
exists to oppose every form of cruelty and injustice to native races,
and appeals to every man and woman to become a member of the 
Society.

A Subscription of 10s. constitutes membership 
of the Society and secures the receipt of the Quarterly 
Journal.
Donations and Subscriptions of smaller and larger 
amounts will be thankfully received by the - 
SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY,
Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road, S.W.

JUST PUBLISHED.   Price 6/ - nett
Dawn in Darkest Africa 
By 
John H. Harris, F.R.G.S. 
With an Introduction by 
The Rt. Hon. the Earl of Cromer, O.M., P.C., 
G.C.B.

Sir Harry Johnston: "A wise book from West Africa. 
Mr. Harrison has rendered a great public service in the 
preparation and publishing of his book. Perhaps the most 
mportant feature of the work is its politico-economic side. 
Mr. Harris attempts to write with absolute impartiality."

EXACT REPRINT
SOUTHCOTT'S PROPHECIES 

Joanna Southcott's 
ANSWER TO 
Five Charges 
IN 
Leeds Mercury 

Original Printed in London, 1805. 

This Pamphlet is Truly Prophetic and of Great Historical 
and Sociological Interest at this present time of War and 
Distress, being a Record of the Napoleonic Era. 

CHEAP AUSTRALIAN EDITION.

GOSFORD TIMES PRINT.
Reprinted 1915.

Exact reprint from "Southcott's Prophecies" 
published in 1805.

JOANNA SOUTHCOTT'S 
ANSWER TO 
FIVE CHARGES 
IN THE 
LEEDS MERCURY,
Four of which are absolutely FALSE;
But as in the first Charge, her Accuser might have 
some room for Cavilling, she wishes to make 
every Allowance; and give a clear Answer, 
how that was misunderstood: and not 
only to Answer the
FOUR FALSE CHARGES
that are brought against her; but she has brought
FOUR TRUE CHARGES 
AGAINST 
her Adversaries, 
WHICH WILL BE SEEN 
In the following Pages.
Printed at "Times" Office, Mann-street, Gosford.

FIRST CHARGE.
"I know she declared to the World, that her sealing would cease
on the last day of December, 1803, old style; and it is well-known
she continues the practice to this day."
II. "She positively declared, that in March last, the invasion
would take place ; this I believe she did not put in print, but I dare
say the believer has heard her affirm it many times."
  III. "Is a tremendous prediction : your every grain, says the
Prophetess, shall be smitten with rust and mildew." This the
believers say, has come to pass ; I appeal, Mr. Editor, to you and all
the world, whether the late harvest did not rather falsify than establish
this prediction ; wheat was indeed in some places a failing crop,
but in several others it was exactly the reverse.
  IV.—"I come now to Joanna's late awful Trial, so long foretold.
The unbelieving Clergy, it was said, "would be compelled to be present,
and acknowledge the mission of this wonderful Woman ; I ask
the believers, is this true?"
  V.  "And lastly, she frequently said, the Lord had made it known
to her that she should not live to see the end of the year, 1804. Is
this true? certainly not. How then dare this woman charge such
falsehoods upon heaven ?  The word of God has decided upon her
pretensions, and says, "When a prophet speaketh in the name of the
Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing
which the Lord hath not spoken but the Prophet hath spoken it
presumptuously ; thou shalt not be afraid of him.
  Since Joanna had her answers to the charges brought against her
wrote for the press, a believer has found a few places in her books,
where the sealing is mentioned. One is in HER DISPUTES WITH THE
POWERS OF DARKNESS, page 126. "I will not hurt the earth or the
sea till I have sealed up my servants," &c.—the number in the Revelation
is 144 thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel,
which cannot be limited to one year, and to one nation.  IN THE
ANSWER OF THE LORD TO THE POWERS OF DARKNESS, page 53 and 54,
is mentioned the blessings to the sealed people, and what is to
happen after one year's sealing. In page 104 OF THE SAME BOOK,
which ought to be read with great attention, is the true meaning of
the Sealing clearly explained ; and it thus says, that AFTER JOANNA'S
DEATH, her SEAL must be given to a FRIEND. Now the reader's good
sense must convince him, that the sealing must continue for several
years, which is to go into every land as being the leaves for the
healing of the nations. In p. 60 of the 2d BOOK of VISIONS, there it
is again said, the sealing is to go into different nations, and is again
mentioned in THE WARNING TO THE WORLD, pages 53 and 54 ; and
in pages 62 and 63 of the SAME BOOK, it there speaks of the TWELVE
nations to be sealed ; but the greater number may appear in England.
These two pages ought to be read with attention ; and in page 96 of
the SAME BOOK, are these words, "THEREFORE I HAVE NOW GIVEN MY
STRICT COMMAND, THAT NO ONE SHALL HAVE a SEAL FROM THEE WHO
HATH NOT READ MY WORKS, WHICH ARE GIVEN TO THEE." The command
was given after the first sealing ended, which was the last
day of December, 1803, old style. The reader may form a glorious
idea of the effects of the sealing, by the healing of the nations, from
the 9th verse of the 7th of Revelation—" After this I beheld, and lo
a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and
kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the Throne, and
before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands, &c.

JOANNA SOUTHCOTT'S
  ANSWER
TO THE CHARGES IN THE PRECEDING PAGE ;
Also, the true meaning of the Words of Christ on the Cross,
  When He said, "IT IS FINISHED."

THE FIRST CHARGE—That the Sealing would 
cease on the last day of December, 1803, old style.
Joanna's answer.—It is known to all, as to the
manner that my sealing first went out, which lasted
but one year, and stopped at the time mentioned ; and
men were strictly charged by her, as well as what
was put in print, that none but believers were to be
sealed for the future, so that the sealing for unbelievers
was put an end to ; and they must be impostors,
if ever any more that are unbelievers are
sealed. So the Spirit spoke the perfect Truth
there ; but never was it said by me, nor by the
Spirit that attends me, that the sealing of believers
would cease in one year : for in 1802, (I think it is
printed) it was said that after my death, my seal
would be given to some one, that would seal the people
of OTHER NATIONS, as well as this; and that the sealing
was never understood to cease, till the number
was sealed mentioned in the Revelation.
  AND HERE IS THE ANSWER OF THE SPIRIT
"Now, Joanna, I shall answer thee.  It is to
bring all men to their Bibles, that I have directed
thee to go on in this manner, that is not known or
understood by man. Thou knowest I ordered the 
sealing to go on for believers or unbelievers ; to 
draw a bow at a venture, to seal those that wished
for MY KINGDOM to be established, and Satan's to
be destroyed ; whether they were true believers in
thy visitation or not.  But it is known unto thee
and all believers, that it ended at the time mentioned ;
and all were refused that came a day after ;
SO FOR UNBELIEVERS IT THERE CEASED, and the words for
them were fulfilled and verified. Now I shall bring
men from this to my BIBLE : Know what I said on
the Cross—It is finished ! and now I will tell thee what
             A


4
what was finished:-Satan's power over ME was
finished; for, like the sealing for unbelievers, that
was then put a stop to, by my command, so Satan's
malice was put a stop to , by MY POWER.  For
though I submitted to his malice to the death of
the Cross; yet he had no power to go further; for
with all the band of soldiers, that was placed by 
HIS ARTS, working in men to secure MY BODY, THEY
HAD NO POWER to secure it, or prevent my rising
from the dead, in the same perfect BODY I laid 
down for man.  So all the arts, all the malice, and
all the power that men and devils, had over ME were
FINISHED ON THE CROSS; for they could go no further!!
But did the arts of men and devils stop there? or 
did their malice and fury stop there? Did they not
follow my disciples with the same malice, the same
fury, and the same unbelief, and persecuted them
as they before had persecuted Me? Now I ask
mankind, what they will prove was finished at that
time, any more than I have mentioned? For if all
the power of the Devil had been finished and all
unbelief had been finished, and all MY WORK had 
been accomplished, it must stop there, and have 
GONE NO FURTHER; perfectly so is the sealing: my
strict command was given, to put a stop to all unbelievers
being sealed at the end of that year.  And
know I said whoever came in after, without faith,
were Thieves and Robbers; so the Truth of
the Words were verified and fulfilled by ME, by
the command I gave to thee. But did my disciples
understand what I meant, when I said it was 
finished? All men must answer no; neither didst
thou understand, or did thy friends understand THE
MEANING of letting unbelievers be sealed that year,
and then stop them, before I explained it unto 
thee; and perfectly so is MY BIBLE, which many
men wrest to their own condemnation- as they no
more understand the meaning of my words, saying
- It was finished, than they understand the meaning 
of thy sealing being put a stop to at the end of 
year.  But know what I told thee before, in
the answer to the powers of darkness, (the 93rd
page)

5
page)   The people shall be numbered by the seals,
and the number of the tribes, mentioned in the Revelation,
shall now be sealed.  Now let men mark
the words, and then judge for themselves, whether
they thought that number could come in ONE YEAR,
or whether they thought I meant to call the unbelievers
for them to be of the tribes sealed? I tell
them no: the tribes of the sealed must be those
that are sealed by faith.  But know how many that
were sealed in unbelief, have destroyed their seals
already; then how can they be numbered by their 
seals? Now I tell thee, the wisdom of men can never 
explain MY BIBLE, nor ever prove it true, by
any judgment they can draw; for by the judgment
of men, they make MY BIBLE as false as their
judgment made thy words false, that thou spokest
by my command.  Now perfectly so was the accusation
of the Jews, when they came against ME;
they made use of MY WORDS without MY meaning;
they said - "this fellow saith, I will destroy the
temple of God, and in three days build it again."
St. Matthew, xxvith chapter, 61st verse.  These
are the words and accusations that were brought
against ME, from my saying I would "destroy the
Temple of God," which I meant my own Body,
that I would give up for the power of men to destroy;
that meaneth, to take my life from ME,
and build it again in three days, which I meant by
rising again the third day in my perfect BODY, as it
was before; though they alluded my meaning to
the Temple of God, to be the buildings of their 
temple; so taking MY words without My meaning,
they condemned ME, as they thought justly.
Now to bring men to know their Bibles, I have
spoke words to thee, in the SPIRIT  perfectly as I
spoke them in the BODY, that ye may weigh one
with the other; to see how it was spoken, and how
it was fulfilled: they they will discern, that from 
ONE SPIRIT came the whole; and not from the wisdom
of man, but from the wisdom of God.  And
here my own meaning is in all I have said; and like
MY BIBLE, thy writings are fulfilled; and so I now
have

6

have tried the unbelieving world, at the time that I
had fixed for them; and then gave a strict command,
their sealing should go no further. And now
my strict command is, as I have told thee already,
he that wishest to be sealed, without having a true
faith that thy visitation is from the Lord, is a thief
and a robber. But now go on to the words, that 
the number of the chapter must be sealed : the sealing
did not stop for believers, neither was it finished
at that time, any more than all my office that I had
to go through, and all that my death was for, was 
finished on the cross ; for then the destruction of 
the Jews must be finished for ever, and man's destruction, 
instead of their redemption, must be finished
by my Death and sufferings ; and instead of
bruising Satan's head, by my heel that was bruised
on the Cross, his power and malice must be the
greater, and instead of fulfilling the Bible, I must
die to destroy it ; and my apostles must come after
ME with false doctrine. Now let men look as strict
into my Bible and point out all the words that are
there, and they will bring more charges against the
Bible, from the judgment that is drawn by man, than
they can bring against thee : for the prophecies I
have spoken to thee are more plain to be understood
than my Bible. And now I shall come to the
Second Charge made against thee. 
    Second Charge : "She positively declared, that 
in March last the Invasion would take place."--To
this charge I shall answer for myself. -- It is a notorious
falsehood ; for it is known to all my believers,
perfectly as the communications were
given to me, I put them in print; and whatever
might be the judgment of others, my
judgment was, and Invasion would never take place
before my awful trial ; as I never could believe,
that if the French were to land and destroy one half
of the nation, or a great part of them, that ever my
writing would be demanded by my enemies; or
that I could have any awful trial to go through : --
for it is mentioned in many places in my writings,
that I have an awful trial to go through from my enemies, 

7

enemies, by their unbelief. But how could this
take place, if the French came in and destroyed the
land, and myself, and the believers were preserved
in the midst of dangers? who then would come
against me? This to me appears as great a folly, as
is possible for any to imagine ; and a judgment that
was never drawn by me ; but I have disputed on the inconsistency
of such belief ; and as to the French landing,
I am not clear they ever will, by what I understand
of my writings ; but if they do land, it will be suddenly
and unexpectedly. Now mark the second
page of the warning to the World, where it is said
-- "I have already told thee, like a snare it shall
come upon them in a day they little think of, and in
an hour unawares ; for as they have said, they want
not the knowledge of the Most High, the knowledge
of the Most High they shall not have" : So 
the second charge laid against me is entirely false ;
for no likeness of the words were ever spoke by
me ; and if I was to speak from my own judgment,
I am more of opinion that the meaning of the 
enemies wounding our land, means the keeping on
the burden of the war to wound our substance, distress
the land, and starve the poor, than it means
wounding the land by an invasion ; for then the
wound might be over ; but now I see we are wounded
daily. But this is my own judgment not a prophecy;
for the prophecy that was given of the Cat
and Dog mean the French and the English. So
every one is left to draw their judgment as they
like, and I have told you how I have drawn mine; 
but I never could understand from any of my writings,
that either sword or famine would be in our
land in my days, and therefore it was said--if I 
died at the end of the year 1804, then they might
fear to see fatal judgments in the following year. To
the second charge is without any foundation, of
truth ; words that I never spoke, nor ever thought.
     Here is the answer of the Spirit - 
"Now I shall answer thee of the Second Charge
against thee, which is known to ME to be as false

8

false as thou hast affirmed it; for I well know the
thoughts of thy heart; thou hast always judged the
sword would never happen in the land in thy days,
because I always told thee, the things thou so much
fearest and dreadest, thou never should see. But
now I shall answer to the second charge made against
thee, that is entirely false: and all men will find, full
as false is the second charge made against the woman
now, as the first charge was made for want of
judgment and understanding, concerning the sealing.
But the second charge is absolutely false,
without any foundation; and perfectly so I tell thee
of the woman: the first charge that was made in the
Fall, were truth and errors blended together, for
want of judgment: for it is true the woman gave it
to the man; and it is true I gave the man the woman;
but here was the error in the Fall of the 
Man: he did not cast the blame where he ought to
have done, as the woman did; though he knew
from her the way it came; yet, instead of casting
it as she did, on the serpent, he cast it on his MAKER,
which put a stop to their happiness at once - 
as I put a stop to the sealing, when I saw in what
manner the unbelievers went on. But now I shall
come back to the Fall: though I put a stop to the 
happiness they had in ME, and they were dead to 
the knowledge of their God, and cast out of Paradise,
yet I did not make an end to the whole; for
though I said in the day thou eatest thereof, thou
shalt surely die, yet he did not die a natural death, to
be no more in this world; but his life was prolonged,
and the Promise was made to go on, till the
woman's seed should bruise the Serpent's head. - 
Now I tell thee, perfectly like thy sealing the Promise
stands in the Fall; the first curse was laid upon
them, with that curse the PROMISE was made
to the woman to avenge the serpent; and for his
curse to be the greatest. But this truth men will
not allow; but, like the men by thy sealing, say, the
whole curse must remain of the Fall upon the human
race of mankind, never to be removed. So the
first charge that they laid upon the woman, the devil

9
holds mankind to keep her there forever; but
to claim the Promise that was made her, they deny
its ever being designed to be obtained. Then I
ask mankind, to what purpose was my word given?
For I now tell all men, full as false as thou sayest
the second charge is, they have brought against
thee, full as false have men made MY Word in the
SECOND PROMISE, made to the woman; they baffle
away the first, and firmly deny the truth of the seconde:
and now I tell thee and all mankind, let
them read thy writings through, and my Bible
through, and I will prove it impossible for all the
enemies thou hast in the world to prove thy writings
as false s they are proving my Bible; therefore
I have brought them to the standard of the Bible,
to see what men make of their Bibles. Now
concerning the Sealing: there was some room for thy
enemies to speak, that did not understand my
meaning; and so there was some room for Adam
to find fault, as he did not know the Devil was so
close to him, TO MAKE HIM cast the blame in his
MAKER, as he was to Eve to tempt her to eat
the fruit; therefore Satan's arts that worked in man
APPEARED TO HIM RIGHT: so they perished for want of
knowledge, as soon as they had eat the fruit that
meaneth, instead of that perfect happiness they
were created for, they fell into every sorrow and
misery, and their lives were soon after embittered
by Cain and Abel, and no man discerned how the
Promise went on, and renewed to the woman
through by Bible. But all these promises are
mocked and despised like thy sealing; for they
wish to stop at the first charge that was made
against her, and thereby bring in a false accusation
against her in the second; which I now prove to
the world is a thing impossible for any man to do,
without he denieth my Bible, as it is for thy enemies 
to prove thou saidst the enemy would land in
March. THIS IS A FALSE ACCUSATION AGAINST THEE and
full as false they must make my Bible, if they deny
the PROMISE made in the Fall: and this I tell
thee, they are doing. So let them not say the 
charges


10
charges are brought against the woman; for I tell
thee, the charges are brought against their MAKER. 
The first they have wrested; they second they have
lied: and no more foundation have men, to prove
the PROMISE SHALL NOT be fulfilled, than they have to
prove the words that were said OF THEE; for both
alike are entirely false. 
And now I shall come to the third Charge. 
The Third Charge, is the prophesying against the
Grain, that the mildew and rust should take the
Wheat in the year 1804. 
"This is a charge brought against her, as he appeals
"to the Editor, and the world at large, whether
"the late harvest did not rather falsify than establish 
"this prediction." To this charge I shall answer for 
myself, and say as Samuel said unto Saul, when 
Saul said unto Samuel (1st Book, xvth ch. 14th v.) 
he had done all that the Lord had commanded him, 
Samuel answered Saul, from when came the bleating
of the sheep, and the lowing of the oxen in my 
ears? Just the same I say of the Harvest; if it was
good, from whence came the high prices and great
dearth that is in our land? And that corn is constantly
rising everywhere, when it is known to the
world at large, we had three remarkable good harvests,
and heard no complaining of crops, after the 
year 1800, until the year 1804, and then samples of
wheat were sent to me from different places, eaten out
with the mildew and rust, and they wrote me word that
it fell on the beans, peas and barley, which was taken
notice of, and the samples were sent to the archdeacon 
Moore, of Exeter? In all parts of the kingdom 
where my writings have been known, they
have written me word, that the mildew and rust
have been universal; and I read myself in the newspapers,
that the harvest proved much worse now
they came to try the corn, than they ever expected, 
for WHICH REASON they are allowed to raise the price
of bread. Then how will man dare to assume or
deny the truth that is so plain before them? Because
they say there were some good crops. Poor, ignorant
foolish men!!! If there had been no good
crops, 

11
crops, there must have been almost a famine before
the next harvest, through there was a large quantity
of corn in the land before; for I have been creditably 
informed, that some fields of wheat have been
cut down for dung, and others were thought not
worth the reaping. Had this been universal in every 
field, this harvest must have produced a famine; 
then all must have allowed it was clean cut off; so 
to prevent a famine there must be some good crops:
But I am sorry to say, it appeareth to me as though 
the unbelievers are studying how they can harden
men's hearts in sin, telling them there are no judgments,
while we are surrounded by judgments; 
telling them there is no sorrow, while our land is 
surrouuded with sorrows: and should I speak the
language of my own heart, I should say these men
are as full of lies and aggravation as the devil, to 
say the harvest is good, when the corn is risen there
more than double the price it was last year; and by 
letters we received from different parts, the rise is 
every where the same. Then what provoking
wretches must these lying men be? to say black is
white, out of aggravation?
The answer of the Spirit. 
"Now I shall answer thee. In the heat of thine
anger, though hast spoken thy last words, and in the
heat of MY ANGER I shall go on to make them feel
what that they determined not to see. For I now 
tell thee, it is by the devil, that is full of aggravation, 
lies, and contention, that these men are set
on by: the charges are not against thee, but against
ME, as it was not thy words, but MY WORDS that
threatened the Harvest; and it was not thy Power,
but it was MY POWER, that fulfilled it. But know
I have set all things for types and shadows; and
for types and shows the Harvest stands. Now I
shall answer thee of the good Crops: they stand a
type for man; and had there been no Good Crops
in man, they should not have mocked of the Harvest,
to say it was not bad, because it was not all
cut off; but to their sorrows they should have felt
it. Now to prove the truth of my words, I ordained 

12
ed the letters should be sent to thee, of the Rust being
in the wheat, in the Barley, in the Peas, and
in the Beans; and I now tell thee, if the Truth was
known, there is not a grain but the rust took some of
EVERY GRAIN THAT IS SOWN BY MAN for food to eat; but
do you suppose from that, because I said I would
send it upon your every grain, that I meant there
should be no grain of the same nature to be preserved
from the rust and kept from destruction?
Then how could I compare the harvest with man?
Know what I said of the harvest of Woolland's
Field.  I compared it with man, that was full of 
unbelief; and that I made the grain like it; and
perfectly so I said of this harvest, that if unbelief
abounded in man, and the mist of darkness was before
their eyes, and the rust and canker that was in them
I would send it in the grain.  And now I will tell
thee of every grain: wheat is a grain compared to
man; and the generality of mankind throughout
your land is full of unbelief, eaten out as it were
with the canker.  Now as I compared this grain to
man, and said I would shew it in the wheat, I must 
have no good grain in man at all, if I had shewn no 
good wheat at all; for know from the Parables 
what was said:
"There the mist shall bring the rust upon your every grain,
"If men do longer mock and jest the famine next shall
come."
Now I shall answer thee from these words: if I 
send the rust to shew the perfect likeness of man in
one part, that the mist, which was here before their
eyes, prevented t hem from being good wheat, as I
have compared man to wheat; so I sent it universally
throughout the land in your corn, that they 
may see their own likeness: but as I said there is
some good corn in your land, which I mean in man,
I sent some good crops, to shew the likeness of
them; for know I have told thee already, and I now
tell thee again, it is the good crops in men that will
save your land from utter destruction, as the
good crops prevented a famine: but had thy trial
come

13
come on by such men as have printed against thee,
they would find the following harvest like the wheat
that was cut down for dung; but as thy trial was 
brought forward, and proved by believers only, it
is they will prevent the fatal judgments of the famine,
as the good corn prevented the famine this 
year.  Here I have shown thee of the prophecy 
concerning the harvest; and now I shall bring
men's observations to the Bible.  Know what I
said in my Gospel.  You can discern the signs of the
weather, but cannot discern the signs of the times.
And now observe from this man; though the dearth
hath shewed you the harvest as foretold, yet he can
observe all the crops where the mildew and rust was
not; but he cannot observe my Bible, where the
scriptures stand that are not yet fulfilled.  These 
things are all forgotten by such men as he; he can
be strict in observing every word that he seeth doth
not appear to be perfectly fulfilled in thy writings;
but he denieth the Scriptures that are plain before 
him not fulfilled.  These he places another way, to
be fulfilled to A JUDGMENT OF HIS OWN.  But now I
shall come to the purpose with all men; as thy
writings and my Bible both come from ONE FOUNTAIN,
and I tell thee must end in ONE CURRENT
STREAM, therefore I now tell all men when they
begin to point out what is not perfectly fulfilled in
thy WRITINGS, let them also point out what is 
not perfectly fulfilled in MY BIBLE: and let this
be the answer of all believers, if a prophecy is not
of God, without it be fulfilled to the extent of the
word to every perfection, tell them the Bible must
be the same, fulfilled to the perfect extent of the 
word, without any meaning or applications made by
man; for if they will turn the Bible, to say it hath
this, or that meaning, all thy prophecies they may
turn the same, by what they cannot prove as fulfilled,
and prove they are of God by the Truths
they contain.  So by the truths of thy prophecies
that are past, no man can deny, but all have been
fulfilled in part.  And now I shall call thee back to 
the past year: your land allowed the dangers to be
great


14

great when it came to March and April, which was
proved by your Parliament, and your fall by sea
was great in the number of ships that were shipwrecked.
This was one of the prophecies I gave
thee; but did I say, from these dangers that they
hear, or fear, they should prove the utter destruction
of your land? They must answer, No. Now
I shall go further: What sunshine of my countenance,
as blessings did I shew to your land the year 
that is past? Did I gain you any victories in the
war? did I lessen the burden of your land? did I 
bless your harvest with abundance? Is not your 
burden encreased, instead of decreased? Then
where is the proud boasting of men, that are filling
you u[ in their own wisdom, blinding the eyes of
the people, that in seeing they may not see, and in
hearing they may not understand? Scribes, Pharisees,
and Hypocrites, that say every word must be
perfectly fulfilled to the destruction of the nation
in one year, to fulfill the words that they are from
the LORD; and yet cannot discern what must happen,
or what must take place to fulfill my Bible--
now I tell thee every charge they have brought 
against thee, is like the charge the Jews brought
against ME, that if I was the SON of GOD, I must
come as a Prince and a King to RESTORE THE CROWN
TO THEM. The office I had first to go through was
like this wise observer of the harvest, that judged
the words could not be of the LORD without the
harvest was totally destroyed; and perfectly so was
the judgement of the Jews concerning ME, they
could not believe all the miracles I wrought could be of God, unless I had worked miracles to restore
the CROWN upon them; and by a powerful victory,
destroyed all my enemies, and seated myself with
an EARTHLY CROWN; without this they would not
believe the words of their prophets were fulfilled in
ME; but had this been done, the words of the prophets
could not have been true; for how then could
I be wounded for their sins, or bruised for their iniquities
if I had come in this manner at first?
  I shall now come to the fourth and fifth charge, and
explain

15

explain the whole together. The fourth Charge.
"I come now to Joannas's late awful Trial, so
long foretold the unbelieving Clergy would be compelled
to be present, and acknowledge the mission
of this wonderful woman." The fifth Charge.
"She frequently said, the Lord hath made it
known to her, she should not live to see the end of 
the year." To these charges I answer for myself;
as to the fourth Charge it never was said in my writings
that the unbelieving Clergy would be compelled
to come forward; but it was said in my writings,
they will compel ME to come forward when
they are provoked to anger and to jealousy; but
at what time, or in what year it was never made
known to me; for in all my writings that were sealed 
up, it is said, that it would be sudden and unexpected;
which I can plainly prove and shew to
the world; but as to my trial, (it being the calling
of the Lord) it was said, November should not end
in 1804, before my trial was called forward, and
every truth cleared up, and perfectly so, the Truth
hath followed this last year: and the Book of my 
Trial is since gone out into the world, with the
names of the witnesses, the name of the attorney,
perfectly like a trial; more than ever I expected--
My trial went through in the very month that was 
mentioned, so that every Truth was laid before
them at that time, therefore the fourth Charge is
entirely false, and the words of my prophecies are
perfectly TRUW; for if you observe in the 11th page
of the Warning to the World, it does not say that
my writings would be proved by unbelievers; but
on the contrary. From the ninth month, it is said,
"the ending of this year will come, to make my
"chosen call aloud, and prove the Truth they've
"seen and heard." But could this prophecy be 
verified, if the unbelieving clergy had come forward
this year, to prove my writings? Then it 
could not have been the chosen men, to prove they
had known and seen the Truth, for it must have been
the unbelieving clergy: now the believers have 
confessed they have seen the shadows of all that
was

16

was foretold in the past year, and by that faith they
all passed their judgement, they believed the visitation
to be from the Lord, without seeing any wonderous
working to bring on my death; which must
have taken place if the unbelieving clergy had come
forward: then they might have feared what would
follow their presumptuous unbelief; but this presumption
my believers all feared; and when the
communication was carried to them, they could not
see my trance without my death following, and if
there were any unbelievers, they should speak,
that wished to be convinced by the trance; but there
were none; for they all were afraid of the presumption
of such unbelief, and were convinced from
what they had seen and heard before; so the truth
of the prophecy was verified in them. And the
fourth charge is entirely false about the unbelieving 
clergy: for my prophecies could by no means come
true, if this had taken place last year. Mark the
13th page in the Warning to the World, and see the
explanation from Mr. Foley's letter, which was
perfectly fulfilled at MY TRIAL; for my fears were 
alarmed that nothing but my trance would convince
either believers or unbelievers; which made me
fear, and in my prayer was for the trance; till I
was reproved; saying-in PRAYING FOR MY TRANCE,
I PRAYED FOR MY DEATH; which made me cease till
the communication was given me which I delivered
to my friends and believers then assembled, and
while my heart was thus in jeopardy, as it was before,
concerning Mr. Foley's letter; knowing if
unbelievers were there, my death must follow or
my prophecies were false; and while I stood thus
in confusion and waiting their answer, every man
in the room held up his hand as a true believer,
they wanted no further proof to convince them; here
are the words verified in the 13th page: when
your fears are most alarmed, and thou beginnest*
most to fear, in that very day and hour, thou art
ready to sink, like the letter that was ready to drop
in the post thy deliverance will come, and they
friends
*See Trial, page 91

17

friends and believers will rejoice. Now here was 
the perfect Truth verified too, was not understanding
myself the perfect meaning of my trial, my
own faith failed me concerning my trance; trembling
and faintness seized me, and my prayer was
made known unto all; but in the day and hour
that I went to them with a confused mind and
heart, not knowing what event would follow, or
what their unbelief would be; but I was set at liberty
by the uplifted hand of every friend, perfectly 
as I was before set at liberty of my fears concerning
Mr. Foley's illness, when Mr. Turner returned 
with his letter from the post. So the shadow
and substance proved perfectly alike to me--
But this could not have been fulfilled, if everything
had been told me in a straight line. And now I
shall come to the fifth charge. I never said to any 
one that I should die in 1804; or that I was ever
told I should; but perfect as the words were given
me, I read to them all--"I DO NOT TELL THEE, THOU
SHALT LIVE TO SEE THE END OF THE YEAR 1804." But it
was never said to me--thou shalt not see the end of
1804. And now I shall come to the particulars in
1792. The visitation of the Lord had so deeply
affected me, that I made my will, and thought
I should die, I then was answered--"I will add to
thy days fifteen years: and have been told since,
that those days should not be shortened, unless I
began to pray for my death, as Hezekiah prayed
for life. For the sake of my friends I wished to live
till every thing is made clear to them; but when I
began to pray for my trance, at the ending of 1804,
then I was answered--"I knew not what I was
praying for; for in praying for my trance, I prayed
for my death; which stopped me in an instant, 
as I did not wish to die, unless they had been filled
with unbelief. But knowing it was said,--"I DO
NOT TELL THEE THOU WILT LIVE TO SEE THE END OF THE YEAR,"
put me in jeoparpy, not knowing what their faith
would be; and had unbelief been in any of them,
I should have wished for my death, and prayed for
it; but their faith prevented me. Now of all the 
Charges.

18
Charges that have been laid against me, no man can
justify himself in any but the first, to have any
grounds to bring forward a shadow of falsehood
against me, or against the spirit that directs me;
but in the first, I grant a man that will study to
make scruples and find fault, he might speak from
the Sealing, as it was put out in such a manner, to
be sealed till the end of 1803, and then to stop; of
which they might scruple, and say that the meaning
of it must be to stop the whole, the believers as
well as the unbelievers; for I confess I did not understand
it myself, before it was explained. But
in all the other charges, are entirely false accusations,
without any grounds for what they have
said. If people will assert the lies of the public,
they may insert ten thousand that people have affirmed
they heard me say, that never entered my
head nor heart; therefore let no man assert what I
say from hearsay, unless they can prove it in my
writings; if they do, I shall publish them for liars,
as I have Garrett, who hath published from hearsays,
or from his own invention, the most notorious
lies that ever could be thought of: for I may say
he is filled with lying wonders, without any foundation
at all. Thus far I have answered for myself.
The answer of the Spirit.--Now, Joanna, I shall
answer thee from the judgement thou hast drawn:
four accusations thou sayest are entirely false, as
there is no ground for any truth in them; but thou
allowest of the first charge there is room for dispute.
Now mark what I told thee of the first, and how Io
compared it with creation, and how I gave it
up to man; and allowed there was room for dispute,
whether the woman was made for his good or
hurt. This charge; like thee, I submitted to.--
But now I shall come to the other charges, which
thou sayest are four false accusations against thee,.
and I say the same, for who can prove the harvest
good, unless they will prove it by the price? And
this thou knowest they cannot do; then how can
they prove that accusation true? So here is a charge
false

19
false against thee: and by the trust thou hast proved
all the others false the same, in the Warning to the
World. I warn all men to read that book deeply;
that meaneth, to look deep into the book, and weigh
it with thy life, with the year that is past; what
deep visitations, what sickness, what anguish of
spirit, what agonies of heart thou suffered the year
that is past. And know what is said in the 14th
page, "thy fears must come first, and the land
must first boast; out thy fears shall vanish, and the
land shall fear." Now let them mark deep, the
events of the past year and the boasting of your land,
and what thou wentest through while the mockery
of men went on with their boasting, as though they
had nothing to fear; and now thou seest they are
going on the same, mocking in the midst of every
danger; without discerning how this year began--
by heightening your war, the loss of your ships, and
a heavier burden coming upon the nation to support
your war; besides the dearth of provisions, and your
land being alarmed by the wise and learned, fearing
the disorders of other nations may fall into yours.
Now let all these fears, these types and shadows of
the beginning, be deeply observed, and weighed
with the Warning to the World, and they will
soon observe every charge they have brought against
thee is false; for know I told thee thy fears should
vanish; but the fears of the nation should encrease.
So every charge they have brought against thee, I
shall turn back upon their heads. And now I tell
thee, these are four charges that I have against
mankind: know in the first place the charge that
was given unto Noah, which they mocked, till they
were destroyed by the deluge; and the same charge
I have now against the world; they have heard of
the destructions abroad; they see the burden rising
upon their land at home; and yet the teachers of
the people are hardening their flock through unbelief;
prophesying smooth things, and prophesying
deceit; blinding their eyes, that in seeing they may
not see, and in hearing they may no understand.--
This is a charge I have against the shepherds of the
land:

20

land: they are deluding the people like the 
antideluvian world of old. Another charge is, that of
Sodom and Gomorrah, when they charged Lot for
a fool ; and though they were struck with blindness
when the angels came to visit Lot, yet they still
hardened their hearts, till the fire came down to
destroy them ; and the same charge I now bring against
the shepherds ; for seeing the judgements that are
past, and seeing what lies before them, hearing the
threatenings pronounced, and yet they go on to
harden their hearts, till the fire came down to destroy
them ; and the same charge I now bring against 
the shepherds; for seeing the judgments that are
past, and seeing what lies before them, hearing the 
threatenings pronounced, and yet they go on to
harden their hearts, to turn the people out of the
way, saying, let the HOLY ONE of ISRAEL cease from
before us : we want not the knowledge of the MOST
HIGH. So as the unbelief of the world of old brought
their charges against Noah, till it fell back upon
their own heads, and the same by Sodom and
GOMORRAH, that brought their charges against Lot,
and all turned back upon their own heads ; so these
charges they have brought against thee I shall turn
back upon their own heads ; so these charges they
have brought against thee I shall turn back upon
the shepherds' heads, when I demand the sheep at
their hands. And now this charge do I give to the
shepherds to prove the truth of their words, by
bringing peace and plenty into their land, and feed
the bowels of the starving poor ; or my charges will
come heavy against them ; and my judgments must
be great in the land, if they starve the poor in the
midst of plenty : then now that plenty I charge
them to shew, and let the prices be like the former
years ; or let them know the curse pronounced
against them, for oppression to the poor. So if they
affirm their words to be true, that there is a plenty
in your land, they must allow my judgments just to
bring a curse upon the land ; and they are pulling
my judgments down. So if they bring charges
against the word, and deny my judgments, I shall
bring my charges against their cruelty : and let them
know, he that sheweth no mercy shall find judgment
are condemned, and have brought the whole back
on themselves. And now I shall come to the third
charge

21

charge, which is that of Nineveh : I charged Jonah
to warn Nineveh, and Nineveh repented at the
warning ; and know what is said in my Gospel, 
Nineveh should rise up in judgment against this
generation, and Nineveh repented without seeing the
judgments in any manner fulfilled ; but this generation
is hardened in the midst of judgments surrounding
them abroad and at home. They have heard
the fate of other nations, how they have been cut off
by the hand of dath, swept away with the besom
of destruction : the complaint of the famine and the
plague in Spain, and the fatal destruction in your
own port ; yet for all these judgments the shepherds
are but hardening the sheep, telling them they have
nothing to fear—but I tell them they have all to
fear ; for I ask them, in what are these nations worse
than your own, if you will starve the poor in the
midst of plenty : and know what I said in my Gospel
of Dives and Lazarus : and have ye not made
yourselves like Dives, by your cruelty to the poor?
Out of your own mouths are ye condemned. So here
are the charges brought against you. And now from
my Gospel I shall proceed ; think not that these
Galileans were sinners above all Galileans, because
they have suffered these things ; I tell you nay ;
but unless they repent they shall all likewise 
perish : for if ye declare your sins like Sodom, and
hide them not, woe unto your souls ! And now I
tell thee, and tell all men, if the latter harvest with
the three former have been blessed in your land, and
your barnes have been filled with increase, while you
starve the poor by dearth, it is not the sins
committed in your port, nor the sins committed by the
Spaniards, are greater than the sins of your own
land ; therefore the charges that are in my Gospel,
what I said of Nineveh, Sodom and Gomorrah,
what I said of Tyre and Sidon, what I said
concerning the Galileans, are now charges against the
shepherds of England. So here is the third charge
from my Bible, that was first brought against my
prophets, and turned back upon their own heads.
And now I shall come to the fourth charge, which
the

22
the Jews brought against ME; and after my death
against my disciples, till they brought upon themselves
their own destruction; their city destroyed,
and themselves vagabonds, scattered through their
unbelief. This is another charge that I shall turn
back upon the shepherds: that they do not see these
things that befel the others as a caution to them, that
they may not copy after and perish likewise. Now
mark, these four charges were first brought against
the people of God; that meaneth, those that were
visited by MY WORD; Noah and Lot were first
charged for fools, but the charge fell back on those
that condemned them. But thou sayest in thy
heart, the people of Nineveh did not condemn Jonah
for a fool. No: I tell thee, there is the charge
that stands in my Bible to condemn this generation;
and mark this the fourth charge, though it is
mentioned the fifth, they have brought against thee.
From these two charges, the fourth and fifth, the
fourth are the words turned, the clergy being compelled,
instead of thy compelling them: and the
last charge is saying for a certainty what was said upon
uncertainty; "for had the unbelievers been 
"present, thy life must have ended," therefore like
Nineveh, it stood on conditions, and on conditions
now stands the whole--
For every charge is brought on thee--
These Four Charges let them see,
There is no Truth in either one;
And so to NOAH they must come.--
They brought their charges then the same,
Until My anger they'd inflam'd
I say, for to destroy the whole--
See how the charges back did fall!
And know to LOT 'twas just the same,
The charges first against him came,
Until the fire came from on high,
Burnt up the flames that in them lay,
But the Third Charge must come from ME,
The way I warn'd of NINEVEH,
How they in judgement should appear
Against the generation here.
Now mark the charge how it is come,
Thou knowest the words are turn'd by man;
Because compell'd thou knowest, I say,
The shepherds they would come this way
For to compel thee to appear
Before that I have ended here.
But now the words are turn'd by man;
Should I compel the shepherds' hands?
That's not according to your law;
And to my gospel none will go
To do the things that I command:
Then in compulsion can I stand
To say, that I'll compel a man
For to act right, that's acting wrong?
No; this compulsion's not in ME:
If so, mankind is never free
To say he acts by love or will,
If he doth act as I compel,
Without a choice that's of his own!
Then from compulsion, 'tmust be known,
I might as well compel your land,
In MY COMMANDS they all should stand,
As to compel my shepherds here,
They in my Gospel must appear
And

23
And do the things that I command,
As faithful shepherds make them stand.
No; this compulsion's not in ME:
If it were so, you all might say,
Why do I not compel the whole
That by MY POWER, none might fall?
But here compulsion I shall end,
As I ne'er said nor e'er intend
To bring compulsion unto men,
To say the Trial they should stand.
No: 'tis by LOVE I do invite;
And those that wont my offers slight,
I make them workers here with ME;
But know my labourers must be FREE,
For to be Labourers with the LORD;
My chosen men with one accord
Have acted according to my word.--
Now mark thy death, how he alludes,
To say, I told thee, thou should'st die;
Thou hast penn'd the word that I did say,
And from that word I'll now appear:
How could I e'er alarm they fears,
Or cause that feeling in thy breast,
Or coulds't thou fear of being cast,
If I'd assured thee before,
Thou'dst live to see the fifteenth year,
Before thy life I'd take away?
Thy faith would keep thee till that day,
No death would come to thee before,
And by thy faith thou could'st not fear;
Then how my words could they be true?
Weigh every one before thy view--
I said thy fears they would alarm,
As from the letter all discern;
And as the shadow came at first,
They see the substance came at last.
Let Hirst and Turner call to mind
How thou didst begin to fear.
Before the letter he did find,
I plac'd the shadow there;
And now the same, I say to man,
When they did all appear,
They saw what trembling in thee came
Before I rais'd thee there;
And thou didst fear what would appear,
Thy heart to all unseen
Was known to ME, conceal'd from they
What sunk thee in despair.
The trance, like them, thou wish'd to see,
Which made thee ask in prayer;
Then came my word that's on record
If thou goest on in prayer
To have thy trance, that time be know'd;
Thy life ends with the year.
I told thee so, thou well did'st know,
If I thy trance brought on,
Thou would'st not see the following year;
Thy death would soon be known.
So here confusion fill'd thy breast,
That was from all conceal'd.
Thou knowest if man with thee did jest
The whole must be reveal'd.
What I do mean, I'll now explain;
Had they to jesting come,
To say we'll speak in unbelief
To have the trance be known:
Then all would see the end of thee,
As I did say before,
And this within is known to thee;
Thou didst go in faith and fear;
Confus'd within thy mind was seen,
And not conceal'd from ME,
To hear the answer of thy friend--
The type was strong in thee
That at the first for thee I plac'd,
And so the end did come:
I know what joy sonn fill'd thy breast,
To see their every hand
Uplifted there, that did appear
Thy sorrows to dismiss.
And now the mysteries you see clear,
How both alike did burst;
But had I said to thee before
That all would happen so;
My other words could not appear,
To prove that they were true;
Nor could thy friends so fear'd the end,
Had I not said before,
That they might mourn if thou'rt gone,
To see the famine near.
So now discern how I do warn,
To stop presumptuous men,
That they may fear the every storm,
And let their reason come;
So reason here may strong appear
If men would but discern
The Prophecies of the last year,
What shadows to thee came;
For on thee first I said should burst
The deadly wound to feel,
Ere on your nation it was cast,
That I should never heal
The grief in them, when it did come,
If they still mock'd my word.
Now from thy sickness must be known
What grief on thee was laid;
Sickness and sorrow and distress
Did in thee strong appear,
And every anguish in thy breast,
Thou surely felt last year.
Call all to mind what thou didst find
To wound thy heart within,
And every fever in thy mind
Unto thy friends was seen.
There's

24
There's not a shadow come to thee
But what your land may fear,
Will come in substance unto they,
That mock thy calling here.
My Spirit strong now think upon,
That sometimes thou didst feel,
What anguish there did then appear,
What wounds, that none could heal,
Appear'd in thee, they all did see-
Then now the whole discern;
I ask your nation how they'll flee,
If all on them I turn?
Now weigh the whole: see how't must fall
I said it should turn from thee.
They now weigh deep this every call,
And mark what I did say,
If on the land I turn'd my Hand,
I said it should heavier grow
So now the whole you may command,
The way to fear the blow;
Because from thee, they all may see
What shadows came at first;
And mark the words were said before-
On thee it first must burst.
So I'll end here, and say no more;
But let them now look deep;
If on the land the substance come.
Can they preserve their sheep,
As I did thee, from misery?
Now let men try their skill,
What strong physicians they will be,
The woulds of all to heal."
___________
HIGH PRICE OF CORN BY THE FAILURE OF THE HARVEST OF 1804, AS
FORETOLD IN JOANNA'S WRITINGS AND CONFIRMED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

See part of the Earl of Romney's Speech, Friday March 8, 1805, in answer to a
Speech of Earl Stanhope, about the dearness of Corn.

" There was one part of the Speech of the Noble Lord who spoke last, that
was most extraordinary indeed; he said that House had just dared to put arms into
the hands of the people, and then, afterwards had dared to attempt their starvation.
Good God! what had they done? When he heard the words, his hair stood
on end! The noble Earl imputes that to their Lordships, which was altogether the
act of Providence, viz. a bad crop, the effects of which he knew, and lamented as
much as anyone.  Their Lordships could not control the seasons, nor make the
corn grow in spite of their opposition; had we obtained a fair crop, he was certain
there would have been no occasion for discontent- that under the guidance of Providence,
was the sole cause of the high prices which had taken place in the necessaries
of life, and it was not fair to impute them to any act of the Legislature." 
See the news-paper called the British press, March 9, 1805.
_______
When Mr. Pitt was told in the House of Commons, after the late harvest
of 1804 had began, that the rise of bread was occasioned by his Bill, HE, to shelter
himself from this reproach, shifted the blame to Providence, which was too fatally
confirmed by the monthly report of the Society of Agriculture, that the rust and
mildew had hurt the then harvest; the truth was spoken even by Mr. Pitt, and it
suited his convenience. - Are these things true, or not, ye wise men and infidels?

March, 1805.



SOUTHCOTT PROPHECIES.
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JOANNA SOUTHCOTT.
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THE SOUTHCOTTIAN COMMITTEE.
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NATIVE RACES 
AND 
PEACE TERMS

A MEMORIAL 
from the 
Anti-Slavery and Aborigines 
Protection Society
 to 
The Secretary of State for 
Foreign Affairs 
January 22, 1917

Issued by
THE ANTI-SLAVERY AND ABORIGINES 
PROTECTION SOCIETY

Denison House
Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, S.W.

ANTI-SLAVERY AND ABORIGINES PROTECTION SOCIETY,
DENISON HOUSE, VAUXHALL BRIDGE ROAD,
LONDON, S.W.
January 22, 1917. 

To the Right Hon. Arthur J. Balfour, F.R.S., O.M., M.P., etc., H.M. Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Office, S.W. 

SIR,-
  We beg to submit for your consideration reasons which, in our opinion, justify the hope that, when negotiations for peace become possible, it may be both desirable ad practicable to secure promise of some further international action for the preservation of native races, and also for amending existing international obligations which have for their object the safeguarding of the rights and liberties of native tribes in the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world. 
  We do not suggest that the difficult task of arranging peace terms should be complicated by an immediate and detailed consideration of the treatment of native races, but we submit that there are very strong reasons why Great Britain should propose that, within a reasonable period after the declaration of peace, the European and American Powers should meet again to amend and strengthen existing international agreements. We would also point out that such a step appears to be not only morally imperative, but in the truest interests of the Colonizing Powers no less than that of the native peoples, because the white races have become largely dependent on the coloured races for a large proportion of their food stuffs and raw material. 

3

[center] 4 [center]
[indent] 1. Whatever the final outcome of European hostilities may be, it is quite
clear that the political status of large areas of tropical and sub-tropical terri-
tories will be vitally affected.  An ideal step would be that before such
changes take place the inhabitants should be given a voice in shaping their
own destiny.  We admit, however, that so far as most territories are con-
cerned, this would not be a practical proposal.  But this very fact appears 
to make it more than ever incumbent on the stronger Powers to devise
means for adequately safeguarding the rights and welfare of the native
inhabitants.

[indent] 2. It is now twenty-six and thirty-two years respectively since the
Brussels and Berlin Anti-Slavery Conferences were held, and, although
neither of these international gatherings, or the Acts which arose out of
them, accomplished all that was hoped from them, it is incontestable that
these, like their predecessors, raised to a higher level than before the accepted
administrative and commercial standards for the treatment of native races.

[indent] 3. It will be admitted that the last twenty-five years have witnessed
in tropical and sub-tropical territories the most deplorable treatment of
native peoples, which has resulted in an appalling depopulation reaching
several millions.  Apart from humanitarian considerations, this represents
a grave disaster to industrial progress which is only possible in such countries
by the help of an adequate supply of willing indigenous labour.

[indent] 4. The sufferings through which many of these native tribes have passed
during the last twenty-five years, coupled with certain eminently successful
administrative experiments, have taught students of colonization certain
lessons which, we submit, point the way to desirable reforms.

[indent] 5. The chief causes of depopulation may be grouped under the four
heads of (1) labour abuses, (2) the unrestricted sale of spirituous liquor, (3)
diseases, and (4) sexual irregularities.  We leave to scientific and other
bodies the highly technical problems arising out of disease and drink, and
content ourselves with indicating in the appended memorandum a few
directions in which the adoption of reasonable reforms would secure far-
reaching social and economic rewards, and which, if they could be secured,

[center] 5 [center]
would, in our opinion, tend to improve the relations existing between the
races, as they would also tend to the preservation and increase of native
life and happiness.

[center] SUGGESTED REFORMS. [center]

[indent] (1) RESERVE AREAS OF LAND. - Experience has shown the social and
economic advantage of setting aside a large area or areas in every depend-
ency of suitable lands for the exclusive and secure use of native tribes, at
the same time making provision for the entrance of white missionary and
administrative forces to guide these tribes in the evolution of a sound
administration of purely native affairs.

[indent] (2) LABOUR. - Labour abuses have arisen mainly through forced labour
and "transfers" of persons for financial consideration, fraudulent and
unreasonable contracts, and punishments for breaches of contract.

[indent] (a) ACTS OF SLAVE-TRADING. - The transfer of a labourer to a third party
for a financial consideration, without any reference to the labourer
concerned, is in fact an act of slave-traffic and should be so declared
by international agreements. 

[indent] (b) FORCED LABOUR. - If it were deemed impossible to secure international
agreement for the total abolition of forced labour, it should not be
difficult to obtain a collective condemnation by the European
and American Powers of forced labour for private profit, which it
will be remembered British Secretaries of State have declared to be
indistinguishable from slavery.

[indent] (c) CONTRACTED LABOURERS. - It should not be impossible to fix a maxi-
mum period for agricultural and mining contracts respectively, 
with freedom for the labourer to offer his services to any employer
at the expiration of any such original contract.  It is generally
admitted that mining contracts of six months' duration with inter-
vals for visiting the tribal homes become so attractive that recruit-
ing expenses are greatly reduced, whilst the short underground

6
contract followed by periods of open-air occupation minimizes in a 
marked manner the ravages of phthisis. 
The whole tone of the treatment of native labour would be
raised if it were possible to secure by international agreement that
travelling expenses from the home of contracted labourers to their
employment and back again should be covered by the employer. 
A way can and should be found by which criminal punishments
for breaches of civil labour contracts should be abolished. 
The principle of deferred payment of wages for natives is
being adopted by several Governments with good results, where
the accumulated wages are treated as trust funds subject to
periodic audit, and should be internationally approved. 
(d) The practice of appointing Protectors of native labour adopted by
most colonial dependencies, whilst fruitful of some good, would 
prove infinitely more beneficial if such officers were in the patronage
of the country from which the labourers are secured, and were
filled by men capable of speaking the language of the native
labourers which they are appointed to protect. 
(e) Lord Salisbury in his memorable despatch of 1876 to the Indian
Government subscribed in firm language to the principle of the
potential citizenship of Indian emigrant labour. The adherence
of the European and American Powers to this principle as an 
integral part of the emigration and immigration of labour is not
merely an overdue reform, but one of the soundest principles of
colonial policy. 
(3) CONVICT LEASING.– The leasing of convicts to private interests
has invariably led to abuse, and should be abolished by international
agreement. 
(4) LYNCHING.– The practice of lynching negroes and other coloured
people is not only barbarous, but a grave blot upon any civilized Government, 
and it casts such a stigma upon the white races that lynching should, 
we suggest, be internationally condemned. 

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(5) SEXUAL ABUSES.– The deplorable sexual relations which often
prevail in dependencies where coloured races predominate are so scandalous
that some steps should be taken to mitigate the evil. The practice now
adopted by Belgium of dismissing from the service any civil or military 
official found suffering from venereal diseases has proved very fruitful in
restricting the abuses and diseases arising from sexual irregularities between
white men and coloured women. 
(6) NATIVE CUSTOMARY LAW.– The hasty abolition of native law has
frequently led to much confusion and injustice that the Powers might
consider the undesirability of abolishing native customary law, especially
as regards land. 
We have the honour to be, Sir, 
Your most obedient, humble servants, 
For the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society–
T. F. VICTOR BUXTON, President. 
TRAVERS BUXTON, Secretary. 
JOHN H. HARRIS, Organizing Secretary. 
For the Edinburgh Committee for the Protection of Native Races– 
G.F. BARBOUR, Chairman
JOHN COWAN, Vice-Chariman
}Joint Conveners.
For the Glasgow Committee for the Protection of Native Races–
SAMUEL CHISHOLM, Chairman. 
RICHD. HUNTER, Vice-Chairman. 

The Anti-Slavery & Aborigines 
Protection Society 
IS THE 
Only Permanent British Society
WHOSE SOLE OBJECT IS
The Protection of Native Races
FROM
SLAVERY, FORCED LABOR, OPPRESSION, 
AND INJUSTICE.

The Committee of the Society invites all those to whom the 
above objects appeal to subscribe to its funds.
Membership is obtained upon the payment of half-a-guinea 
or upwards per annum, entitling the member to all literature 
published by the Society, gratis. 
Cheque should be made payable to the Treasurer. Forms 
of Order on Bankers can be obtained from the Offices. 
Address: Anti Slavery & Aborigines Protection Society,
Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road, S.W.

Butler & Tanner Frome and London

Price 6d. 

A NEW COLONIAL ERA?
FOR 
DEPENDENCIES. 
"POSSESSION" OR "TRUSTEESHIP." 

BY 
JOHN H. HARRIS

Reprinted by the permission of the Editor of 
"THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW."

For articles upon
"SELF DETERMINATION and NO ANNEXATIONS" 
See MANCHESTER GUARDIAN, January 29th, 1918.
THE NATION, February 9th, 1918.
NEW EUROPE, February 21st, 1918.

Issued by 
THE ANTI-SLAVERY AND ABORIGINES PROTECTION SOCIETY,
Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road.

COLONIAL DEPENDENCIES: 
"POSSESSION" OR "TRUSTEESHIP"?
WAR issues outside Europe are shaping themselves, and
Colonial questions are dividing into two camps all those
whose thoughts and experience are in the "uttermost
parts" of the world. In one camp are those who are ever declaring
with a recklessness born of ignorance that oversea territories
are the "property," the "undeveloped property," the "estates"
of European Mother countries, whose natural resources can be
exploited exclusively for one group of the belligerents of to-day,
without regard either for economics or the obligations of the most
solemn and explicit treaties. The other camp is characterised by 
those whose ideals appear to be based upon the assumption that
the present war will lead to all men becoming "brethren" in very
truth, in whom no guile will be found, and who, by very reason
of this universal brotherhood, will be capable of extending the
millennium to every Colonial territory throughout the world. Is
there no common meeting ground for the best and sanest elements
in both camps?
Is it not possible for civilisation to agree to enter unitedly upon
a new Colonial era in all tropical dependencies–an era based upon
proved experience, and so to develop the lessons learned by experience
that the world would reap a harvest so bountiful that men of
every clime and nation would thereby benefit?
The supreme need of all tropical dependencies, as distinct from
dominions, will be man power and money power. But whence this
elixir of reconstruction? The supply of both will be limited, and
what there is of men and money will go first to temperate zones
where investment is moderately sure and health relatively certain. 
Thus, at the very outset, proposals which limit the development of 
dependencies to a single national sovereignty and its resources
must spell retarded progress, from which the country itself, the
Sovereign Colonial Power, and the world at large, would suffer. 
Great Britain alone amongst colonising Powers has discovered the
secret of Colonial success, a secret which has given to us the
loyalty of four hundred millions of the human race, and a volume
of trade which is at once the wonder and admiration of the
world–that secret is found in the single word: Trusteeship. 
TRUSTEESHIP AND COMMERCIAL FREEDOM. 
 If such inestimable benefits have accrued to a single nation by
a limited application of this principle, what glorious results would 

2
follow in the wake of a general acceptance and application of this
principle of Trusteeship by all colonising Powers!
(1) Commercial and industrial freedom would quadruple in ten years the
supply of raw material. 
(2) National jealousies would be submerged beneath a wave of collective
energy applied to scientific and industrial enterprises. 
(3) National and International effort would be directed towards conserving
and increasing indigenous populations. 
If every colonising Power would agree to accept the British
principle that all dependencies are held as trusts for civilisation, it
follows naturally that no discriminating commercial barriers could
be erected upon the basis of nationality. By throwing open a territory
which otherwise might languish, the vital motive power of
men and money from the entire world would be attracted. If,
for example, the Portuguese Government accepted this principle,
Angola, a territory nearly as large as Germany and France
together, would no longer be a menace to its neighbours and a
white elephant to Portugal; thrown open to the commercial
energies of the world it would soon pour forth a volume of raw
produce which might even astonish the Portuguese. If French
Equatorial Africa and Madagascar could be treated as sacred
trusts instead of exclusive possessions by our gallant Ally, their
output of vegetable oils and fats should quickly equal that of 
British Nigeria. 
In the sphere of engineering there is wide remunerative scope
for the skill of engineers of all nations; for instance, railway construction
linking up producing areas with ocean ports will be
required, not in hundreds, but in thousands of miles. But great
though the demand will be for railway construction, there is the
much greater need of scientific control of the vast tropical riverine
systems. Central Africa alone provides an excellent illustration. 
The Congo, Niger, Zambesi, and Gambia rivers pour into the
ocean every hour millions of tons of precious surplus waters, whilst
inland the main and tributary rivers flood and swamp large areas, 
thus rendering them uninhabitable and infertile, whilst, on the 
other hand millions of acres lie parched and unproductive for want
of water. 
The basins of these river systems cover between the trips of 
Cancer and Capricorn over 6,000,000 square miles, an area so vast
that it would cover European Russia nearly four times over, and
yet how little of it is to-day really productive? These 6,000,000
square miles could probably be divided into the following: 
(a) 2,000,000 square miles inhabited and productive.
(b) 2,000,000 square miles uninhabited and unproductive owing to preventible
inundations. 
(c) 2,000,000 square miles uninhabited and unproductive through lack
of water. 
What an opportunity for the world's engineers! The control of
these riverine systems would confer upon the countries themselves 

3
incalculable benefits. If the surplus waters of the rivers could be, 
as I am assured is possible, diverted to drought areas, the following
results would be attained: 
(1) The resulting drainage would lead to the disappearance of half the 
diseases of Africa, and this in turn spells a rapid increase of population. 
(2) A large part of the 2,000,000 square miles unproductive to-day
through inundations would at once become riotously fertile and capable of at
least doubling the output of raw material. 
(3) An equally large part of the 2,000,000 square miles unproductive to-day
through drought would also be capable of doubling output of raw material. 
But tasks so stupendous could only be undertaken providing all
such Colonial areas are thrown widely open to the skill and energy
of civilisation, regardless of national barriers. The conception that
tropical and semi-tropical Dependencies are the "Possessions"
of single nations always has, and always must, restrict opportunity 
primarily to national contractors. The adoption of "Trusteeship" 
on behalf of humanity throws open the door to competitive
contracts which command the highest skill at generally the lowest
cost. Utopian? Nothing of the kind–only common sense. 
The control of these waters would amongst other things spell
increase of population and a lower death and sickness rate, would
quadruple the output of vegetable oils, cocoa, sugar, cotton, and
hemp fibres, and the creation of an entirely new ranching area
as large as the Argentine. It is probably superfluous to point out
the effects of such enterprise upon European and American industries;
one thing is certain, namely, that the exchange of industries
of temperate zones, as expressed in European manufacture articles,
would never flag the memory of the present generation, 
whilst such collective effort devoted to tropical and semi-tropical
reconstruction, if wisely directed, would make bearable the major
part of the war debt. 
"TRUSTEESHIP" FOR THE INHABITANTS. 
However extensive may be the scope for commerce in the tropical
and semi-tropical dependencies, however great and fascinating the
challenge to scientific enterprise for public works of construction, 
vast still, and yet more vital, is the supreme problem of conserving 
and increasing indigenous man-power. The folly of the last
fifty years is even greater than the crime of wiping out of existence
a large proportion of those child races who are alone are capable of
producing tropical raw material. In no sphere of Colonial effort 
is the principle of Trusteeship more imperative. It is the duty 
of the Colonial Powers to seek first the welfare of the native inhabitants, 
and if they will do this all things worth having will be
added to them–first loyalty and good-will, which in turn mean
the surest foundation of economic and political stability. But, 
again, Trusteeship of the child races can only find its fullest
scope under the banner of international co-operation. 


4
Labour conditions in one territory must obviously affect a contiguous 
region; the German Administration of Togoland, for instance, 
witnessed for years with impotent dismay the annual
migration of hinterland natives from Togoland to the British 
Gold Coast and Ashanti cocoa plantations. The principal conditions
of labour contracts and the migration of labour forces should
be internationally agreed, not only in the interests of the natives,
but of the colonising Power. British duty on imported alcohol
being higher than the prevailing in adjacent French territory, has
led to widespread smuggling across the borders. The destruction 
of certain insectivora birds is illegal in Belgian Congo and
unrestrained in the adjacent Portuguese territory, with the consequence
that disease-carrying flies without natural enemies multiply
and carry disease in the territory of another nation with fatal
consequence to native tribes. In every tropical and semi-tropical 
dependency communicable disease is taking a continuous and
heavy toll on native life, thereby progressively reducing the available
labour force, the demand for which is everywhere nearly 30
per cent. below the supply. Of what use was it for France,
Belgium, Great Britain, and Germany to devote their energies and
money to the destruction of the sleeping sickness fly if just across
their boundaries other Powers were so negligent and slothful that
their creeks, rivers, and ponds bred swarms of germ-carrying flies
which crossed the boundaries in myriads? These are but a few
examples of inter-Colonial complications which can only be solved
by the soundest form of international control. 
The dividing line between sovereign administration and international
control is a perfectly clear one. Any interference
with sovereign or national executive administration can only lead
to disaster. International control, as distinct from international 
administration, is the path to safety in all such inter-colonial problems
as migration of population, native labour conditions, liberty
of trade, the spread of communicable disease, the sale of ardent
spirits, opium smuggling, native reserve lands. Not any of these
features are single colonial problems; all are as much dependent
upon inter-colonial action as gun-running and slave-trading. 
INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS. 
If civilisation is to enter upon a new Colonial era, international
obligations must first be more clearly defined that they have been
in the past, and secondly, there must be an international court
established by leagues nations for the consideration and adjudication 
of alleged breaches. It is too readily overlooked that alternations 
in sovereign control over quite the major part of the
exchangeable tropical territory can only be made effective by the
consent of fourteen Powers of Europe and America. This and
much more is set forth in the Berlin and Brussels Acts, to which
there are fourteen signatory Powers. Under these instruments

5
control is to-day established over certain principles of commerce,
navigation, and administration throughout 2,000,000 square miles
of tropical and semi-tropical territory. These fourteen signatories
may be extended or reduced as a result of the war, but as they
stand to-day they are sacredly pledged to a large measure of international
oversight. 
For future purposes the exact number of signatories matters
little, but what is vital is that those Powers should, after the war, 
be formally constituted trustees for the right development of
defined territories and the welfare of the inhabitants. The representatives 
of these Colonial nations leagues together should either
themselves, or by delegation, constitute a Court of Appeal, to 
which should be submitted alleged breaches of obligations, 
whether charges were preferred by Governments, responsible commercial 
or philanthropic bodies, or even by native tribes or individuals. 
The first step should be the levelling up and extending of 
existing international engagements; these, paraphrased, 
modernised, and extended, would read as follows (the wording
accords as nearly as possible with existing agreements): 
Preamble: 
"(a) Desirous of settling in a spirit of mutual goodwill the most favourable
conditions for the development of commerce and civilisation of tropical and semi
tropical regions hereinafter defined, ensuring to the inhabitants thereof
the advantage and the protecting influence of European and American Governments, 
and
"(b) Desirous of preventing misunderstandings and disputes which may
in future arise, the Powers signatory to this Act hereby declare that in all those territories hereinafter defined the Power in Sovereign control accepts administrative 
responsibility primarily as trustee in the interests of the inhabitants
thereof and generally for the well-being of the human race." 
In conformity with these principles of the Plenipotentiaries have
successively discussed and adopted the following general
declarations: 
"(1) The trade of all signatory nations shall be entirely free on the same
principles as set forth in the Berlin Act of 1885." 
"(2) The navigation of rivers, lakes, and means of transit shall be open to
all signatory nations on the same principles as set forth in the Articles 108 to 116
of the final Act of the Congress of Vienna." 
"(3) The subjects of all signatory nations shall indiscriminately enjoy the
same treatment and rights as the natives in the protection of their persons
and property." 
"(4) The subjects of all signatory Powers shall be entitled to tender and
contract without national discrimination for the construction of all public 
works." 
NATIVE LAND AND LABOUR. 
"(5) In every Dependency within the operation of this Act the ownership
of unalienated land is vested in the inhabitants and cannot be alienated except
by international sanction. The proceeds from leases shall be placed to the 
credit of the local Administration." 
"(6) Leases granted by Governments, Native Chiefs, or Councils, of lands
occupied by natives, or used for grazing and hunting, ancestral sites and ceme-

6
teries, are only valid after receiving the sanction of the mandatories of the
Powers signatory to this Act.
   " (7) The movement of labour forces within the areas defined by this Act
shall be free subject to conditions which conform to the Vienna, Berlin and
Brussels agreements, and as set forth in paragraphs ' A ' to ' Z. ' "

ALCOHOL AND DISEASE. 
   " (8) All the Powers signatory to this Act agree to adopt unified measures
for controlling the sale of alcohol and the prevention of disease in accordance
with the existing international obligations of the Vienna, Berlin, Brussels, 
Paris and London Conferences, as set forth in paragraphs ' A ' to ' Z. ' " 
   " (9) The signatory Powers agree to re-assemble every five years for the 
purpose of amending and developing the principles of this Act."
  The existing international engagements are prefaced by general
statements of principle along the lines of the foregoing, and are
then supplemented by the fullest detail necessary to application;
the Berlin Act upon import dues, navigation, and the use of
national flags; the Brussels Acts upon what constitutes evidence
of slave-trading; the London Conference upon charges incurred in
preventing the spread of diseases--these collectively represent an
uncodified mass of international engagements upon most features
of inter-colonial administrations.  The codification, redrafting, and
then the reaffirmation of these would alone give, on paper at lease,
a new charter of freedom to the commercial, industrial, and ethical
government of tropical and semi-tropical dependencies.
 
AN INTERNATIONAL COURT OF APPEAL. 
  The one element hitherto completely lacking is obviously
essential to success ; common sense demands what experience has
shown to be vital-namely, European and American machinery
for adjudication upon alleged breaches of these international 
commitments.  There is the widest divergence of opinion upon the
outcome of war, upon territorial changes, and upon industrial
reconstruction, but there is apparently no division of informed
and unprejudiced opinion upon the necessity of creating a League
of Nations for the maintenance of international harmony.  To
such Leagued Nations would fall quite naturally the task of setting
up a Court of Appeal for the purpose of adjudicating upon any
alleged breach of international obligations to which Colonial
Powers had appended their national signatures.  The jurisdiction
of such a Court could be settled by the Conference, which would
meet at the close of the war and quinquennially to frame, modify, 
or extend the principles and application of control over intercolonial 
questions.
  The only difficulty in setting up such machinery is that of penalties 
for national delinquency in the observance of agreed responsibility; 
this of course involves the whole problem of international 
sanctions without which a League of Nations could hardly
be effective.  But once the colonising Powers accept, as they

7
should now accept, the governing principle of Trusteeship for
tropical and semi-tropical dependencies, it follows that continued
breaches of sacred obligations which in practice destroy the happiness 
of the inhabitants, imperil progress, and menace adjacent
communities would constitute such a breach of fundamental law
that persistence is unthinkable, or if persistence becomes clearly
established, it could only lead ultimately to a transfer of sovereign
control, or the alternative of such nation surrendering its privileged
position as a member of the League of Nations.
  The elements of success in launching a new Colonial era in
tropical and semi-tropical dependencies are: the loyal acceptance
of the principle of trusteeship by the colonising Powers; non-
interference with national executive functions; international control 
over agreed inter-Colonial problems; no national bar against
commerce, industry, religion, or scientific development; the redrafting 
and extension of existing international engagements, and, 
finally, the creation of a Court of Appeal for the adjudication of 
alleged breaches of national and international commitments.
                  John H. Harris.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR :-

DAWN IN DARKEST AFRICA.
With Introduction by the late Lord Cromer.
Smith, Elder, 10s. 6d. 6s.

PORTUGUESE SLAVERY. BRITAIN'S DILEMMA. 
Methuen, 1s. 

GERMANY'S LOST COLONIAL EMPIRE.
The Essentials of Reconstruction.
Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton & Kent. 1s

PAYING BRITAIN'S WAR DEBT BY EASY METHODS.
A Criticism of the Proposals of the Empire Resources Development 
Committee.
Price 6d. 

From
THE ANTI-SLAVERY AND ABORIGINES PROTECTION SOCIETY.

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The Anti-Slavery and Aborigines protection Society.
51 Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, S.W.I
President:
SIR THOMAS FOWELL VICTOR BUXTON, Bart.
Chairman of General Committee:
LORD HENRY CAVENDISH BENTINCK, M.P.
Treasurer:
E. WRIGHT BROOKS, ESQ., J P.
Secretary:
TRAVERS BUXTON, M.A.
Organising Secretaries:
JOHN H. HARRIS and Mrs. HARRIS.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE.
Chairman:
RT. HON. J. W. WILSON, M.P.
Bankers:
BARCLAY'S BANK, LTD.,
95, Victoria Street, S.W.I.

PRICE SIXPENCE 

The Struggle 
for 
Native Rights in Rhodesia 

Extracts from the Argument of 
Mr. LESLIE SCOTT, K.C., M.P., 
before
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
April 16 to May 2, 1918

PUBLISHED BY
THE ANTI-SLAVERY AND ABORIGINES PROTECTION SOCIETY,
Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, S.W.I.

The Anti-Slavery & Aborigines 
Protection Society 

President:
SIR THOMAS FOWELL VICTOR BUXTON, BART.

Chairman of General Committee:
LORD HENRY CAVENDISH-BENTINCK, M.P.

Vice-Chairman of General Committee:
CHARLES ROBERTS, ESQ., M.P.

Treasurer:
E. WRIGHT BROOKS, ESQ., J.P.

Secretary:
TRAVERS BUXTON, M.A.

Organizing Secretaries: 
JOHN H. HARRIS & MRS. HARRIS.

Chairman of Parliamentary Committee:
RIGHT HON. J. W. WILSON, M.P.

Bankers:
BARCLAY'S BANK, LTD. 
95 Victoria Street, S.W.1

The Struggle for Native Rights
in Rhodesia.

Extracts from the argument of Mr. Leslie Scott, K.C.,
M.P., before the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council, April 16 to May 2, 1918.

     Mr. Leslie Scott: Your Lordships may naturally expect when Counsel
addresses your Lordships on behalf of the Natives that Counsel should
know on behalf of what Natives he does appear.... It was actually the 4th
August. I was instructed to attend before your Lordships' Board by a
Society which has had a very long record of good work in the Native cause,
the Anti-Slavery Society.
     Earl Loreburn: Natives who have been helped and are encouraged
by a beneficent society.
     Mr. Leslie Scott: Precisely.
     Lord Dunedin: Then your instructions will come from the Society.
     Mr. Leslie Scott: For all practical purposes I am instructed by the
persons who are acting in that Society.
     The first proposition is that tribal ownership in Southern Rhodesia
corresponded to the whole of the land as divided up amongst one tribe or
another. The land of Rhodesia was, broadly speaking, covered by one
occupying and owning tribe or another. My second proposition is that
although the notion of individual ownership or it may be of ownership
of land at all would not have been understood by any native, yet
the relations between a tribe and the land which it occupied can only
be described by an English lawyer as one of ownership. Thirdly, that
although in the Native land the distinction which we recognize so
clearly between the territory of a Sovereign and the property in land of
its owner was not known, but the enjoyment by the individual member
of the tribe of the rights of occupation which they had from their chief
as representing the tribe had all the attributes necessary to connote private
ownership as distinguished from public ownership in constitutional law.
Those rights of enjoyment by the individual in the tribe enjoyed to a certain extent in common, but also enjoyed individually, those rights are rights
of private property for the purpose of rules of law affecting the conquest
or cession of territory by one Sovereign Power from another. So that
in regard to each tribe, taking the Matabele tribe as an illustration, as
a name the Matabele tribe communally owned the whole of Matabeleland
proper, that is to say, the territory withing which Lobengula exercised
full sovereignty, and over which his tribe or sub-tribes enjoyed their rights
of occupation. May I add this? This reference to your Lordships' Board

2 THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

is a reference as to the legal position. I am therefore not going to trespass
in any way into the domain of policy. It may be, and I recognize that
fully in speaking on behalf of the Native population, that legislation in
dealing with Native rights in an African Protectorate is obviously necessary
when white settlers come in. So any submission of law I make must not
be taken in any sense as touching on the realm of policy.

         CONQUEST AND EXPROPRIATION
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: If there be any such right in the British Crown
as conquest to expropriate without legislation, then it is necessary to show
that the Crown, in fact, did it.

  Earl LOREBURN: Of course, it is always necessary to show that.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: My submission would be here that the fact that
the Crown deliberately decided to maintain the status of the Protectorate
would be conclusive to show the Crown did not expropriate.

  Earl LOREBURN: Do you wish to make any discrimination between
what the Crown can do in the way of exercise of the rights of conquest
and what it must obtain the sanction of Parliament to do? You can
consider that question.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I do not think that question, which is a very
important one, will be relevant to my argument. I desire not to express
any opinion on that at the moment.

  Earl LOREBURN: you have given us the three propositions you intend
to argue. Is there any other?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: The fourth is, and I use a date in order not to
beg the question, that after 1893, the British Crown did not either by Act
of State, if that be constitutionally possible, or by legislation, expropriate
the Native title.

         THE POSITION OF THE NATIVES
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: My lords, the position of the Natives is only
indirectly relative to the legal argument, but I want to say a word or two
about it. They are not represented on the Legislative Council. They
have no representation whatever. There are two Natives who own a 
piece of land under the white tenure, or something like that; some perfectly
trivial and negligible number out of a population of three-quarters
of a million Natives. There is a clause, Section 4 of the Regulations, on
page 364, of Document D, which contains a specific and express denial
of the right of the Natives to register as voters on the basis of this Communal
title, quite naturally I understand, but that is the position. Of
three-quarters of a million, although some 400,000 to 450,000 are in the
reserve areas, 300,000 are left on the unalienated lands and alienated lands
together, of which something like half, 100,000 to 150,000, are on the unalienated.
The Natives pay nearly one-half to total taxation of the country,
£300,000 out of £700,000 odd.

  Earl LOREBURN: I am sure you remember what we are doing in considering
questions of law; and that is all, and not going into the question
of policy or propriety towards Natives in the least. You may be quite 
sure the Native case as presented by yourself will be attentively considered
from the point of view of our jurisdiction.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: It is not for me as Counsel for the Natives to

THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA   3

suggest their interests have been altogether neglected. I say nothing 
of the sort; but I do say the position is one of the gravest public importance,
because their rights in land have been totally disregarded. In the
year 1912 there was a Committee appointed to inquire into Native affairs
by the Government of Southern Rhodesia, and I have had certain extracts
from it reprinted from the official document, the Government Report.
Will your Lordships turn to page 2, and at the top of the page you will
see Section 71: "We see no objection to the present system of allowing
Natives to occupy the unalienated land of the Company and pay rent.
The occupation is merely a passing phase, the land is being rapidly acquired
by settlers with whom the Natives must enter into fresh agreements or
leave." That illustrates the official view. That is the land which, in 
the Native submission to your Lordships, is the property of their tribes.

  Earl LOREBURN: That is the strongest of your arguments if you
establish it to show there was a tribal right to it.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Precisely. I will hand your Lordships an extract
from the South African Report of 1905. It is an extract from the evidence
taken before the Commission that inquired into the position of the Natives
throughout South Africa. There is a passage on page 1 of the Extracts
of Minutes from the evidence of Mr. John Kerr. He was being examined
by Sir Godfrey Lagden, who was Governor of Basutoland. At the end
of the extract at Question 36,762 there is this: "Have you any other
views upon the land question which you would like to express? --I think
the Natives are bound in a country like this to be provided with land.
I think that is only fair and just to the Natives, seeing that the Chartered 
Company have really practically confiscated the whole of the lands, and
that they are only living on sufferance, and therefore I say it is the bounden
duty of the Chartered Company to see that if the Native does not like to
go out to the mines, he was somewhere he may call his home."

  Lord Atkinson: The next witness gives some important evidence
as to private rights.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Yes, my Lord. I was going to bring that in 
presently. I could multiply passages of that type indefinitely. They
merely point out what the question is in a striking way, and they do not
really elucidate it.

  Earl LOREBURN: The gravity of the consequences of decision 
and subsequent action of the Natives.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Certainly. The effect of that is that at the present
moment the Natives have no security of tenure anywhere at all, unless
an individual has come to the Chartered Company and said, I want to
buy a piece of land from you and then he will pay his purchase money
and his quit rent and have his land like a white man, but unless he does
that and buys land which on their contention to-day before you Lordships
in already their own land, they have no security of tenure. I say that
advisedly, because even in regard to the reserves there is no security of
tenure. In 1915, as your Lordships will remember the Commission was
appointed to inquire into the Native Reserve question and deal with it
further. That Report has been already referred to before your Lordships,
and in that inquiry they take way from the Native Reserves that have
been granted in 1894 and 1895 something approaching to one-third or 
one-half. It is true that additional reserves were given, some 6,000,000
acres were taken away and some 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 acres additional
were added. The only point as I made it perfectly clear is that the reserve

4          THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

lands are not lands in which a full title has been given to the Natives which they can keep for their own, and the real legal relevance of that is touching the question whether there was any land settlement in the question of expropriation or compulsory purchase, the purchase price being other land in 1894 or subsequent years.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Let me put it in one sentence that covers all questions of the kind.  There has been no final settlement up to today of the question of rights of Natives in the land.  That there will have to be further settlements is undoubtedly clear in my submission, if my legal submissions are right, but that there has not been any right such as to divest the Natives of their title is my submission.

Earl LOREBURN:  The consequences must be applied whatever they be.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Yes, quite.  It is in that fact, if it be a fact, that importance of this reference to the Natives' case lies.

Lord SCOTT DICKSON:  There is no dispute about that unless it is Lippert Concession.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  That is the position I am respectfully setting up on behalf of the Natives.  The argument, stripped of everything that is not most fundamentally essential, is this, that private property of the Natives before 1893 never has been taken.

Earl LOREBURN:  That is your real point.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  That is what it comes to.

Earl LOREBURN:  That is the main proposition of yours.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  They may come down to that ultimately.  I will remind your Lordships in connection with the question of reserves that the case of the other parties to the reference treat the reserves as within the definition of unalienated land, the status of which is referred to your Lordships for decision.  The reserves are expressly included.

          NATIVE LAND TENURE.
Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  I was commencing to deal with the Natives' title, and in relation to that pointing out the character of the Native occupation of the land.  The Counsel who have preceded me have I think a little left that the Natives of Southern Rhodesia were nomadic hunting tribes.  I desire to call attention to the fact that they were mainly agricultural, and although their system of agriculture was one which left lands fallow for a considerable number of years, yet the incidents of agricultural life, more or less permanent tenure of lands cultivated, characterized the Natives of Rhodesia.  I gave your Lordships one reference in the Command Paper No. 8,674, relating to the Southern Rhodesia Native Reserves Commission of 1915, copioes of which I handed to your Lordships, and I desire to call your Lordships' attention to one or two other references there, merely illustrative, not exhaustive in any way to show the character of the Native occuption.

Earl LOREBURN:  Is this the proposition:  that there was not one territory under Lobengula, but that there were a variety  of different tribes with different territory, so to speak, to which they were attached?

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Yes.

          THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA          5

Earl LOREBURN:  That they were carrying on to a considerable and you say to a predominant extent an agricultural life, and that the system was that they did not individually own property, but that they were occupants according to the direction of their Chief for agricultural purposes.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Yes.

Earl LOREBURN:  And that they were not, therefore, as you say, under the domination of Lobengula in so far as the alltoment and occupation and so on goes?

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Yes, and to those propositions I should like to add an explanatory comment on the last; under Lobengula there were probably certain sub-chiefs, but the whole of his sovereignty, the whole of his Kingdom was limited in extent to something like 609 miles round Buluwayo.

Earl LOREBURN:  You must encounter this, that Her Majesty Queen Victoria recognized Lobengula as the sovereign of Mashonaland and Matabeleland.  You know quite well that the Courts of Justice take from the State the definition that the State imposes upon the authority or power of foreign princes.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  I am not on the question of conquest at the moment; I propose to deal with that separately.  I want your Lordships to remember the order I am taking it in:  Native title first, then logically comes the Lippert Concession, then the conquest, then the position of the British Crown as the protecting Powe; then a consideration of the constitutional effect of an African Protectorate, which is not very clear, and then the legislation by Order in Council from 1894 onwards.  Those are the logical steps.

Earl LOREBURN:  Quite right; now let us have the references you want to give.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  It is page 46 of the 1915 Commission Report.  Your Lordships see the second Reserve, the Umtasa South Reserve:  "Recommendation: --This Reserve should remain as at present laid down and a small increase be made to its area.  It is quite inadequate for the present requirements of the Natives, but it can only be increased by the inclusion of one small area which is described hereafter.  There would be strong objection on the part of the Natives to leaving the Reserve, as the land has been in possession of the Umtasa and his ancestors for generations."  The next one is the Umtasa North Reserve and in the sixth line you see it is under a Native Chief:--"His tribe is one of the oldest in Mashonaland and have lived wehre his kraal now is for many generations."  I think that those two illustration I have given are sufficient for illustrating this point, and to make good prima facie my submission. 

Earl LOREBURN:  Quite right, that is the position at all events about them.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Yes, and of others.  I am taking it as illustrative.  That is in 1915 and 1916.  That defines the proposition; they were Natives that had lived for generations upon the same area of land.  There it is clear that the individual Natives, through the communal title, must be treated as having in, say, 1890, practically the complete ownership of the land through the communal title, and it is a matter of indifference from the point of view of constitutional law whether we should as Western lawyers describe it as a title in which the King had the absolute fee as


6  THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

trustee for his people, or whether it was communally vested in all.  The 
important aspect of it to bear in mind when we consider the question of 
concession and territory and conquest and so on, is that the enjoyment 
by the individuals practising their agricultural occupation was of a personal 
character, and had all the attributes of  private property.

Earl Loreburn:  The tribe owned it for all practical purposes.

Mr. Leslie Scott:  Precisely, and although they only show in their 
minds the idea of occupation, that does not matter.

Mr. Leslie Scott (quoting from Report on South African Native 
Affairs Commission, 1903-1905, paragraph 212):  "A characteristic of the 
Natives of South Africa is their tribal organization.  The tribe is a community 
or collection of Natives forming a political and social organization 
under the government, control, and leadership of a chief, who is the centre 
of the national or tribal life.  It is through the existence of a chief that 
the tribe is conscious of its unity.  As the father is to the family, so is 
the chief to the tribe.  He is sometimes the chief of a congeries of tribes, 
and then is known as paramount or supreme chief, or he may be the head 
of a single tribe composed of a number of families, usually members of 
the same clan or using the same totem.  Each member of the tribe owes 
him personal allegiance and service, to be performed gratuitously when 
called upon, in the interests of the chief or the tribe.  Each member has 
the right to maintenance from the land of the tribe.  (213)  As a father 
exercises authority within his family, as the headman of a kraal or collection 
of kraals rules them and exercises authority over them, so the chief rules
 the tribe and guides its destines.  Furthermore, as the father consults 
his family, and the headman consults the men in the kraals under him, 
so a discreet and wise chief consults the elders of his tribe.  He is their 
chief court of appeal, he sanctions all changes made in the traditional 
usages of the tribe, but everywhere amongst the Natives the absolutism 
of the chief is tempered by institutions which keep it in check.  It cannot 
be said that the judgments of chiefs were always equitable, but in the 
generality of cases they were so, and their administration on the whole 
was acceptable to the people."  Then a little lower down on the same 
page there is this at paragraph 216:  "The laws, customs and usages prevailing 
amongst the Natives previous to the establishment of European 
government over them have not been abrogated or forbidden, except so 
far as the same may be repugnant to the general principles of humanity 
and civilization."  Then paragraph 217:  "It may fairly be said of the
 Native of South Africa that though there are variations of details in the 
laws of succession and inheritance, and in other customs and usages of 
the various tribes, there is great similarity in their tribal systems."

Earl Loreburn:  Might I ask with regard to the proposition which 
is advanced by Mr. Leslie Scott as to the effect of the tribal character of 
the occupation of the land, and from that we may infer what kind of ownership 
may or may not arise from it, is there any dispute about that among 
the learned Counsel?

Mr. Leslie Scott:  My Lord, the Legislative Council in this case 
especially accept possession.

Earl Loreburn:  I asked if there was any question about it amongst 
the learned Counsel.

Mr. Leslie Scott:  I am obliged to your Lordship.

Earl Loreburn:  Very well.  If there is a dispute arising about that, 



THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA   7

Mr. Scott, you will not be precluded from an opportunity of establishing 
it.  At present the evidence is, and the Counsel do not seem to differ from
 it, that there were various sections of the community who had a certain
 kind of communal usage of occupation, I will not define it in any other 
way, but a communal usage of occupation which resulted in their having 
rights, and the use and profits of the land.  That is all you want to establish.  
It may be contradicted, and if so you will not be precluded from dealing 
with it.

NATIVE LAW OF ALIENATION

Mr. Leslie Scott:  My Lords, then the next question is the Native 
law of the alienation of land.  In order that we may consider the Lippert 
Concession.  Before I come to the Lippert Concession and in advance I want
 to say this: --I do not propose to repeat any of the arguments that have 
been addressed to your Lordships on behalf of the Legislative Council as 
to its interpretation, but I have to deal with its validity, the extent to 
which, if at all, is valid in matters of area or land affected by it, and 
there are one or two points of interpretation that have not been referred 
to at all, and it is those points only to which I wish to refer.

Earl Loreburn:  By all means.

Mr. Leslie Scott (quotes Hermansberg Mission Society v. The Commissioner 
for Native Affairs, etc., 1906):  "in order that the alienation 
by a Native chief of tribal land shall be binding on the tribe their consent
 in accordance with Native customer must be clearly proved; a contract
 validly entered into in that way will bind the chief's successor and his
 people.  Where such alienation by a chief of a Bantu tribe" --and Mashonaland 
and Matabeleland are both Bantu tribes--" takes place with the 
unanimous consent of his council of indunas, held that the alienation was 
binding on the chief's successor and on his tribe."  The two chief witnesses 
as to Native law and custom in relation to the land tenure were Mr. Taberer, 
the Assistant Secretary for Native Affairs, and Mr. Shepstone, from each 
of whom we have affidavits which my learned friend, Mr. Lawrence, has 
read to your Lordships.  The Court treated their evidence as the evidence 
of men entitled to great weight.

Earl Loreburn:  The importance of that case seems to be they recognized 
that by usage the people had a right to protect themselves with regard 
to the alienation of land against their chief.  Therefore it was not his own 
sweet will.

Mr. Leslie Scott:  That is the relevance of the case.

Lord Atkinson:  Apparently the way the consent of the tribe was 
given was through the indunas.

Mr. Leslie Scott:  Precisely, my Lord; and confirmed, it may be 
by what is called a pitso or meeting of the whole people.

Earl Loreburn:  There is a rudimentary right of some kind.

Mr. Leslie Scott:  Yes.  The evidence is stated of these two gentlemen, 
and it appears on page 137.  It is only on this question of the Lippert 
Concession that I read the case:  "Mr. Taberer, the Assistant Secretary 
of Native Affairs, stated that he had much experience of Native customs.  
Amongst the Bantu races the position of chief with regard to land was 
that of trustee for his people.  If he wished to alienate the land he would 
have to get permission of his tribe as represented by his councillors.  Unless
**

8   THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

the council were unanimous the chief would have no power constitutionally
 to carry out the proposal.  The pitso was a Basuto constitution."  There 
is a question here whether pitso was an institution practised and observed 
by the Matabeles and the Mashonas or not, and from our being prevented 
from getting Native evidence on the point I am not in a position to give 
your Lordships the information which you ought to have in this case.

Earl LOREBURN:  Lord Atkinson has drawn my attention very kindly 
to the fact which he noted that in the Rudd Concession there is a recital 
with regard to the indunas' consent, and in the Lippert Concession it is 
not so.

Lord SUMNER:  That is so.  There are memoranda attached to the 
Lippert Concession.

Earl LOREBURN:  We must look at it if it is material.  Your main 
proposition does not depend upon the method practically or the way, but 
upon the fact that there is a right of some kind on the part of the people.  
That is exactly what you want.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Yes.

Earl LOREBURN:  And that is all you want?

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Yes, and the only reason I referred to this case 
was for the one point to make it valid that the consent of all the indunas 
was necessary.  Your Lordships have that in mind.  The Judge who 
tried this case said that he was very much impressed with the evidence
 of Mr. Taberer and Mr. Shepstone.  Will your Lordships on this point
 kindly look at the Lippert Concession for a moment.  That is on page 
73 of Appendix A.

Earl LOREBURN:  You are going to the Lippert Concession now?

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Yes, on this one point of validity.  At line 33 
on page 74, it says:  "There were present at the discussion of the above 
grant besides the King Lobengula, Umhlaba (the Regent), Umlagela, 
Gambo, Umjana, Lutuli, all indunas."  There were four indunas, and 
four only.

Earl LOREBURN:  That is the statement of Lippert.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  That is Mr. Lippert's statement.  Mr. Moffat
 says his principal indunas, and that is all, not that all the indunas were
 present.

Lord SUMNER:  Is the contention like the Polish constitution, that
 a veto be over every one?  I thought you read from the decision of the 
Transvaal Supreme Court that the unanimous consent of all the indunas 
present was necessary.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  No, my Lord; the unanimous consent of all the 
indunas.

Lord SUMNER:  The absence when alone the dissent of one vitiates 
the grant.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  In Native law, my Lord, yes.

Earl LOREBURN:  The decision of Native law seems to be unprecise 
at present.  At the same time your proposition really is they would have
 no right to alienate.

THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA 9

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: They have no right to alienate unless all the indunas
consented.

THE LIPPERT CONCESSION. 

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I believe in Rhodesia, broadly speaking, most
of the land was occupied by the Natives. This question of occupation
and the question of limitation of the power that Lobengula intended
to grant by the Lippert Concession is necessarily one of degree. He could
not possibly have intended Lippert to part with to Europeans the whole
of the land over which he, Lobengula, was king. He could not have intended
Lippert, for instance, to deal with and grant the land upon which the royal
kraal was situated, or the land upon which the kraals of any of the indunas
were situated, nor the townships as they were called where the various
tribes and clans under him were living, nor that the grounds which they
were cultivating nor such amount of pastural land as was necessary to
maintain the pastural rights of the king should be dealt with.

Earl LOREBURN: Be it so; I want, with Lord Sumner, to get something
precise. Let me point out the three things you stated just now.
You say that the Lippert Concession did not apply to lands which were
in the occupation of Natives tribally; that is what you have said.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I have.

Earl LOREBURN: You say that occupation of Natives tribally means
lands over which the cattle grazed; therefore the Concession did not apply
to that.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: It excludes those.

Earl LOREBURN: But the Lippert Concession did include lands over
which there were tribal rights, though they were not actually occupied?

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Yes, I say that for this reason.

Earl LOREBORN: Let us get a clear conception of the propositions
you are advancing.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Those are the propositions I am advancing, and
I am advancing a fourth, in order to make it clear that the line of demarcation
between two and three must be a question of degree. I mean this;
it is clear that Lobengula, if asked at the time, would have said all the
land in my kingdom is occupied by my people. It is also clear that if he
was not intending to allow any land occupied in that sense to be dealt
with by Lippert, he was giving Lippert nothing; therefore it is quite clear
he could not have intended to refuse to Lippert the power of making grants
over land occupied in that sense; conversely, on the other hand, it is quite
plain, I submit, he could not have intended to give Lippert power to deal
with lands in the actual living occupation of himself and his indunas or
his people, nor of the lands they were engaged in cultivating for their livelihood
or using for pastoral purposes. The real truth of the matter, I suspect,
is this, that the proper interpretation to give to this is that he expected
to remain king of the Matabele nation, and that at any time if Lippert
granted land which he, Lobengula, thought was in the occupation of his
people he, Lobengula, might intervene and say: That must not be given.
On the other hand, if the land that was granted by Lippert was land which
Lobengula and the Natives generally did not regard as occupied land, then
if the concession was a valid concession Lippert would be able to grant
that land. The kind of line of demarcation that I submit is the only line

10  THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

of demarcation possible, is to find a middle line between those two conflicting
views, both of which contain a truth, which cannot be denied,
namely, that he could not have intended to give all his land and that he 
could not have intended to give none; it is somewhere between the two.

If your Lordships would look at page 77 of Appendix A, you will find
that the Company themselves accept this view that I am contending for,
that the Concession was limited to unoccupied lands.  On the 14th December
1891, three months before they got the transfer, the Secretary of the
Company writes to the Imperial Secretary at Cape Town: " I am instructed
to state, for the information of his Excellency the High Commissioner,
that the managing director has perused the Concession granted by Lobengula
to Edward Lippert on the 17th of November 1891, empowering him, subject
to certain payments, to lay out, grant, or lease farms, townships, building
plots, and grazing areas, and generally to deal with the unoccupied lands
within the kingdom of Lobengula for the full term  of 100 years and that
on behalf of this Company Mr. Rhodes has no objection to offer to the
said Concession being ratified by his Excellency the High Commissioner."
That is three months before the transfer to the Company.  This is in December, 1891, and the transfer was in February, 1892.

Lord SCOTT DICKSON: It is after the concession to Lippert.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Yes, but before the Company got it.  That is 
their view.

Earl LOREBURN: That is your contention with regard to the construction
of the Concession.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: On that point, my Lord.

Then one word about the contention which my learned friend, Mr.
Lawrence, advanced on interpretation, that it must be treated as limited
in its terms to the life or sovereignty of Lobengula or the continuance
of the Matabele sovereignty.  I submit, according to its language, that
is so; that the power is limited to granting "certificates in my name";
and that, I submit, is conclusive on that point.

Earl LOREBURN:  You adopt Mr. Lawrence's contention with regard
to that?

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Yes, my Lord; but I want to add one further
submission and that is this, not on the language of the Concession but
on what, I submit, must be regarded as an implied term of it, that Lobengula
could not, and the indunas in giving their consent could not, have
intended to give a power to an agent to deal with the land to last or to
endure after the Matabele sovereignty had been brought to an end; that
it would be contrary to good sense to suppose that the power was to last
in that event.  There is one other point on interpretation, and that is,
I submit, that the payment of the L500 is a condition of the continuance
of the delegated authority.  It is like a rent.

AN AMAZING DOCUMENT.
Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  I am on the point that the Company did not act
on it (the Lippert Concesseion) after the war in 1893, and I am pointing
out, first of all, that they acted without it before; that is all.  Then in
1893, before the war, on the 14th August, at page 92 of Appendix A, your
Lordships will find the Company entered into an agreement for conditions
of sevice with the members of the Victoria Force for Matabeleland, and

THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA     11

your Lordship will see here that they agreed to grant land, as Mr. Rhodes
put it subsequently, in right of conquest.  I want your Lordship to read
the whole of this, because I submit it shows the way in which the Company
were completely disregarding all Native rights of land and not acting on 
the Lippert Concession:  "The following are the conditions of service
for the members of the Victoria Force for Matabeleland: (1) That each
member shall have protection on all claims in Mashonaland until six months
after the date of cessation of hostilities.  (2) That each member will be
entitled to mark out a farm of 3,000 morgen in any part of Matabeleland.
No occupation is required, but a quit-rent will be charged on each farm
of ten shillings per annum. (3) That no marking out of farms and claims
will be allowed, or held valid, until such time as the Administrator and the
commanders of the different columns consider the country sufficiently
peaceful, and a week's clear notification will be given to that effect.  (4)
That members be allowed four clear months wherein to mark out and 
register their farms, and that no such marking out or registration will 
be valid after that time, with the exception of the rights belonging to members
of the force killed, invalided, or dying on service.  (5) The Government
retain the right at any time to purchase farms from the members
at the rate of L3 sterling per morgen, and compensation for all improvements.
This does not include the purchase of claims already pegged out
on farms."  Then there is a reference to alluvial claims.

Earl LOREBURN: This shows that before the Expedition they
promised the men certain lands, and it may be, as you say, that they
were treating themselves as entitled to give it by right of conquest.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Your Lordship will remember the very limited
proposition for which I cite this, namely, that the Company did not act
on the Lippert Concession.

Earl LOREBURN: They acted on some other power which they thought
they had.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Quite.

Earl LOREBURN: That does not affect it.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Possibly it is a pure question of Native law and
the interpretation of the document as to whether it comes to an end with
the sovereignty of Lovengula.  That was my proposition.  I merely quote
this as showing that was a view shared by the Company at that time.  Then
paragraph 7: "The 'loot' shall be divided: one-half to B.S.A. Company
and the remainder to officers and men in equal shares."  That I quote
as showing that they regarded it as an agreement made in view of conquest.

BRITISH CROWN RIGHTS-PROTECTORATES.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Now, my Lords, I want to say a little on the question
of the status of the Protectorate and the rights of the British Crown
when the British Crown is the protecting Power and the Protectorate in
question is not the normal Protectorates known in the past but an African
Protectorate.

Earl LOREBURN: What is the proposition you want to establish?

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: There are two propositions I think involved.
One is that where the Protectorate is continued after such a conquest
as there was here, it cannot be said as a matter of constitutional law that
the same rights arise as would arise if there had been a conquest and annexation.
Whatever may be the position in the case of annexation, or what-

12   THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

ever be the true meaning of Lord Mansfield's Judgement in Campbell v.
Hall as to the power of the conqueror to take the private property of individuals,
my submission is that when the conquering Power either assumes
or maintains a protectorate no such inference can arise. It cannot be
inferred or presumed that the conquering Power intends to take or deal
with in any way, by an executive act, the private property in land of the
subjects of the conquered Power.

Earl LOREBURN: Do I understand you to say because it announces
itself as a protectorate and uses the term "protectorate," that that precludes
it from exercising its rights as a conqueror?

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Yes, for this reason, that the rights which follow
upon conquest follow not logically or in law upon the mere fact of conquest,
but upon the act of annexation which usually follows conquest.

Lord ATKINSON: Do you mean that, or do you mean that from the
fact that they announces they were only continuing a protectorate, you
many presume from that that they do not intend to exercise their rights
as conquerors.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I put it that way conversely.

Earl LOREBURN: That is more intelligible; the other was more up
in the clouds. You say in this case to Crown did not exercise the rights,
that is what it comes to; they could not have, as you say, but they did
not exercise the rights of interfering with private property.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Yes, to put it as Lord Atkinson put it, if they
had so intended, they would both have annexed and said what they were
doing.

Now, my Lords, there are certain passages in the documents which
throw light upon this because they are State documents where the Crown
through the Secretary of States for the Colonies has expressed certain views
on this particular subject and I think it is convenient to take those first,
before I refer to one or two authorities. Your Lordship will find this
document in Volume A, page 4. I am dealing with the whole question
of the status of the protecting Power, including the question conquest,
and as an incident so to speak, on page 4 of Appendix A there is a letter
in relation to Bechuanaland, but the principle applies here. The High
Commissioner for South Africa writing to Sir Charles Warren (who I think 
was Special Commissioner in Bechuanaland), with regard to a claim
of the Rev. A. Robinson respecting certain lands claimed by him in
Mankoroane's country, says this at line 35: "I may point out in this
connection, that, as the position of Her Majesty's Government in Bechuanaland
does not amount to sovereignty, the waste lands not required by
the chiefs are vested in the chiefs themselves, and not in the Crown. It
would be impossible, therefore, for Her Majesty's Government to appoint a
Land Commission for the purpose of alienating land, as they are not possessed
of the land to be alienated. A proper course, in my opinion, would
be to ascertain the territorial right of the chiefs, and then to leave the
chiefs and their councils to decide on the claims to land within their territories.
For this purpose they might receive the assistance and advice
of your officers, but I do not think that, until annexation takes place, it
would be proper to assume the direct control of the land settlement of
the country."

Earl LOREBURN: About Bechuanaland. We have got a number of
documents relating to this particular territory, and the question is whether

THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA   13

this Concession applied, what was done, and what was the status taken
by the Crown with regard to this country.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I want your Lordship to appreciate why I refer
to it. I do no refer to it because it is Bechuanaland, but merely to show
the official view expressed in an official dispatch as to what the powers
of the Crown are, the constitutional powers of the Crown in a Protectorate.
I will read one passage from the one dispatch that I want to refer to in
1895 at page 174. This is in the dispatch I referred to for another
purpose just now. It is a dispatch from Mr. Chamberlain, and at
the bottom of page 174, paragraph 10, it says: "With regard to paragraphs
7 and 8 of your letter, I am to observe that the acquisition of land
in Montsoia's, Ikaning's and Lechwe's countries, beyond what is actually
required for the railway, will be a matter of arrangement between the
Company and those chiefs, and in this connection I am for refer you to
the extract from Mr. Chamberlain's telegram of the 14th ultimo, already
enclosed. You are aware that the Crown, although as the Administrative
authority it takes and uses certain areas for public purposes, does not
claim the ownership of Lands in Native occupation in a Protectorate.
It cannot, therefore, be asked to grant to your Company what it has not
claimed for itself." That is a perfectly general statement about the Crown's
attitude to Protectorates. Then he goes on to deal with the case of three
chiefs who had given up certain land, so that it had become vacant land,
and the Crown would thereupon get a title. Then in paragraph 12 he
goes on: "It remains to consider the question of title in the Southern
and Western parts of the Protectorate which will come for administrative
purposes under the Company. As regards those parts which are in the
beneficial occupation of Natives, such as the lands of other Maroquin Baralong
(South of Bathoen) and the lands actually used by Sekhome and
his tribe (near Lake 'Ngami), Mr. Chamberlain can only repeat the observation
already made, that the Crown cannot grant what it does not claim 
for itself. There are, Mr. Chamberlain believes, undoubtedly other lands
in the Protectorate to which no just Native claim exists, and these he
considers that the Company may take possession of and by virtue of their 
occupancy may make title to."

Now, summing up the attitude of the Crown as shown by these documents,
in a Protectorate, where the land is absolutely vacant, where there
is vacant land, the Crown will assume the right the deal with it, but when
it is in the occupation of any tribe, the Crown cannot deal with it, because
it has no right to deal with it; that is its attitude as protecting Power.

In a collection of papers by the late Professor Westlake, published in
1914, and edited by Mr. Oppenheim, the author of a standard work on
International Law, " at page 181 there is an interesting passage about
Protectorates: " In the civilized world a Protectorate has long been
familiar as a relation existing between two States, and which the protected
one is controlled or even wholly represented in its foreign affairs
by the protecting one, while the latter has such authority in the internal
affairs of the former, if any, as the arrangements between them provide
for." Then he gives illustrations of the old form of protectorate; then
he goes on on page 182: "Where there is no State, that is to say, in
an uncivilized region, there can be no protected State, and therefore
no such Protectorate as has been described in the last paragraph. But
in recent times a practice has arisen by which in such regions civilized
powers assume and exercise certain rights in more or less well defined
districts, to which rights and districts, for the term is used to express both

14   THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

the one and the other, the name of a Protectorate is given by analogy.
The distinctive characters of those rights are, first, that they are contrasted
with territorial sovereignty, for, as far as such sovereignty extends, there
is the State itself which had acquired it, and not a Protectorate exercised
by the State; secondly that the Protectorate first established excludes all
other States from exercising any authority within the district, either by
way of territorial sovereignty or of a Protectorate -- that is to say, while
it lasts, for the question remains whether a Protectorate, like an inchoate
title to territorial sovereignty, is not subject to conditions and liable to
forfeiture on their non-fulfillment; thirdly, that the State enjoying the
protectorate represents and protects the district of its population, native
or civilized, in everything which relates to other Powers.  The analogy to
the protectorates exercised over States is plainly seen in the last two chapters,
exclusiveness and representation with protection.  It is less visible in the
first character, for, where there is a protected State, the territorial sovereignty
is divided between it and the protecting State according to the arrangements
existing in the particular case, while in an uncivilized protectorate it is in
suspense.  But on the whole the analogy is sufficient to account for the
extension of the old term to the new case, although to account for is not
necessarily to justify, and perhaps it might have been better had a new
term been used."

Earl LOREBURN:  What is the proposition of law you quote this for?
It is an interesting dissertation by a very learned gentleman.

MR. LESLIE SCOTT:  The protecting Power only assumes a modified
sovereignty so to speak, excluding all foreign power and protecting the
subjects within the province of the protectorate.  In other words, it is a
negative proposition that it does not amount to a full sovereignty.

Earl LOREBURN:  It depends upon what the protecting Power does.

Lord ATKINSON:  I think you must start from 1894; the British
Government did exercise many powers of sovereignty in this region; they
established courts, which is one of the indicia of sovereign Power, and many
other things, administrators, magistrates, land registry, and everything of
that kind.

MR. LESLIE SCOTT:  They were all under the Foreign Jurisdiction Act
of 1890.

EARL LOREBURN:  A protectorate is what the protecting Power makes
it; there is no classical definition of what a protectorate is.

MR. LESLIE SCOTT:  I think the proposition that I am concerned to
submit in regard to it is simply this, that no presumption or inference is
justifiable that the protecting Power has intended whilst continuing the
status of protectorate, to take from the protected subjects the private
property in land which they own.

Earl LOREBURN:  What you mean, I think, is this, if I may say so,
that the protecting Power did not interfere with the tribal rights; that is
what you are driving at in this case.

MR. LESLIE SCOTT:  Precisely.  The reason I referred to that passage
was that it shows the views of an international lawyer of great repute as to
what a protectorate is, and my submission is that that being what a protectorate
is, no inference of an intention to interfere with tribal rights can be
inferred.  The question of the jurisdiction of Her Majesty in foreign protec-

15   THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

torates where Orders in Council for legislative purposes are made pursuant
to the Foreign Jurisdiction Act of 1890 was considered in the Court of Appeal
in the case of the King v. Earl Crewe in 1910, 2 King's Bench, at page 576, in
the case where an application was made by a Native chief called Sekgome,
your Lordships may remember, for habeas corpus.  The headnote is this:
  "By an Order in Council dated May 9, 1891" -- that is the Order in Council
which is relevant in this case; it included Bechuanaland as well as Matabeleland
and Mashonaland --" made in exercise of the powers by the Foreign
Jurisdiction Act, 1890, or otherwise in Her Majesty vested," the High Commissioner
for South Africa was authorised to exercise in the Bechuanaland
Protectorate the powers of Her Majesty, and to do all such things as are
lawful to provide by Proclamation for the administration of justice and
generally for the peace, order, and good government of all persons within the
Protectorate, including the prohibition and punishment of all acts tending
to disturb the public peace.  One Sekgome, who claimed to be chief of a
native tribe in the Protectorate, was detained in custody at a place within
the Protectorate by virtue of a proclamation authorising his detention, and
expressed to have been made by the High Commissioner, under the powers
conferred on him by the Order in Council, on the ground that the detention
of Sekgome was necessary for the preservation of peace within the Protectorate."
Then there was an application for a writ of habeas corpus.  It
came ultimately before the Court of Appeal, and on page 594 Lord Justice
Vaughan Williams dealt with the Foreign Jurisdiction Act:  "Having
dealt with these preliminary questions, I will now pass to the discussion
of the question of the validity of the proclamation.  The firs statute to
which I will call attention to the Foreign Jurisdiction Act, 1890, which
recites: "Whereas by treaty, capitulation, grant, usage, sufferance, and
other lawful means, Her Majesty the Queen has jurisdiction within divers
foreign countries, and it is expedient to consolidate the Acts relating to
the exercise of Her Majesty's jurisdiction out of her dominions':" -- Then
his Lordship quotes the sections from the Act of Parliament.  Section I is:
  "It is and shall be lawful for Her Majesty the Queen to hold, exercise and
enjoy any jurisdiction which Her Majesty now has or may at any time
hereafter have within a foreign country in the same and as ample a manner
as if Her Majesty has acquired that jurisdiction by the cession or conquest
of territory."  Then I need not read the other sections that the Lord Justice
cited.  He goes on at the top of page 596: "I have read the observations
of Mr. W.E. Hall upon page 221 of his book on Foreign Jurisdiction of the
British Crown, in which he says that it is doubtful whether this Act or any
of the prior Acts relating to foreign jurisdiction deal with anything else
than a strictly extra-territorial jurisdiction limited to His Majesty's own
subjects.  I think that the power given by section 5 of the Act of 1890 to
extend the operation of certain repealed enactments in the first Schedule to
any foreign country in which for the time being Her Majesty has jurisdiction
as if the country were a British possession, and as if her Majesty in Council
were the Legislature of the possession, rather favours the limitation of the
Statue to Her Majesty's subjects suggested by Mr. Hall."  Then the Lord
Justice comes to the conclusion, as your Lordships see is indicated there,
that under the Foreign Jurisdiction Act, Her Majesty did get power
to legislate by Order in Council so as to affect everybody within the
Protectorate.

SOVEREIGNTY.
Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  The next point of the argument that I want to
deal with is one that your Lordships may intimate to me it is unnecessary
I should argue, because your Lordships may accept the proposition.  It
                                                                                                  ***

16   THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

is this : There is a fundamental distinction between the acquisition
of territory by a transfer of sovereignty and the acquisition of land
which is within that territory. Territory is an expression appropriate to
acquisition of sovereign jurisdiction. Land is a question of private or public
acquisition of sovereign jurisdiction. Land is a question of private or public
property. I respectfully submit that in the argument of the Legislative
Council's case there is a confusion between the two ideas. I submit in
that case, first of all, that there was a complete transfer of sovereignty
from Lobengula to the British Crown, secondly, that that carried with it
complete dominion over Lobengula's territory, two propositions which in
one sense I should controvert, but as a result of that transfer the Natives
had no right in their land unless the Crown gave it them. That is a fallacy
in my submission

Earl LOREBURN : I think, speaking for myself, to say there was a
conquest which placed everything at the disposition of the Crown, is a
different thing from saying the conquest resulted in the acquisition of this
private right. I personally agree with you upon that.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : If your Lordships look at the Legislative Council's
case, that is the effect of the case as a whole. They say because sovereignty
passed, therefore the Natives lost their property in the land except to the
extent to which the Crown expressly granted it to them. To some extent
I think that view appears in the Crown's case, and that, I  submit, is a
fallacy.

Earl LOREBURN : The boot is on the other leg, that all private right
would remain until they could be interfered with. I am giving you my
own view of it.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : There is a very short summary of the law on that
point—territorial sovereignty, in chapter 9, page 131, of Mr. Westlake's 
paper.

Earl LOREBURN : Does he take that view?

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : Yes. If that be a sound question, the next question
logically is whether the Crown did, by any Act that would be effective,
divest the native title. My submission is it did not.

There is a passage in  6 Peters in the case of The United States v.
Arredondo, a case of the Supreme Court. That is in 6 Peters at page 691,
and it was decided in the year 1832. It is a judgment of Chief Justice
Marshall, in which he quoted the earlier judgment of the Court. It is
only for the quotation on page 733 for which I cite it : "Whatever the
legislative power may be, its acts ought never to be so construed as to
subvert the rights of property, unless its intention to do so shall be expressed
in such terms as to admit of no doubt, and to show a clear design to effect
the object. No general terms intended for property, to which they may
be fairly applicable and not particularly applied by the legislature, no
silent implied and constructive repeals ought ever to be understood as to
divest a vested right."

Lord ATKINSON : There is no doubt in the proposition that in conquest
the conqueror can do as he likes. He may put the population to
the sword and take their property ; but, if he does not do that, the private
right of property is presumed to continue.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : When he comes to legislate it will not be presumed,
unless he uses clear words to that effect in that legislation, that he intends
to take away private rights. I will come now to the legislation after the
war.

THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA    17

Earl LOREBURN : In considering this case on this particular point,
which is one for you of great importance and of public importance, there
is always this to be remembered, that in looking at these Proclamations
I think that the general overriding purpose and the basis of legislation by
Ordinance, and so forth, was to do what you may call civilizing by the 
introduction of a white population, and, therefore, of course the scheme
was to colonize, so to speak. I do not say that has any necessary bearing
on any particular Ordinance, but that is the general purpose I think as
disclosed in the Proclamations. It may have a qualifying effect upon the
different Proclamations.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : I should accept that completely as a consideration
to bear in mind in interpreting the legislation.

Lord ATKINSON : Does not the conquering power by supposing the
planting of people and the confining of the native population to particular
reserves express its will that a general right over the whole country shall
no longer eist?

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT :  My submission is no.

Earl LOREBURN : It would appear to me by the confining of them to
the enjoyment of special reserves they cannot have the right over the
whole surface ; but it is confined to the reserves.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : I understand that is the argument advanced
against the Natives' case ; and, in my respectful submission, it is the only
argument in the whole of these proceedings against the Natives' case.

Earl LOREBURN : They take away the common and give them the
several and exclusive.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : It is contended that the Order in Council of 1894
was a piece of legislation which expropriated the Native title in the whole
of the land except where reserves were assigned to the Natives. 

Lord ATKINSON : It expresses the will of the conqueror.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : Yes.

Earl LOREBURN :  Could it be better put for you than in the passage
on page 74 of Peere Williams, a bookwhich my noble friend, Lord Atkinson,
has handed to me.

Lord SUMNER:  The position of the Chief of the tribe was such that
unless he in Council chose to give permission, he had a right to exclude
all white men from his tribe's territory, at any rate, exclude them from
any permanent residence.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : I hesitate to say yes, because I was wondering
to what extent sovereignty melted into ideas of ownership.

Lord SUMNER : It may be as Sovereign he gave them permission to
come in, but it would be an infringement of tribal rights in the soil if 
disregarding the refusal to give permission the white man came and travelled
over and trespassed upon the Native land.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : Again I do not know to what extend the Native 
law permitted voyaging over the surface, or to what extent they might 
regard it as a trespass.

Lord SUMNER : You will have to take up some definite position upon
that, I think. If it is not mentioned by any of your witnesses, I think

18    THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IS RHODESIA

you will have to say whether it is involved in your conception of the Native 
rights.  I certainly have understood you to mean, although the Sovereign 
may be trustee for his tribe and require certain consents and so forth, 
amongst them the nature of their title was such that they could resent 
his trespass or any entry on their tribal territory.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  I say yest to that.

Lord SUMNER:  I understood you to say the whole of Southern 
Rhodesia was completely covered by this system, that is to say, whether 
the different tribes may amongst them have covered the whole surface.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:   I am not in the position, with the information 
at my disposal, to put it in that form, and to say the whole surface is covered.  
It may be, but I cannot say.  There were certain spaces, to use Mr. Chamberlain's 
expression, which were not beneficially occupied by the Natives 
at all over which a king might claim sovereignty and over which there 
was no ownership in the tribe.  It is in view of that I intimated at the 
commencement of my argument, that your Lordships might think it necessary 
to give advice in general terms so as to permit of an examination 
on the spot to ascertain what the position is, bearing in mind always that 
I am not asking to go outside the scope of the Reference which for practical 
purposes excludes the consideration the piece of land already alienated 
by the Reference.

Earl LOREBURN:  Subsequent inquire in order to apply the advice 
is not inconsistent, of course.

Lord SUMNER:  Subject to that inquiry, which I think must be fruitless 
because I do not see how the facts can now be ascertained, but be it 
as you like, the maintenance of the old rights as you contend for and a 
free admission of white settlers as the Crown authorizes, seem to be incompatible 
things.  Unless you assume, the unoccupied lands were accessible 
without trespass on the native lands and there were such occupied lands, 
no white man could settle there without the consent of the native chiefs 
on behalf of their tribes.  Surely that system at any rate was abandoned 
with the authority of the Crown, which directly lent itself to the opposite 
system of allowing white settlement generally all over the country, subject 
to a provision for Native reserves for special Native cultivation.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  I submit that the Crown and the Company together 
proceeded in 1894 on tacit assumption, of which very likely they were 
not fully conscious, that the Native had no right to property in the soil, 
and that is the gravamen of the complaint I am advancing respectfully 
on behalf of the Natives.  What I submit would have been right and may 
be the consequence of your Lordships' advice, if your Lordships accept 
my contention, is this, that they ought to have proceeded on the footing 
that the Natives had the legal right in such part of the soil as could not 
be treated as really unoccupied land--unoccupied land cannot be dealt 
with differently, but they ought to have proceeded on the assumption 
that the Natives had a right in the occupied land just as in the United 
States and elsewhere.

Earl LOREBUN:  Supposing you maintain and establish, under misapprehension 
or otherwise of the law, the Crown did in fact ignore the 
Natives' right, being the conquerors, then, whether they knew of the real 
rights or not, may have the effect of extinguishing it and extinguishing 
this point in your argument.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  I was alive to the red lamp.  My answer to it

THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA    19

is this, and it is twofold.  Firstly, that an intention to take away private 
property ought not to be interpreted into the Crown legislation unless the 
legislation is clear on the point, if it is capable of being understood as leaving 
the question open, and that is what I submit the Crown did; and, secondly, 
that what they did they did, not in the exercise of prerogative power but 
pursuant to the Foreign Jurisdiction Act.  In 1894 there is the new 
Proclamation again reciting a Protectorate.

Earl LOREBURN:  That is the one of the 18 July, 1894.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Yes, precisely, and with no hint in it of exercising 
any rights based on conquest.  On the continuing page first of all it 
says in line 7:  "Whereas the territories of South Africa situate within 
the limits of this Order, as hereinafter described, are under the protection 
of Her Majesty the Queen:  And whereas by treaty, grant, usage, sufferance, 
and other lawful means, Her Majesty has power and jurisdiction in the 
said territories."  It is not based in any sense on the right of conquest, 
and annexation is , so to speak, definitely declined, and it is made under 
the Foreign Jurisdiction Act.  As the Court of Appeal said, this document 
is called an Order in Council, but it is really a statutory Order made under 
the powers of an Act of Parliament.

Lord ATKINSON:  Or otherwise.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  The view, I submit, taken by the Court of Appeal 
in that case was this:  that those words do not really add anything.  The 
only jurisdiction the British Crown has in a Protectorate is that which is 
conferred upon it by Parliament by the Foreign Jurisdiction Act.  They 
do those things which the Act of Parliament says it may do in a Protectorate.  
I rely very strongly on the election of the British Crown if it had an election, 
which I assume it had, not to annex and not to proceed in the rights of 
the conqueror.  Part 2 is with regard to administration, and Part 3 is 
judicial, and Part 4 is Land Commission.  "A Land Commission is 
hereby constituted, consisting of a Judicial Commissioner and two other 
Commissioners.  (45) The Judicial Commissioner shall be the Judge, or 
if at any time there be more than one Judge of the High Court, then such 
Judge as the High Commissioner shall from time to time appoint under 
his hand and seal.  (46) One of the Commissioners    other than the Judicial 
Commissioner shall be selected by a Secretary of State and one by the 
Company, and both shall be appointed by the High Commissioner under 
his hand and seal."  Then paragraph 49 is:  "The Land Commission shall 
deal with all questions relating to the settlement of Natives on the lands 
in that part of the territories within the limits of this Order which is known 
as Matabeleland."

Lord SCOTT DICKSON:  Are you agreed that includes Mashonaland?

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  No.  That was the point.

MASHONALAND AND MATABELELAND

Lord ATKINSON:  Mr. Leslie Scott, would you pardon me for calling 
your attention to pages 9 and 11 of Appendix A.  9 is the treaty of peace 
and amity, and then on page 11 there is a letter from Sir George Bonham 
in Lisbon to the Marquess of Salisbury with a memorandum at the foot 
of it, in which he says:  "The territory which Her Majesty's Government 
consider to be within the sphere of British influence comprises Khama's 
country, which he has offered to Her Majesty's Government, and the Matabele 
Kingdom of Matabeleland, Mashonaland and Makalakaland, in respect

20
THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

of which a treaty has been concluded between Her Majesty's Government
and King Lobengula."  Does not that show that Lobengula's kingdom
comprised Mashonaland?
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  My Lord, it shows this, and that I have conceded
as on the documents, as it is perfectly plain that I must concede: (I) That
Lobengula claimed sovereignty over Mashonaland; (2) that the British
Crown made a treaty of amity with Lobengula treating him as King of
Mashonaland as well as Matabeleland to the extent of recognizing his claims.
What effect that has on the position here is another matter, but I do
not dispute that Lobengula did claim that power, and that as a matter
of international comity, the treaty between this country through Queen
Victoria and Lobengula gave him the appellation which he gave to himself,
and it was in relation to that type of question that I ventured to refer
to certain passages in Mr. Secretary Chamberlain's letter when Secretary
of State to the Colonies, relating it is true not to Matabeleland and Mashonaland,
but to Bechuanaland, for the purpose of showing the official view
that the fact that Lobengula raided into a district did not make him
sovereign of the district.
  LORD ATKINSON : Yes, but the treaty begins: "The Chief Lobengula,
ruler of the tribe known as the Amandebele, together with the Mashona
and the Makalaka, tributaries of the same, hereby agrees to the following
articles and conditions."
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Your Lordship sees my point, that there is a
question of fact over and above the mere international recognition by
these claims of Lobengula's sovereignty which has a bearing on two aspects
of the case.  The question of fact is as to what area had he sovereignty
over, and bearing on that question over what area had he in fact sovereignty,
I cite official documents expressing the view that that must be a question
of reality and not a question of mere claim accompanied by various raids.
  LORD ATKINSON:  There is no suggestion as to who was the Chief of
Mashonaland if Lobengula was not.
  LORD SUMNER: Does not the Rudd Concession put an end to this
point?  The Crown always recognized that the Rudd Concession gave
validly the rights it purports to give, and it purports to give these rights;
"I Lobengula, King of Matabeleland, Mashonaland, and other adjoining
territories, in the exercise of my sovereign powers, and in the presence
and with the consent of my Council of Indunas do hereby grant and assign
unto the said grantees, their heirs, representatives and assigns, jointly
and severally, the complete and exclusive charge over all metals and minerals
situated and contained in my kingdoms, principalities and dominions."
So that as soon as the Crown recognized that act as giving the title it purports
to give, unless there is something very strong to the contrary, not
mere general expressions about slave-raiding, and things of that kind, I
should have thought it showed Logengula was recognized as King of Mashonaland,
capable and competent to dispose of all the minerals throughout
that kingdom.
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  It is conclusive that this Crown recognized him
as King of Mashonaland, I will concede that in argument respectfully,
but that admission does not touch, I submit, either of these two points:
(I) The conditions under which Lobengula as such king could make a valid
alienation of land under Native law; that is the Lippert Concession point
nor does it, I submit, touch the argument based upon conquest.
  Lord SUMNER:  Very likely not, but it does conclude, does not it, that

21
THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

if by Native law in Mashonaland it required a sovereign chief, or whatever
he was called in a pitso or something of that kind, to grant the property
of the tribe, the Lobengula was that chief, the person who could do it,
but whether it was done with all the recognized formalities whether sufficient
blood was shed, and all that may remain to be inquired into.
    Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I would venture to submit that would be rather
a hazardous inference to draw on the material as to Native laws and customs
that is before your Lordships or that I can put before your Lordships.
  Lord SUMNER: I do not think it proves anything about Native laws
and customs, but if you prove that by Native law and custom some paramount
chief or occupant f a throne was required to make this grant, then
there is the chief; that is the man who is chief.
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  True, and I should not respectfully quarrel with
that, but what I have in mind is merely this, that it may be on the information
I possess and can put before your Lordships it looks as if it was not
the fact that in order that there should be an effective alienation of land
by any tribe owning the land the consent not merely of some paramount
chief, but the particular chief of that tribe  and the indunas attached to
that chief would be necessary.
  Lord SUMNER : That is very different; that is like Home Rulers.
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I am not certain, ny Lord, that it is clear.  I
submit rather that it is not.
  Lord SUMNER: Your view is that King Lobengula in Mashonaland
might make the grant with a Mashonaland indaba, and in Matabeleland
he might do it with a Matabeleland indaba, and in Makakalaland with
a Makakalaland indaba, but non constat it is a United Kingdom.
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: In this respect I want to remind your Lordships
of the peculiar difficulty I am in in giving to your Lordships information
about Native laws and customs on this sort of point that I ought to have
been in a position to give.
  Lord ATKINSON: That I do not think is really the point.  The point
is, was not this a conquest of Mashonaland just as much as of Metabeleland?
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  No. I have said, my Lords, all I wanted to say
really on the one point upon which this question of sovereignty is material,
namely the question of alienation of land under Native law; that is the
Lippert question part of it, for the moment, and now may I address myself
to Lord Atkinson's point , the question of conquest.  A great deal has
been said about conquest here which I submit is really either fallacious
or beside the mark in this way.  The dominant fact here is that the whole
of this territory in Southern Rhodesia, including both Matabeleland and
Mashonaland, had been a British Protectorate since 1891.  It continued
a protectorate after the war of 1893.  The Crown deliberately abstained
from making any change whatever in the constitutional status of the country
in the relation of this Crown to that country and its people.  The war
in 1893 I submit was really in fact a domestic matter where there was a
rising of a part and a subjugation of that part of the peoples concerned.
It is suggested that the fault lay entirely with the Matabele, my instructions
are otherwise from certain points of view; but I regard it as irrelevant
to this matter to consider who was to blame in that war, and I therefore
say nothing about it deliberately, but the essence of the matter is, I submit,
that there was no war in the part of the territory known as Mashonaland;



22    THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

there was no rising there, there was a complete continuity of the state of 
affairs that had been in existence for some two years already, and I cannot 
see why the fact that the rising took place in Matabeleland and was there 
suppressed altered the constitutional status of the relations between the 
Crown of this country and Mashonaland. That is what I submit is, so to 
speak, the traditional aspect of this question of conquest.

    Earl LOREBURN: You say in a word there was no conquest of Mashonaland?

    Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Precisely.

WHERE IS THE OWNERSHIP?

    Lord ATKINSON: Who are the owners, the whole body of Natives? 

    Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: No, I answered that before, my Lord; if I may 
repeat it, each individual tribe.

    Lord ATKINSON: As the owners of the soil that the members occupy, 
is that it?

    Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Yes, my Lord, that is near enough for my purpose. 
I approach that point simply from this point of view, they were in fact 
occupying and enjoying the soil; it is clear that when there were any 
Natives there there was no other owner, and the conclusion necessarily 
follows, I submit, that they were therefore the owners.

    Earl LOREBURN: They had the complete title, each individual tribe
to its own portion?

    Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Yes, leaving open the question which for my 
argument does not in the least matter, as to whether under Native law 
the paramount chief, Lobengula in this case, so to speak, shared in the 
title; whether the title was vested in him and each of the tribes, or whether 
it was vested severally in the tribes is quite immaterial for my purposes. 
They had joint ownership.

    Earl LOREBURN: The Natives had the complete title?

    Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Yes. Then my submission is that the Lippert 
Concession for the reasons given was not valid ; it did not extend beyond 
this limited area, and came to an end on the death of Lobengula, and so 
on. Never mind about repeating the reasons why I submit the Lippert 
Concession ought to be disregarded ; I simply put the second proposition 
that for the reasons given the Lippert Concession ought to be disregarded. 
Now, that being so, what was the position of affairs before the war of 1893 
began? That is the next thing. My submission is that what I have 
already submitted still continued to be the legal position of affairs with 
regard to the ownership of the land of the country.

    Earl LOREBURN: That is after the war?

    Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: No, just before the war.

    Earl LOREBURN: That continued till the war.

    Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: That continued till the war. The reason I say 
that is that the Company's Charter did not give them that ; it only gave 
them power to acquire land by concession, and so on. Then a war happens 
in a limited potion of the whole country. Upon that war taking place 
the then existing king, who for this purpose with Lord Atkinson I will

THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA    23

treat as the king of the whole country, is deposed and conquered, and
then there are attached to the British Crown the rights which it could
exercise if it so elected, in the words of Lord Mansfield, to take the country;
they could put the inhabitants to the sword and they could take the land.

Earl LOREBURN: They had the power of abolishing the title provided 
there was a conquest of Mashonaland.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Yes, but my submission is the principle enunciated
by Lord Mansfield would not apply to the portion of the country where
the people had been and continued in the protection of the British power,
had never rebelled against it, had not fought, but had remained completely
peaceful in the occupation of their land.

Earl LOREBURN: You say there was not a conquest over them?

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Precisely.

Lord ATKINSON: But surely that means that a battle fought with
a sovereign in one corner of his country and his overthrow only affects the
place in which it was fought? How can that be so?

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I have already admitted that would be so if it
was a completely foreign country. If this country were at war with a 
completely foreign country that would be so; I venture to submit the
position is completely altered by facts. 

Lord ATKINSON: The Battle of Waterloo was fought in Belgium.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I venture respectfully to submit the ordinary
position does not apply where the country in question is already in the 
protectorate and nineteen-twentieths of it remains perfectly peaceful.

Lord ATKINSON: If a Power conquers a country it can do what it
likes with the inhabitants and the land, both with regard to their lives
and their property.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Ex concessis.

Lord ATKINSON: It may dispossess them, yet not annex. In the 
position of conqueror it may dispossess them and yet say we will only
exercise protective powers over this conquered country. I will not annex
it. If you find, dealing with the Native, anything inconsistent with their
previous property, giving them something else and something different,,
must you not come to the conclusion that in exercise of the conqueror's
power, an arrangement had been made, though the conqueror has not 
subsequently annexed the country?

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: There are two answers to that. First, your Lordship
puts the question, May the conqueror do it? That is a question
of law. Is it consistent with the principle of constitutional law that he
should? On that I certainly say there is no precedent for such a case.
This is without any precedent at all. My second answer is this: Even
assuming he has the power according to our law constitutionally to do it
the fact that he keeps on the protectorate is a conclusive indication that
he does not elect to exercise the power. That is my very respectful submission.

Earl LOREBURN: I think I follow you. I have put these down as
the heads of your arguments which, if you establish them, would be a very
effective argument. The Natives had the complete title, namely, each 
individual tribe had it, whether there was association with the king or

24    THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

not.  The Lippert Concession was invalid and disappeared when Lobengula
went.  It continued till the war.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: The above position did.

Earl LOREBURN: I mean that.  The war came and then came the
right of the Crown to end the Natives' titles, provided there was a conquest
of Mashonaland, but there was not a conquest of Mashonaland, and even
if there was, the Crown did not dispossess.   That is the proposition?

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  That is my proposition.

Earl LOREBURN: I am quite sure now that I have got it.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Your Lordship has it absolutely.

WERE THE NATIVES DISPOSSESSED ?

  Earl LOREBURN:  You are on the last stage of your argument.  May
I ask you, in order to clear up the first proposition, about the Natives
not having complete title.  What right there was you have discussed, and
I want to say, and for myself I still think, there was some kind of right.
and to my mind it does not much matter what kind of right it was, because
there was some kind of right.  The next proposition about the Lippert
Concession being invalid and disappeared you have dealt with.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Yes.

  Earl LOREBURN:  That that continued until the war it seems to me
is obvious.  Then when the war came and the right of the Crown was at
the disposal of the Crown provided there was a disposal of shares there
was not a conquest over Mashonaland.  You have to deal with that.  That
is the next stage.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  I am anxious to get the skeleton of the argument
quite clear and I will clothe the bones in a moment.

  Earl LOREBURN:  You will say more about that if you think it is
necessary.  The proposition is clear that you state.  Your difficulties have
been put.  You say the Crown did not dispossess and there was no legislation
to dispossess the Native title.  That is the proposition to which you
have come.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Yes.  For the sake of your Lordship's note may
I say I divide the question of dispossession into two heads.  One is an
executive act as conqueror, the second, assuming no executive act as conqueror
was there legislation to dispossess?

  Lord ATKINSON:  What do you mean by legislation?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  An Order in Council.

  Lord ATKINSON:  At all events, it is the most formal expression of
the conqueror's will.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  It may be.  Perhaps, my Lords, my language
is not very happy.

  Lord DUNEDIN:  It is more convenient to keep the term legislation
to mean an Act of Parliament.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  I think I was quoting the phrases of the Lords
Justices in the Sekgome case.

THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA    25

  Lord ATKINSON: Declaration of war has the effect of an Act of Parliament. 
In that sense you may call it legislation.

  Earl LOREBURN: Would you put it this way: There was no legislation 
to dispossess the Natives' title by Order in Council or otherwise?

  Mr .LESLIE SCOTT: Yes, my Lord, I would.

  Lord SUMNER: Whether by Act of State by which subsequent to the 
moment of annexation any manner of taking over the ownership should 
be carried out. no such Act of State takes place except the Order in Council. 
There was no such Statue except the Orders in Council which have to be 
interpreted with regard to their terms, and therefore from laying hands 
on the Native land they provide in a limited form for some preservation 
of the Natives' rights.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I would prefer to say, for the purpose of giving 
the Natives certain rights.

  Lord SUMNER: They are the negative. They are the contrary of 
an Act of State which has the effect of annexation.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: There is a very important constitutional question 
in relation to this. The whole subject of protectorates with regard to 
Government by Order in Council is referred to in the case of Campbell v. 
Hall, and your Lordship remembers Lord Mansfield pointed out that the 
power of the king to act as conqueror continued until he gave a constitution 
to the conquered country. The moment he gave the constitution the 
prerogative power lapsed, and it was because he had given the constitution 
in that case that the Court declared what he did subsequently was void. 
In these African protectorates, if one is to take them and really try to 
apply to protectorates the analogy of conquest by a Power that is quite 
foreign, the moment the Crown legislates for, if I may use that phrase, 
passing an Order in Council providing for the good government of that 
territory, and is not the Crown in effect giving it a constitution, and if 
down to that moment the Crown has not by any Act of State manifested 
an intention to take the property of its newly conquered subjects, then 
must not one look solely at the Order in Council to see what the Crown 
intends to do?

  Lord ATKINSON: You may limit the rights of the Natives by the 
very document that creates the new constitution.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: That may be. I absolutely accept that.

  Lord SCOTT DICKSON: There is this passage on page I06 of A, where 
Sir H. B. Loch telegraphs to the Marquess of Ripon at line 45: "No Government 
is established Matabeleland beyond what may be necessary to maintain 
order. There is no present extension of the Government of Mashonaland 
to Matabeleland. There is no appropriation of land. These questions are 
all dependent on future arrangements to be discussed between myself and 
Mr. Rhodes, and approved by Her Majesty's Government."

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: That, my Lord, is a very relevant passage. For 
the moment it escaped my memory. That was before the agreement.

Lord SCOTT DICKSON: That was the state of things at December the 
29th, 1893.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: That is of crucial importance to my argument. 
What I was going to put to your Lordships was this: that there was nothing 
done down to the date of the agreement.

26    THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

  Earl LOREBURN: The Crown did not dispossess by executive act and
there was no law making--I use that general phrase--to dispossess the
Native title either by Order in Council or in any other way.  Up to this
period you have, as it seems to me, shown there was not a dispossession by
an executive act, nor have we yet come upon the law-making dispossession,
if any.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: No.  Now your Lordships see why I have submitted
the question of conquest is on the face of the case irrelevant.  It
is because in the right of conquest the Crown did nothing until it made
a law by the Order in Council, which it could have done had there been
no conquest, and which it did do with regard to Mashonaland without
there being a conquest there.  The law by Order in Council was the constitutional
method for an African protectorate.  Two views were taken on
this subject in the Court of Appeal.  Lord Justice Farwell took the view
the king's powers were limited to the power conferred by the Foreign Jurisdiction
Act, and Lord Justice Kennedy took the view over and above
that there was a prerogative power to legislate by Order in Council in an
African protectorate.

  Earl LOREBURN: Is this the proposition; That when the Order in 
Council was made it was not an act of conquest, but was a constitutional
act pursuant to the existing law?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Precisely, whether the law be prerogative or statutory.
That brings one to this: that the Order in Council is to be construed
like an ordinary statute, and for the purpose of ascertaining its true interpretation
the surrounding circumstances, of course, may be looked at to
see what the position was at the time the law was made, and one of the
circumstances which is of great importance, I submit, is that at that time
the Natives had their complete title, whatever language we should use
to describe it, in the land.  Then I come back to where I was to look at 
the terms of the Order in Council.

  Earl LOREBURN: You say that is the next fact.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Yes, and that is my last proposition which I am
on now.  That is at page 35 of B.  I very respectfully want to remind
your Lordships of the sentence I quoted from the Supreme Court of the
United States which Lord Atkinson said had been referred to during the
hearing of a case in the House of Lords quite recently, that in interpreting
legislation of this kind it must be presumed there is an intention to expropriate
private property unless the language is absolutely clear.  The words
are so remarkable and the passage so clearly expresses what I want to
submit to your Lordships that I wish to refer to them again.  Whatever
the legislative power may be, its acts ought never to be so construed as to
take away the right of property unless its intention to do so shall be
expressed in such terms as to admit of no doubt and to show a clear design
to effect the object.

  Lord ATKINSON: That refers to Acts of Parliament.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: To any legislation.  It says whatever the legislative
power may be.  And it says that no general terms are intended for property
to which they may be fairly applicable and not particularly applied by
legislation.

  Lord SCOTT DICKSON: You do not want to go to America for the
proposition set out in that case.

THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA    27

  Earl LOREBURN: I think you may suppose we are not going to take
the view that you lightly dispossess people of property.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I only venture to quote that because of one or
two points that have been put to your Lordships on interpretation.  The
first thing that is clear about this Order in Council is that there are no
express words taking from the Natives their title in the land.

  Earl LOREBURN: In help of your argument on page 35 no doubt you
are going to point out that the recital recites that the territories are under
the protection.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Precisely.  There is no reference to conquest at
all there.  Then your Lordships come straight to Part 4 on page 42 about
the Land Commission, and I venture to think that it is clear that this
portion of the Order was intended to be limited to that part of Southern
Rhodesia which was technically called Matabeleland.  I will not waste
time now in giving your Lordships the references, but I can give a reference
which makes that quite clear I think.  If Lord Atkinson, who put the
point, will bear in mind I will give the reference that I think establishes
that quite clearly.  Then there was urgent and immediate need for settling
the population.  The articles on it are 49 and 54.

  Lord ATKINSON: On page 29 of Appendix A they recite in this Order
the Petitioners' desire to carry into effect various concessions.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: That is the Petition for the Charter in 1889.

  Lord ATKINSON: I beg your pardon.

  Lord SUMNER: Are you going to come to Part 4 of the Order in
Council?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Yes, my Lord.

  Lord SUMNER: Before you read the provisions in detail may I put
what has occurred to me and you will see when the position is before you
whether there is anything in it or not.  Apparently under the old Native
system before 1893 the Natives' rights, whatever they were, were enjoyed
through some tribal chief who was an integral part of the system.  It
was not definite as trustee and cestui que trust, because there was no
separate interest in any one member of the tribe, and then as it actually
existed for a good many years before 1893, certainly before Lobengula's
time, and apparently in the time of his father, it involved this further:
That if there was a paramount chief the sovereign was an essential part of
the system, and the rights of the tribe were enjoyed under the exercise of
his sovereign powers.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Yes.

  Lord SUMNER: He vanishes, and there need be no appearance of
legitimacy about it.  There is no successor unless there be a successor by
force of arms.  Whatever the rights of the subordinate chiefs and their
tribes may be, are they not essentially rights enjoyed, and are they not
rights which were always in the old times subordinate to the sovereign
right of the sovereign of the time, and, as we know, Lobengula did control
them and parcelled out land.  If so, when you find the Order in Council
establishing the Crown as sovereign not as a conqueror who annexed, but
as sovereign of the administration in the land and that sovereign declares
his will by the Order in Council is not in effect that a substitution of the
independent and original authority of the new sovereign for that form of

28    THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

sovereign control which takes the place of Lobengula's control, and subject
to which the Native rights, whatever they were, always had to be exercised?
Would it not therefore have the legitimate effect of substitution
for a vague Native law which more or less covered the whole territory
the precise prescription of the ordinance which conveys the Native rights
to have reserves allotted to them from time to time and the exercise of their
tribal rights inside those reserves?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I submit not, for this reason.  The suggestion
your Lordship makes really involves mistaking legislative power over territory
for ownership of land.  Supposing another existing Native regime
before the white man was there. The permanent king had been killed and
he was in a certain sense trustee for his people, there being no Court of
Chancery to appoint a new trustee.  No doubt the Natives had some
machinery by which there was a continuity of tribal communal ownership.
There was a regent, or whatever it may be, that came in and stepped into
the trustee's shoes, so to speak, for that purpose.  Whether in Native law
applying to ownership of land where the native king disappears and a
white king comes in, the Natives would regard the white king as stepping
into the shoes of the native king or not I cannot say.  That was one thing
we wanted evidence about if we could have got it.  I would submit respectfully,
at most the white king would take the place of the native king as
the joint owner with the tribe just in the same way that the paramount
chief or native king was before, and to say there is a change in the private
property because a white king comes in would be contrary to the general
law which is applicable equally on cession of territory by peaceable means,
and that conquest and the change of sovereignty does not change the private
property of any of the individuals or tribes in the conquered territory.

  Lord ATKINSON: That leaves the question: Did this Order in Council
give the Natives rights which they had not before?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I agree it does not touch that.  I have not said
a word about that.

  Lord ATKINSON: For instance, if they are to have a hut it entitles
them to hold private property in land.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: This is new legislation, and the Natives are bound
by it.

  Lord ATKINSON: You say those are supplementary rights in substitution
for others?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I am coming to that now.  The first observation
upon it is this: that there is no clause in this document which says in
terms that the Native ownership by the various tribes is brought to an
end.  I have nothing more to say about that.  In the absence of that
I submit it would be contrary to all rules of interpretation and particularly
to the rule that is the law of this country as well as the law of the United
States, to, so to speak, try and collect out of this document an intention
to take away the property when there are no express words to take it away.
That is the real force of the argument here.  It recites at the start that the
British King is the protecting Power.

  Lord SUMNER: Her Majesty is the protecting Crown.  Her Majesty's 
will is to leave all rights of private property unexpropriated.  She does
not exercise any conqueror's rights, but as protecting Power she intends
to do what the sovereign Power in the old land could do, that is to say,
as sovereign say: "Your tribal rights are to be exercised under me and subject

THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA    29

to my directions."  In virtue of the sovereign Power subject to which Native
rights had always been.  Whatever they were Her Majesty is pleased to treat
the Native rights unexpropriated should still be enjoyed, but now sub modo
for the good of the people instead of its extending all over the country and
thereby excluding the blessing of white civilization it should be exercised
in separate Native reserves that are to be specially looked after and protected
and when the blessings of white civilization could be enjoyed.  What is
there contrary to any civil interpretation in that?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: If I follow your Lordship aright, I do no know
that I follow the whole of your Lordship's observation, the Order in Council
might have said every word that your Lordship has said.  There is nothing
to prevent the British Crown legislating in the precise language your Lordship
has used had it so chosen.  My only submission is the legislation it
did pass by this Order in Council was not the same as your Lordship has
indicated, and that is a question of interpretation.  That is the whole
point.

  Lord SUMNER: If you are right in assuming the Native rights after
even the flight of Lobengula and the disappearance of his throne were
strictly such rights as may be called private rights of protected property,
then it may be that in order to interpret this Order in Council, if they do
not amount to private rights in that sense, but are tribal rights, as to which
the only thing that is quite clear is some power to exercise under the control
of the paramount chief, their different constructions might be put 
upon the Order in Council.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Let me say at once I stand or fall with the
proposition that the Native rights were rights of property.

  Lord SUMNER: Private property.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Private rights of property.

  Lord SUMNER: In as full a sense as the rights of the planters in Granada.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Fuller, and substantially fuller; that is the difference
between Canada, the two Floridas and Granada, when the King only
left them a right of possession of a limited kind.

  Earl LOREBURN: Supposing they only amount to a right of occupation
and usage--that they were rights of a small kind.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: There is no reason they should not survive.
Earl LOREBURN: If they were rights of usage in land, can you get
rid of those otherwise than by legislation or conquest?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: No, and that is my case.

INSECURITY AND INADEQUACY OF RESERVES.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: The natives of this country, Rhodesia, and I
include Matabeleland and Mashonaland, were Natives who, on the evidence,
have lived for generations, on my construction, in the same district, and
loved their district as their home.  My submission is that a court of law
ought to regulate the Native ownership through his tribe, to the soil of
the village or the district that is his home with exactly the same sacred
respect that would be given to individual enjoyment of their homes by
white men in the case of cession or conquest or sovereignty.

  Lord ATKINSON: Does not Section 49 place the matter absolutely in

30    THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

the hands of the Land Commission?  "The Land Commission shall deal
with all questions relating to the settlement of Natives on the lands in
that part of the territories within the limits of this Order which is known
as Matabeleland. It shall without delay assign to the Natives inhabiting 
Matabeleland land sufficient for their occupation, whether as tribes or
portions of tribes, and suitable for their agricultural and pastoral require-
ments, including in all cases a fair and equitable proportion of springs or
permanent water."  In addition to that, they got what they had no right
to before, and a right to a sufficient number of cattle.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  What is there necessarily inconsistent with its
being the duty of the Land Commission to pay attention to Native title
to the soil of different parts of the territory?  My submission is that this
is made in the view, as I put it yesterday, that there was a good deal of
really unoccupied land, not beneficially occupied by and not effectively 
or justly claimed by any Native tribe, a vast territory and a comparatively
sparse population.

  LORD ATIKINSON:  Do you call that land suitable for their agricultural
and pastoral requirements, including in all cases a fair and equitable pro-
portion of springs?

  MR. LESLIE SCOTT:  Some of it may be, my Lord. Why should not
the Commission assign districts into which the white men were not to go;
and that is the object of this Order in Council.

  LORD ATKINSON: Nor apparently any Natives except the Natives to 
whom the reserve was assigned.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  I accept that.  Why is not this consistent with 
leaving the Natives' title where there is a Native title standing?

  EARL LOREBURN:  Were it not for conquest your argument would be
of very great weight in my mind, because as you have said perfectly occur-
ately you do not dispossessed people by legislation unless you make it clear,
but supposing that it was an act of power substituting a new condition
of things for the previous condition of things, are we to see whether that 
is not the true interpretation of what was done in this Order in Council?

  LORD DUNEDIN:  If you make out that as a matter of fact Lobengula
never had any dominion over these people, that is quite true, but my remark
referred to the people over whom he had dominion ; Umtasa may have
been one, and he certainly moved those people about.

  MR. LESLIE SCOTT:  I do not think it would be right to assume that 
was so.

  LORD DUNEDIN:  That is told us to be so.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Only to a very limited extent.  There is evidence
they lived for generations in the same places in and near Bulawayo, right up
to the site of Lobengula's Government.  I do want to emphasize this aspect
of the matter, that it would be wrong to come to any legal conclusion based
upon the assumption that these were nomadic Natives that moved about 
from place to place, and it did not matter if it was in one place or another, 
the evidence is they loved the places where they lived and were attached to
them, because they lived there for generations.  It would be wrong to assume
authority on the part of the Crown to move them unless that was clearly
expressed.  There were a great many who had by the war been dispossessed
and kraals burnt for one reason or the other, and they Order in Council was
to find a suitable place for the people who were wandering. 

THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA         31

  LORD SCOTT DICKSON:  Does not the Foreign Jurisdiction Act apply
on the footing that there has not been a conquest?  This Order proceeds
by virtue and in exercise of the powers by the Foreign Jurisdiction Act of
1890.  Does not that Act subsume that there has not been a conquest?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  That is my point; my point is that this Order in 
Council repudiates, so to speak in almost expressed language the idea of its
being in virtue of the conquerors' power.

  LORD DUNEDIN:  Speaking for myself, I do not see that;  an Order 
under the Foreign Jurisdiction Act may be inconsistent with annexation,
but I do not see that it is inconsistent with conquest.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: It is the continuance of the protectorate that is 
the point on which I rely, the protectorate which had been declared in 
1891 and this Order in Council, not in the land part of it, but in the rest of it,
was dealing with Mashonaland as well as Matabeleland, where there had been 
no war at all, and where the Mashonas had been attacked and protected by
the white men

  LORD ATKINSON:  Is not it clear from the first recital that this Order
is made in exercise of any powers that Her Majesty had?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  The first recital.

  LORD ATKINSON:  In exercise of the power granted by the Foreign Jurisdiction Act or otherwise?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Yes, I drew attention to that.  Lord Justice
Farwell and Lord Justice Kennedy, in the Sekgome case, deal with that.
Now would your Lordships first look at Section 52, on page 43 of B.  I 
cited that first sentence just before the Court rose yesterday, but not the 
second: " No Natives shall be removed from any kraal or from any land
assigned to them for occupation, except after full inquiry by, and by order
of, the Land Commission. If any person without such order removes or 
attempts to remove any Native from any kraal or from any land, unless in 
execution of the process of a competent court, he shall in addition to any
other proceeding to which he is liable, be guilty of a offense against this 
Order," and so on.  Now that, my Lord, I submit, shows that the King in
Council was recognizing the fact that the Natives were living on the land
in kraals at the time, and it contemplates the ordinary rule.

  LORD ATKINSON:  Surely that has reference to Section 24 which says:
"A native may acquire, hold, encumber and dispose of land on the same 
conditions as a person who is not a native, but no contract for encumbering
or alienating land the property of a native shall be valid unless the contract
is made in the presence of a magistrate, is attested by him, and bears a 
certificate signed by him stating that the consideration for the contract
is fair and reasonable, and that the has satisfied himself that the native 
understands the transaction."  I suggest 52 applies both to reserves and
the land the Native may acquire under 24.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  That is to say that no white man shall be allowed
after buying a piece of land under Section 24 to turn out the Natives living
on it without an order of the Land Commission.

  LORD ATKINSON:  Not only that, bu the purchase must be approved
of ; it says the purchase or encumbrance must be approved of.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Under Clause 24.

32    THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

  Lord ATKINSON: Yes. 

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: It may be that your Lordship is quite right. 

  Lord ATKINSON: It says: " But no contract for encumbering or 
alienating land the property of a Native shall be valid unless the contract 
is made in the presence of a magistrate, is attested by him, and bears a certificate 
signed by him stating that the consideration for the contract is fair 
and reasonable, and that he has satisfied himself that the Native understands 
the transaction." There is the connection between 24 and 49. 

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: If your Lordship pleases. I am not sure that I 
should respectfully accept that suggestion, as Counsel, that 52 ought to be 
read in connection with 24, which is in part II, but if it is, it is in my favour. 

  Lord SUMNER: Surely ; Clause 52 says : " If any person without such 
order removes or attempts to remove any Native from any kraal or from 
any land" ; there is the kraal and the land, and the first words of section 
are "from any kraal or from any land assigned to them for occupation."

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I do not, respectfully, agree.

  Lord SUMNER: It looks like it. 

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I submit the land assigned is one thing and the 
kraal, is a kraal,  but not an assigned kraal. 

  Lord SUMNER: You say " assigned " does not apply to kraal?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  No; there was a vast number of Native living in kraals. 

  Lord ATKINSON: Surely that is wrong, Clause 49 says the Land Commission 
shall without delay assign to the Natives what I suppose was set 
apart.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: But not for all the Natives.

  Lord ATKINSON: No, for the tribe or part of a a tribe, it shall be reserved 
or set apart for certain tribes or groups or portions of tribes.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Well, my submission is it all comes down to this, 
that this Order in Council is consistent with an intention to leave the Natives 
who are already living in different parts of the land in ownership of the 
property where they are, and that there are no words sufficient to dispossess 
them.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I want, if I may, to put a really alternative suggestion 
before your Lordships, and that is this, that you cannot arrive at 
the interpretation suggested against me that this does amount to legislation 
which expropriates the Native title, the compensation for which is to be
the reserves, unless the reserves given by way of compensation are to be 
given to the Natives as their permanent property.

  Lord ATKINSON: It comes down in a word to this, that these rights 
are supplemental to their ancient rights, and not in substitution for them 
in whole or in part.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: That is the main argument. These are supplementary 
for good order. The alternative view is to say that that view is 
wrong, as a matter of fair interpretation, and that same time say that 
their tenure of the land within the reserves is obviously precarious, that 
the reserves are as the Chartered Company contend, their commercial

THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA          33

property, and that they can be cut down from time to time. I submit 
that that interpretation would be a wrong one, and there is a point upon 
that, and one or two documents have a bearing upon it. Section 51 says: 
"The Company shall retain the mineral rights in all land assigned to 
Natives." Does not that inferentially mean that except for the mineral 
rights the land is to belong to Natives, and the Company are only to 
retain the mineral rights?

  Lord ATKINSON: That is an introduction to the next part: "If the 
Company should require any such land for the purposes of developing 
minerals," it gives them land equivalent. 

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: That is the corollary of it. I submit the alternative 
view in this case must be either all this land legislation is supplementary 
to the ordinary rights of the Natives, or it is expropriation, the compensation 
for which is the complete ownership of the reserves and the final ownership 
of the reserves, subject only to the retention of the mineral rights, 
with the rights for the purpose of developing mineral rights, of expropriating 
the particular piece of surface, compensation to be in land equivalent 
elsewhere, and subject to the right of eminent domain, to compulsory 
purchase of the surface of reserves for public purposes.

  Earl LOREBURN: Your general proposition, in support of which you 
are arguing, is this: That when the Order in Council was made it was not 
an act of conquest or done pursuant to conquest; it was a constitutional 
act pursuant to the pre-existing constitutional relations. Now, quite 
tentatively for my own part alone, I think the only way in which it can 
be pressed against you is to say that this was, in point of fact, a new settlement 
made consequent upon the rights acquired by conquest in lieu of 
the pre-existing conditions hinging wholly upon the point of conquest. If 
it was not substitution of the one regime for the other regime, I find a 
difficulty in saying that there is an expressed intention of dispossession. 
That is the point of view which for myself you will have to meet, whether 
this was not really the realization of the fruits of conquest. I know you 
dispute the question, adn then that observation would tumble to the ground 
at once if you established your point. That is my own personal view.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Now my general submission on those two Orders 
in Council is that there is not enough in the language used to warrant the 
interpretation that the Natives were intended thereby to be expropriated. 
I just refer to the alternative, because it is a mere alternative, that if the 
alternative view were taken that there was an intention to expropriate, 
it could only be upon finding in the language of the documents an intention 
finally and completely to give to the Natives the land and the reserves, 
and not to let the Chartered Company claim that as their commercial 
asset.

  Earl LOREBURN: What do you ask to say as the conclusion of your 
argument? Is it that there should be a declaration that there is no power 
to interfere with the Native rights, whatever they were, which I have also 
thought it unnecessary to go into in detail, or that it is a power upon compensation 
in general terms, or that it is a power upon making permanent 
an unalienable the reserves? What is the conclusion? That is a matter 
if policy, I know, but I want to know what your argument leads to in 
law.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I submit that at the date of the Resolutions, 
April 1914, there had been nothing done by the British Crown or by the 
British South Africa Company validly to divest the Natives of such title

34    THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

as they had.  The corollary of that would be that the matter would have
to be dealt with, and history cannot be unwritten, but no doubt as a matter
of policy the Government would take into account what had been done
right down to 1917, and on the basis of that decision they would consider
what was the right thing to do.

  Earl LOREBURN:  In other words that it should be declared or expressed
in the reason for the answer that that is the true state of the title, whatever
rights existed, and thereupon His Majesty would recommend his subjects
to govern themselves accordingly.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Quite. I want to make it perfectly clear on the
question of policy that I admit on behalf of the Natives the complete legislative
power of the British Crown hereafter to pass such legislation affecting
the lands of the Natives as is right, and as the Crown may in the exercise
of their constitutional rights and discretion think fit.

  Earl LOREBURN:  That the basis of treatment should be that you have
not been deprived.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  That the basis of treatment should be that we
have not been deprived; that the problem of policy is approached on that
basis.

CONCLUSIONS.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  My Lords, the material points that I want to put
before your Lordships come under these heads: (I) What is involved in
the maintenance by the British Crown of the status of protectorate.  (2)
Does the conquest of the Matabele affect that position or modify it? and
finally, What is the true principle to apply to ascertain how that answers
the question: did the Crown assume the ownership of the private property
in land so as to divest the private owners?  These are, shortly, the heads.
Now, the view that I tried to put before your Lordships before on the question
of protectorate has been in the course of argument, I think, practically
speaking, adopted, without any decision, of course, from your Lordships,
by your Lordships.  I conceded that in an African protectorate it was
quite impossible to look at any juridical definition of what it was, to ascertain
its precise limits or its precise scope.  I conceded that for the purpose
of administration, for the purpose of government in that sense, of preserving
law  and order, and of passing legislation within the territory, an
African protectorate must be taken as giving to the Crown complete jurisdiction.
I do not dispute that.  But that in my submission leaves open
the fundamental question which is this, the ordinary principle of law as
recognized in our Courts being that when sovereignty over territory is
assumed, the private property of the subjects of the previous state within
that territory will be left intact, that being the ordinary principle, even in
cases of conquest it is essential on the Crown to say that its right as conqueror
to take the private property of the subjects of the conquered State
has been, if I may use the expression, overtly exercised by some act which
is unequivocal in its character.

  Now, my Lords, I venture to submit that last submission is the submission
which most vitally affects both this case, and, if I may say so,
the administration of justice in the matter of constitutional law throughout
Africa, where our domains in the wider sense, including protectorates, are
concerned.  I venture to submit that it goes to the root of good government

35    THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

throughout Africa, to the root of the belief by the Native races in the justice
of the British Government, the principle that privately owned land
will be respected just as much when the owner is a native and just as much
when it is a native tribe and when it is a white man.  That is the constitutional
view which is involved, and my respectful submission to your
Lordships is that that is a fundamentally legal principle which goes to
the root of this reference.

  Now, as to the question of the scope of protectorate, I want to give
your Lordships two references in that volume of essays by Professor Westlake
to which I have already referred.  The pages begin on page 181.  I
am not going to read it, it is a few pages, but my submission is that the
gist of it is on page 185.  At the bottom of the page there is this sentence;
"But when the exclusive character of a protectorate is admitted, surely
it follows that the government required by the conditions of the region
must be supplied by the State which excludes all others from supplying
it, and that that State is armed by all others which recognize its protectorate
with their consent to its exercise of jurisdiction, indispensable for the purpose,
over their subjects within the recognized area."  Then he deals with
the aborigines.

  Now the Attorney General was faced by your Lordships several times
with the questions when and how do you say that the Crown assumed
ownership, and my submission is that his answer was logically fallacious.
His answer is at page 435 to page 439 of the transcript.

  Lord DUNEDIN:  Four pages of fallacy.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  Four pages based on one fallacy.  The fallacy
was this, as I submit, that he confused territory over which sovereignty
extends with land in which there is property.  No doubt the assumption
of Government carries with it the right of what is called eminent domain,
the right of passing legislation to expropriate private property with or
without compensation, admittedly the legislation may, of course, be by
Order in Council. That I concede.  I also concede that in the case of a
conquest the conqueror has the right which is in the legal sense an option,
a right of election, to do two things, as Lord Mansfield said, one, to kill
the people, two to take their lands, but I submit that you may no more
infer when the right of election has been exercised by the conquering king
to take the lands of the people unless he makes that plain by an act of
state of some sort, than it would be to infer that he had killed the people
when he had not killed them.  The fallacy in the argument here which
underlies in my submission the greater part of the whole discussion in this
case as to whether the Crown had the ownership or gave the ownership
to the Company, is the confusion between territory and land, sovereignty
and power.  It was for that reason that I before referred your Lordships
to that short passage in Professor Westlake's volume of papers.  In chapter
9 at page 131, at the bottom he said: "But property and sovereignty
play widely different parts in the system of acts and purposes which makes
up civilized life, and sometimes they are contrasted with one another in
circumstances which would make it very inconvenient to say that a State
has the property in its territory.  For instance, when a State cedes a province
it cedes the territorial sovereignty over the whole, and the property
in those parts which belonged to it as property, such as fortresses and public
buildings, but the property in all other parts remains unaffected.  If the
State which receives the cession desires to erect a new fortress or enlarge
an old one, it must acquire the necessary site from the proprietors by purchase
or expropriation according to law.  The power of expropriation for

36    THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

public purposes is one of those powers of the State subject to which all
property is enjoyed, and which are collectively described as eminent domain,
and in this another reason has been found for treating territorial sovereignty
as a kind of property."  Then, at the bottom of the page he says:
"The right of eminent domain as it exists within a State rather limits, and
when exercised affects, property, than is a reserved portion of it; but the
cession of territory, as we have seen, does not affect any property except
what is included in the cession because it happens to belong to the State
and is therefore alienated in the exercise of the ordinary rights of property."
And then over the page, in the middle of the page he says: "On every
ground then I shall treat territorial sovereignty as distinct from property,
and shall avoid describing it as eminent domain."  There is a similar
passage in his book, "International Law," page 5, intitled " The  Title
to State Territory," which I need not read to your Lordships.  It is at
pages 85 to 89.  Now upon that supposition I base the following further
comment and that is this:  that the Law Officers of the Crown have been
unable to point to any single act of state, that is to say any definite official
act or document at the critical period which in clear terms manifested the
intention of the State to take the property of any of its newly acquired
conquered subjects.  My submission is that on the contrary it is quite
clear that the Crown never addressed, so to speak, its mind to this question.

  LORD SUMNER:  If the Crown was aware of the possibility of a claim
for such Native rights as you are asserting, could it more explicitly sweep
them away and make an end of them than by the stipulation in the agreement
and these provisions in the Order in Council which state:  henceforward
the Natives shall have a part only of these territories assigned to
them by the British South Africa Company with a suitable amount of 
cattle and with a Land Commission and a Judge and so forth to look after
them in any assignments?   Your view is that they possessed those rights,
very probably in the whole of the country, certainly in parts of the country
which are very different from those which were to be assigned under the
Order in Council, and if the Crown expressly announces a new system which
is totally inconsistent with the picture you have drawn of the old one, is
not that a very explicit intimation that it intends to take away the old
property and give something else in lieu of it, adequate or not, I am sure
I do not know?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  I submit that what the Crown did by the Order 
in Council of 1894 or had previously started to do by the agreement of
that year is not so radically inconsistent with the maintenance of the native
title, or conversely does not so necessarily involve an intention to sweep
away the native title that it would be right to so construe it and the position
of the Lippert Concession as indicated in the question of Lord Dunedin
is very relevant to this aspect of the case in my submission.  We cannot
forget the history of the Lippert Concession.  The Lippert Concession has
been approved by the Crown at an earlier stage and called a settlement
of the land question before the war.  That was the phrase, almost in those 
words, and if the Crown was thinking in 1894 that under the Lippert Concession
the Company had got some rights without addressing its mind to
a definition of those rights and ascertainment as to what they were in their
scope and effect, is not that a very natural explanation of the fact that no
settlement of this question was arrived at or made by the Government of this land in question?

  LORD ATKINSON:  How could there be a more explicit assertion of the 
expression of the sovereign will than that the old communal rights should
be discontinued and giving authority to one agent to grant the land and
enjoining the sole agent to make special reserves.

THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA    37

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  With great submission there is no grant to the
agent.

  LORD ATKINSON:  Grant and authority.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  There is no bestowal of authority upon the Company
in this agreement to assign land away.  It is true that lands have
been assigned away by the Company.  I venture to submit there is no
express bestowal of authority upon the Company in this agreement.

  EARL LOREBURN:  I do not know, not as regards the Natives; but
look at it as regards the Natives, and that is the proposition you are seeking
to advance, that Clause 27 says a Land Commission having been created
in order to deal with all questions as to native settlements:  "The Land
Commission shall as regards the portion of said territories termed
Matabeleland assign to the Natives now inhabiting the said portion land
sufficient and suitable for their agricultural and grazing requirements and
cattle sufficient for their needs."  You say that they already were entitled
to it.  I quite agree you need not trouble about the nature and details
of the occupation, they had certain rights which at all events entitled them
to land.  Here is Clause 27, which is a perfectly superfluous clause, if the
Crown did nothing to interfere with their rights.  The Land Commission
is created to assign to you certain land sufficient for your requirements.
Is not that inconsistent with the maintenance of the right, whatever it
may be, that you put forward?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  I venture to submit not either perfectly superfluous
or necessarily inconsistent with the rights for these reasons: not
perfectly superfluous because the war had resulted in the disturbance of
the whole population of this part of the country.

  LORD ATKINSON:  I think you said before that the position of the 
Natives was that they had rights they got under 1894 plus their old
rights.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  My submission is that  of the two interpretations
of this agreement to say it meant that they were given, so to speak,
additional rights by way of making their position certain, is an interpretation
more consistent with justice, and, therefore, a better legal interpretation
than to say the whole of their existing rights were taken away in exchange
for fixing the reserves which might or might not be reserved for them.

  LORD ATKINSON:  They got what they never got before, they got a 
right to hold.

  Earl LOREBURN:  There were the old rights, whatever they were, of 
the Natives.  Then two things followed under the agreement, the agreement
following upon the previous history;  the first is that the Company is 
authorized either on its own account, or on account of the Company, whichever
you like, I do not care for this purpose, to settle white on the land,
which was yours before, and secondly, there is to be a special reservation
sufficient for your wants.  Putting these two together, does not that mean
the supersession of the old tribal rights?  They had a right to hold too.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  My submission is the right of the Government
to expropriate land within its territory belonging to individuals is a right
which would meet the occasion of that particular need at any time, and 
that from the fact one has no right to infer an Act of State depriving the
whole of the Natives of their lands, whether expropriation for public purposes
or mineral development was necessary or not.  That is just the whole

38    THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

point.  I concede to the full the Government's right to expropriate any
lands belonging to any Native tribe within the area of Rhodesia, on the
ordinary principle of eminent domain.

  Earl LOREBURN : Think what that admission goes to, it goes to this
that though you sell the domain or property in  land, or whatever you like
to call it, your statement now means that the Crown did take, or did acquire
by conquest the right of dispossessing any Native subject of his own control
for the benefit of the Natives and so forth, for the purpose of facilitating
settlement.  Perhaps you may desire to reconsider whether you should
put it in that way, but that is really nothing else but what the Crown asks.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : I venture to say it is radically different from what
I understand the Crown to ask.

  Earl LOREBURN : I think it is accurate.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT:  I think that is the true position, but I do want to
make it clear to your Lordships in what way I distinguish that position
from the position which the Crown or the Company seek to take up, it is
on that distinction, and on that distinction only, that my submission in
this case really turns.  That right attaches to every right of sovereignty
to every government.  Every government, as I read that passage from
Professor Westlake's book, must have the right, as an incident of the power
to govern, of expropriating public lands for public purposes.  We do it
under the Lands Clauses Act in our civilized country; it is inherent in
government; it is the power that was expressly reserved in the Order in
Council of 1894, Article 51, which is in Appendix B, at page 43; "The
Company shall retain the mineral rights in all land assigned to Natives.
If the Company should require any such land for the purpose of mineral
development or as sites for townships or for railways or for other public
works, the Land Commission, upon application by the Company and upon
good and sufficient cause shown, may order the Natives to remove from
such land or any portion thereof."

  Lord ATKINSON : That is reserve.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : It is perfectly true that is the reserve, but that
is an illustration of the ordinary power to compel purchase or expropriation
which are necessarily in my submission involved in any theory of government.

  Lord ATKINSON : It is common sense that if they have a reserve and
part of it was taken away, they should have additional land.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT :  True, that is an illustration.

  Earl LOREBURN :  Does this represent what you are really driving at,
the desire that there should be a liberal compensation in land elsewhere
wherever the Natives who occupied were turned out?  Is that the point
you are driving at?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : No, that is a question of policy.

  Earl LOREBURN : I know.  The point you were arguing was that this
Order in Council and the agreement which is the foundation of the Order
in Council was not an unequivocal exercise of the right to possess the Crown
of the land.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : I was.

  Earl LOREBURN : That is the proposition.  In regard to that proposi-

39    THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

tion you say the land has to be assigned, and if that land is taken away
other land is to be given in exchange.  There are provisions made for the
rest of the land.  I can understand your saying perfectly that in regard
to all land that is in occupation that the Crown ought to do the same;
it would not be a legal argument but another kind of argument altogether,
but I do not see where you find that this supports your contention that
the Crown was not exercising jurisdiction.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : I think it is very important to distinguish between
the two methods, the two roads by which the Crown may acquire title in
the land.  The first one that is suggested is that on the acquisition of
territory, whether by conquest or cession is immaterial for this purpose,
the Crown may acquire the ownership of the land just because it acquires
the sovereignty of the territory.  Now that is a fallacious argument, in
my submission.  Then it is said: True, it cannot give the private property
in the land merely by giving the sovereignty over the territory, but as a
conqueror it has the right to take the private property when it assumes
sovereignty over the territory, and in regard to that I do not dispute that
it has the right of election.

  Earl LOREBURN : It did not exercise it?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : It did not exercise it.

  Earl LOREBURN : It did not do it in the way you say it should?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT :  No.

  Earl LOREBURN : What was done, and what was not done, being the
two things, you have to take them both?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT " Quite; then I say I admit there is the legislative
right of expropriation inherent in all Governments, but in my submission
the legislation passed by the Crown, namely, the Order in Council of 1894,
did not, in fact, expropriate the whole of the Native title, and my submission
is that, as a matter of interpretation only, and that considered as a
matter of interpretation, that is the right interpretation, because of the
general principle that you must not assume expropriation of private property
by any legislative words unless the language is absolutely clear.

  Earl LOREBURN : You say the language must be definite, or the acts,
or both together, must create a definite exercise of the power, and you say
there was not that.

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : Precisely. The result of it was that the problem
was really never directly faced; it may be because there were erroneous
assumptions or that they had not really appreciated what the position
was; it may be this, that they had not really appreciated themselves the
question as to what the Native title was; one cannot say, but my submission
is that whatever the reason, they in fact did not either by act of
State in exercise of the right of sovereignty take the vacant land, nor did
they in exercise of the administration that gave them power, pass legislation
to expropriate it.

  Now, my Lords, I want to add a further word on this aspect of the
matter.  Supposing that the argument was wrong and that my submission
was found unacceptable to your Lordships in the result, and that in exercise
of the right of conquest the Crown must be taken by the agreement and
Order in Council of 1894 to have intended to take from the Natives of
Matabeleland their land, the Mashonas in the war of 1893 remained loyal

40   THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA 

to the Crown, I say to the Crown advisedly, because for practical purposes
although it was a protectorate the British Crown through the Company 
was the sole Government of Mashonaland ; the Natives remained absolutely 
loyal in Mashonaland : the Matabeles attacked them, the Company defended 
them, and in the result the Matabele were defeated.  As conquerors of the 
Matabele, is the Crown to say they will reward the loyalty of the Mashonas
by taking the private property in land, even although both the agreement 
and the Order in Council of 1894 are expressly limited to that portion of 
the territory called Matabeleland and exclude Mashonaland ?

Earl LOREBURN : I notice that with regard to this there was another
Order in Council afterwards, in 1898. 

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : Four years later ; that is at page 45 of Appendix 
B.  The fact that there was an Order in Council in 1898 affecting Mashonaland 
must be quite irrelevant to the conquest argument, I submit. 

Lord ATKINSON : Was not there a rebellion between 1894 and 1898? 

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : There was a rebellion in 1896. 

Lord ATKINSON : When it was suppressed, were not the Mashona
people suppressed and defeated ? 

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : To what extent the Mashonas took part I do not 
know. 

Lord ATKINSON : It was a more serious form ; it cost millions. 

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : There was a rising then.  If your Lordships say
the 1898 Order in Council must be treated as an act of the conqueror upon
the conquest of the Mashonas in 1896, then it is the same point as the other. 

Earl LOREBURN : Exactly. If Mashonaland was not to be treated 
as having been conquered in 1893-94, then it may be if they were not conquered, 
then it may be they were conquered in 1898 or 1896 or before the
1898 Order in Council. 

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : My submission upon that is this : that really both
Orders in Council are in their character obviously legislative, and neither 
of them acts of State by the conquering Power purporting in right of conquest 
to confiscate the land of the conquered.  If you look at them you 
appreciate that that is the position, and my submission is that the continuation 
of the Protectorate from 1891 right throughout this time has a 
very important bearing on that, and that is the only importance of the 
continuance of the Protectorate, that it is an important element to take
into account in considering whether the intention of the Crown must be 
taken to have been to confiscate the land or not ; that is confiscation as 
distinguished from legislative expropriation. 

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : May I make my submission about both these wars
in 1893 and 1896 ?  They were regarded by the Crown in each case as civil 
disturbances of a serious character of course, but civil disturbances within 
a territory over which the Crown was exercising effective jurisdiction. 

Lord SUMNER : Why do you say civil disturbances, because the forces 
were called policemen ?

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : No, my Lord, because the Crown was not treating 
them as wars between this country and foreign Powers.  That is the distinction 
I was trying to make by saying " civil."  They regarded them as 
disturbances of law and order, but not as creating, so to speak, a disturbance

THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA   41

in the conventional relations between the Crown and the Native peoples 
in those territories.  One wants to get at the relation of this case, because 
it is so easy, as I submit, to draw an interference based upon the use of a 
word like conquest when the reality of the case was that the Crown was 
not acquiring, in any sense, the rights of a conqueror, but were continuing 
an administration which had been interrupted by serious disorder. 

Lord SCOTT DICKSON : They treated it as a rebellion. 

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : Precisely ; that is the way it was treated. 

Earl LOREBURN : If that be so, then it was a protectorate in which a 
rebellion occurred and in which the Corwn, as protecting Power, then 
exercised its right, or claimed to exercise its right if it did--I know you say 
it did not--of taking possession of the Native land.  I should have thought, 
in cases of this kind, that if they thought fit to do it, and if they did it, 
they might derive a title from their position as protecting Power where 
a rebellion had taken place, just as much as if it had been what you call
a conquest. 

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : That is a very difficult question to answer.  They
might derive title ; that question, of course, means, would it be consistent
with recognized principles of law that under such circumstances the Crown 
should derive title. 

Earl LOREBURN : I thought you said you recognized their right to do 
so. 

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : I recognize the general right of conquest as giving
to the conqueror the right to acquire title by taking it. 

Lord ATKINSON : Surely there was a conquest, for the reigning 
sovereign was beaten in the field and ran away and disappeared. 

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : Supposing there was a conquest with regard to 
Matabeleland, certainly there was no conquest in 1896, it was a rebellion. 

Lord ATKINSON : I am not sure of that.  Mashonaland was part of 
the sovereign's territory. 

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : Your Lordship will remember the letters in which 
it was said after the defeat of Lobengula all semblance of Native power 
or government had passed away.  What happened in 1896 was a mere
rebellion.  Your Lordship appreciates what I am submitting. 

Lord SUMNER : After rebellions there have been considerable amounts 
of annexations or expropriations or appropriations historically. 

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : Yes, that is quite true, but this is a legal reference
as to whether there is a legal principle upon which it can be said the title 
of the Natives passed from them. 

Lord ATKINSON : Surely you cannot contend that if a Native sovereign 
rules over a certain district and has resort to arms, and makes war, and
is beaten, the district in which he did not make the war is not fallen, but 
only the district in which he did make the war ; his whole realm has fallen. 

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT : I agree if the sovereignty of Lobengula extended
over Mashonaland in 1893. My point is that, at any rate as far as Mashonaland
was concerned, it is perfectly clear from the documents of 1894 that 
the Crown did not then purport to exercise any right of sovereignty in
right of conquest to take the property of the Natives of Mashonaland, 

42 THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

because the agreement and the Order in Council of 1894 are limited in
terms to Matabeleland. I want to make a further submission that the 
Crown were not purporting to act as conquerors even with regard to Matabeleland.
All they did was in continuance of their powers under the Protectorate, 
and the Foreign Jurisdiction Act, to pass an Order in Council,
the terms of which had been agreed beforehand between them and the
Company as the governing power.

LORD SUMNER: It is not merely the fact that the Crown under the
Order in Council sanctioned a carefully considered scheme for giving the
Natives something different from all of their former rights, but the Crown
throughout has been aware of and has apparently tacitly sanctioned the
allotment of land in full title to white men without a moment's consideration
for any pre-existing supposed Native rights at all. The whole conduct
ever since 1895 has been absolutely to ignore the system of rights which
you assert except in so far as the system of Native reserves was concerned,
and the encouragement of Natives on the those reserves has taken its place.
Whether it was done justly or unjustly, whether it was done after mature
deliberation or non, whether it was done with knowledge of your clients'
rights or in ignorance of them, or in disbelief of them, it has been done;
for 25 years the plenary ownership tribally of nearly all the surface of
Matabeleland and Mashonaland has been a thing that has apparently
not even been raised in the minds of some anthropologist.

MR. LESLIE SCOTT: Your Lordship's words will, of course, necessarily be heard in South Africa.

LORD SUMNER: I should think it is most unlikely.

MR. LESLIE SCOTT: Then I will unsay all that. God forbid that I should
shake the fabric of the British Empire by any observation that I make
in the Privy Counil. The point is this, however strong the language may
be, the question is whether the Crown has a jure caronæ whether as conqueror
or predominant protecting power, or what you treat as having
suppressed a rebellion, whether it has done something quite inconsistent
with their having any longer maintained or recognised a system of rights
for which you contend.

MR. LESLIE SCOTT: The answer is this. I do not think that the other
parties to this case can produce before your Lordships cases in the rest
of Africa where the Crown has dealt with Native title by way of confiscation
to that extent. I have looked at a number of cases, and I believe in every
other case of every other Protectorate, including Uganda, the Native title
to land has been recognized to a very much greater extent than it would
be supposing that view were adopted by your Lordships in Southern
Rhodesia.

EARL LOREBURN: What  we are here after is applying law as far as
the term law is applicable to constitutional institutions and other situations
of this kind; we are trying to answer the questions put. Your legal contention
you have made perfectly clear, and it is that there is no such thing
as title by conquest, because that imputed the overt act or acts, and that
what was done was, to say the least of it, consistent with the maintenance
of whatever occupation rights existed, the particulars of which I agree
cannon matter, because only a small right is as good as a big right for the
purposes of this discussion. That is really what it comes to. I think you

43 THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

have told us your view about it, but you may have something to say
about it.

MR. LESLIE SCOTT: That is precisely the position I take up, that the
only materiality of the extent of the Natives' right is I suppose this, that
if it had been recognized as an individual right of fee simple, your Lordships
would struggle very hard against putting the interpretation upon the
agreement and the Order in Council of 1894 which is contended for by the
Crown or the Company as the case may be, and my submission is that
when you get rid of the Lippert Concession as a true foundation of title,
you are left with the Natives in complete enjoyment of the whole of the
unoccupied territory.

EARL LOREBURN: Do you mean they were the only people; that they
and their Sovereign between them, or they through their Sovereign, were
the only people who had ancient rights to the terrritory?

MR. LESLIE SCOTT: That is only on the question of degree.

LORD DUNEDIN: You have stood up for them very manfully, and the
throne is vacant.

MR. LESLIE SCOTT: I merely ask your Lordships to say in spite of the
vacant throne, the subjects of that throne may still be allowed to remain
in the occupation of their land subject to legislation.

EARL LOREBURN: I think we completely understand the way you
put it.

MR. LESLIE SCOTT: Then I have only two points which are very short
to make to your Lordships. The Natives at the present time, as I told
your Lordships, are living in large numbers on the unalienated land, something
like 100,000 of them, and they are paying rent for that land. That
brings the question to a point. Is there any justification for not merely
taking their land from them to the extend of allowing the Company to
assign it away, but also for making them pay rent before it has been assigned
away?

EARL LOREBURN: Is that for land communally occupied, that they
pay rent?

MR. LESLIE SCOTT: Yes.

EARL LOREBURN: It is something outside the reserves?

MR. LESLIE SCOTT: Will your Lordships look at Section 61 of the
Extracts of Evidence from the Report of the Native Affairs Committee of
Inquiry for 1910-11, which I handed to your Lordships. There your
Lordships will see that Section 60 "Natives occupy land under the following
class of tenure: (a) Communal, in reserves; (b) Communal, on land belonging
to the British South Africa Company, described generally as unalienated
land; (c) on private farms as rent-paying tenants; and (d) on private
farms under labour agreements." Then Section 61 says: "Those in (a)
pay no rent. All adult able-bodied males on (b) have to pay £1 per annum
rent, which goes to the commercial side of the British South Africa Company.
The Natives living on such land have very few restrictions imposed
upon them; the cutting of timber is prohibited, except for building and
domestic purposes. Those occupying (c) pay rent of the 10s. to 40s. per
male adult."

LORD SUMNER: Is your point that there is no justification for the
claim of rent?

44    THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIVE RIGHTS IN RHODESIA

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Entirely, my Lord.

  Lord SUMNER: How does that arise on this reference?

  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: It does not arise directly. My submission is that 
to reach into the Order in Council of 1894 an intention to take the land 
from the Natives, that they have owned, and to give the Company the 
right of charging them rent, is to do violence to the natural meaning of 
that  document.

  My Lords, I submit that nothing has been done by the Crown here 
since 1894 to take away the Native title, and the case should be decided 
as if your Lordships were considering is immediately after 1894 or 1898, 
whichever it may be, and that no passage of time since then can affect 
the position. The very reason your Lordships are asked to advise the 
king upon the matter is that it is desirable in the interests of good government 
in Rhodesia that the legal position should be ascertained. If your 
Lordships should uphold the view that I have submitted, that the Natives 
have not had ownership taken from of the lands, where they 
have lived for generations, but that the assignment of reserves was merely 
an additional precaution in their favour, for their protection, then it will 
be open to the king in Council governing the Protectorate to pass such 
legislation in the future as may be fair to all concerned. When matters 
of policy are involved and considered, of course, the progress since 1894 
will be material, and it will be open to the king, then, to do whatever may 
be fair, having regard to the existing state of affairs, but the first step 
towards a satisfactory settlement of the political problem, the problem 
of good government as between the whites and the Natives of Rhodesia, 
is to ascertain how far the Native rights were taken away, if I may use 
the expression, per incuriam, as it were, through language used in 1894, 
not designedly and expressly used, in order to deal with that problem. 
My submission is, in the absence of language carefully chosen and directly 
addressed to that problem of the Natives' title, as a matter of law it would 
be wrong to infer, from any documents which then came into existence, 
an intention to take from the Natives property that they had owned, and 
continues to own, up to that time.

The Anti-Slavery & Aborigines
Protection Society

exists to maintain Justice for Native Races.

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as a duty to become Members of the Society.

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THE 
GREATEST LAND CASE 
IN BRITISH HISTORY
The Struggle for Native Rights in Rhodesia 
before 
The Judicial Committee of His Majesty's Privy Council
By 
JOHN H. HARRIS
"By the disinterested liberality of persons in this country their 
Lordships had the advantage of hearing the case for the natives 
who were themselves incapable of urging, and perhaps unconcious 
of possessing, any case at all. Undoubtedly this 
enquiry has thereby been rendered more complete."
Extract from the Report of the Lords of the Judicial 
Committee of the Privy Council (July 29, 1918).

Issued by 
THE ANTI-SLAVERY AND ABORIGINES 
PROTECTION SOCIETY
Denison House
Vauxhall Bridge Road, S.W.

THE GREATEST LAND CASE IN
BRITISH HISTORY
The Struggle for Native Rights in Rhodesia
By John H. Harris.

When the Attorney-General, Sir F. E. Smith, opened the case for the 
British Crown, he prefaced his speech by emphasizing that the issues raised
in this case were of the "gravest conceivable importance" to the British
Empire.
     Early in the year 1914, the Committee of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines
Protection Society were warned that the issues arising out of the
Rhodesian Reference included a threat to native races in the British Commonwealth
more grave than anything within living memory. The responsibility
and the difficulties attendant upon taking up a Privy Council case
on behalf of the natives were carefully weighed by the Committee, not the
least of these difficulties being the fact that no matter how great the task
of preparation, nothing could be disclosed to members of the Society and
their supporters until the public hearing. 
     The Committee, after taking legal advice, came to the unanimous conclusion
that the Society had no alternative; the case for the natives, no 
matter at what cost, must be taken up by the Society.

THE ISSUES - 73,000,000 ACRES OF LAND.

The Chartered Company, or, to give it its full title, the British South
Africa Company, claimed that the entire lands of Southern Rhodesia not
leased or sold to white men were the property of its shareholders. This claim meant that not a single native throughout the territory owned a foot
of the land of his ancestors, and that by some means yet to be laid before the
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council the 750,000 natives had forfeited
all ownership rights to their lands. The British Crown and the white
settlers were affected from the constitutional standpoint, whilst the native
2

3
inhabitants of Rhodesia and other races within the British Commonwealth
were most vitally concerned in two other respects :
1. If the Chartered Company succeeded, the natives of Southern Rhodesia
would be so completely divested of ownership that they could only
remain in their country as mere occupants upon the lands of alien landlords.
2. The confirmation by the Judicial Committee of the Company's claim
would thus involve the setting aside of that pillar of the British Constitution
which provides for the recognition of native customary law, particularly
with reference to property rights. 

THE PARTIES.
This claim by the Chartered Company was of such an extraordinary
nature that the Crown decided to oppose it. The white settlers of Rhodesia
also entered a plea against a claim which threatened the future Government
of Rhodesia, whilst it was arranged that Mr. Leslie Scott should appear for
permission to be heard on behalf of the natives. The preliminary hearing
of the Reference took place on August 4, 1914, before the Lord Chancellor
(Lord Haldane), Lord Dunedin, Lord Atkinson, Lord Moulton, Lord Sumner,
and the Lord Chief Justice (Lord Reading). 
     As a result of this preliminary sitting the several parties were instructed
to prepare and exchange their cases pending the public hearing of the case
upon a date to be arranged later.
     The preparation of the case occupied nearly four years, and on behalf
of the natives it meant a journey to Matabeleland, Mashonaland, and the
South African territories. 

THE NATIVE CASE.
The case for the natives rested upon the following main propositions: --
1. The natives had never alienated their land rights.
(a) The only Concessions given by Lobengula were restricted to
minerals and waste lands.
(b) No Concession could apply with equal force to both Mashonaland
and Matabeleland. 
2. The complete expropriation of the whole of the natives from their
land rights would be an act without precedent in British Colonial
history.





4

3. The British Government has never by any formal act dispossessed
the natives of their land rights.
(a) Rhodesia is not British territory and the natives are not
British subjects. The British Government is bound to the
Matabele and Mashona tribes by a treaty of Amity, and
nothing in this treaty gives the Protecting Power the right to
divest the protected natives of their land rights. 

LEGAL COSTS.
The cost of presenting the native case has been considerable, and in order
to meet this the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society has incurred
liabilities from [pounds]6,000 to [pounds]7,000. The costs of the Chartered Company are,
of course, paid from the Company's funds, those of the Crown from the
Treasury, the costs of the white settlers of Rhodesia are being found by the 
Legislative Council under the following resolution :--
(1) That, with reference to the submission of the question of the ownership
of the unalienated land to the Privy Council, the Administration
be requested to provide the sum of [pounds]5,000 to defray the cost of presenting the case of the inhabitants and people of Rhodesia to 
the Privy Council. 
(2) That the sum so provided be place at the disposal of a Committee
of three or more of their own number, selected by the elected
members of the Legislative Council, with authority to the members
so elected to expend the amount, or so much thereof as they
may deem necessary, in collecting evidence and ensuring the presentation
of the claim of the inhabitants and people to the best advantage,
including the engagement of such professional assistance as they
consider advisable.
No provision has been made for the natives from the above fund, nor
at any time has any offer been made either by the Crown, the settlers or
the Company to assist in defraying the costs.
     The revenue from which the case of the white settlers is defrayed
averages about [pounds]750,000 per annum. Towards this revenue the natives
provide all the direct taxation and an appreciable share of the indirect taxation,
making together nearly [pounds] 300,000. 
     If the Crown or the natives only succeeded in establishing a right to
lands the natives in fact occupy there is reason to believe that there will be

5
a sum of not less than [pounds]100,000 to be refunded for "rent," etc., irregularly
levied since 1914. 
     The Committee of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society
held the view that once their Lordship's Board agreed to accept a statement
of the native case the costs would be regarded as a legitimate charge upon
public funds for the following amongst other reasons :--
1. That upon the principle of "Commonsense and Justice" it would
only be right that the native taxpayers should in the matter of costs be
placed on the same footing as the white taxpayers.
2. That a decision by the Secretary of State to exclude the natives from
the resolution of the Rhodesian Legislative Council would be to declare
in effect that the 750,000 natives are not a part of the "inhabitants and
people" of Rhodesia--which would be unjust and absurd.
3. If it were held that for any reason the coloured and indigenous people
did not possess an equal claim to that of the immigrant white settlers to
charge their costs to the revenue, of which each provides about equal shares,
then it is urged that the costs should be regarded as a legitimate charge upon
the "rents" irregularly levied since 1914 and now believed to be in a "suspense
account."
     These arguments should receive additional emphasis from the fact 
that the Secretary of State (Lord Harcourt) forbade any appeal to the chiefs
to pay all or any costs of their case. The reasons given for this decision
appeared to the advisers of the Society as being quite sound, hence no appeal
was made against such decision. 
     The broad facts now established are -- (a) that the natives had a case,
(b) that they had been forbidden opportunity to pay costs, (c) the costs of
the 26,000 white settlers only are to-day a charge upon the revenues of
Rhodesia to which the natives contribute nearly a half. 
     The case came  up for hearing in April 16, and was heard continuously
until May 2. The Judicial Committee were : Lords Loreburn, Dunedin,
Atkinson, Sumner, Scott Dickson. The case of the natives was placed in
the hands of Mr. Leslie Scott, K.C., M.P., and Mr. Stuart Bevan. The
natives owe a deep debt of gratitude to the Society's solicitors, Messrs. Morgan
and Price ; both of these gentlemen have given earnest thought and much of
their valuable time to the case during its four years of preparation. The 
Committee of the Society has watched with admiration and warm appreciation
the devotion of Mr. Carey Morgan, who, though laid aside through ill

6
health, has from his invalid room directed with unrivalled skill the work of
preparation and watched patiently every phase of the struggle ; always ready
with counsel and practical help whenever a critical juncture had been reached. 

THE JUDGMENT.
The Judgment was delivered on July 29 and proved to be one of considerable
length and not a little obscurity. Lord Sumner read it from typed
MS, a task occupying nearly two hours, and the outstanding fact is that
the Chartered Company lost its case.

THE CHARTERED COMPANY'S LOST CASE.
The Lippert Concession upon which the Lord Advocate rested his
case on behalf of the Company was declared valueless, conquest inadmissible
and possession only evidence of agency. The language of the Judgment is at once caustic and enlightening upon the extraordinary
claims which for twenty years the Company has rested on the famous 
document known as the Lippert Concession.
     The Company, say their Lordships, contends that
"He (Lobengula) granted to him (Lippert) all the right of dealing with
land of which he had any knowledge, and his ignorance of the nature of 
an estate in fee ought not to derogate from the amplitude of a grant, which
was as wide as he knew how to make it. He reserved at any rate nothing
but money considerations for himself, and when the Lippert and the Rudd
concessions fell into the same hands, the King had, in substance, sold his
country out and out to the Company. Their Lordships cannot accept this
argument. As well might it be said that a savage who sold ten bullocks, being the highest number up to which he knew how to count, had thereby
sold his whole herd, numbering, in fact, many hundreds."
     And again :
"It would follow that Herr Lippert was, or could become at pleasure,
owner of the entire kingdom--for nothing is reserved in favour of the inhabitants--
from the kraals of the King's wives to his father's grave or the scene
of assembly of his indunas and his pitso. Thenceforward the entire tribe
were sojourners on sufferance where they had ranged in arms, dependent
on the good nature of this stranger from Johannesburg even for gardens,
in which to grow their mealies, and pastures, on which to graze their cattle.
The Lippert concession may have some value as helping to explain how and 
why the Crown came to confer the administration of Southern Rhodesia
upon the Company, but as a title deed to the unalienated lands it is valueless."

7
CONCESSION VALUELESS--CONQUEST INADMISSIBLE.
During the whole eleven days' hearing of the case probably the most
fascinating morning was the one during which the Lord Advocate endeavoured
to establish contributory title on the ground of "Conquest." He knew
perfectly well the extreme danger of advancing this argument, but with
extraordinary skill he threw out the atmosphere and glamour of "conquest"
without even once using the actual word. Again and again, first
one then another of their Lordships attempted to draw out that fatal word,
but with really superb ability Mr. Clyde avoided the pitfall. The Judgment
however once more reaffirmed that bulwark of the British Constitution :--
     "If there was a conquest by the Company's arms, then by well settled
constitutional practice, that conquest was on behalf of the Crown. It
rested with Her Majesty's advisers to say what should be done with it..."
     Thus ended the long struggle against the preposterous claim of the
Chartered Company, namely, that every foot of land in Southern Rhodesia
not in the possession of white men belonged not to the Crown or the inhabitants
but to the Shareholders of the Chartered Company. That other 
recommendations upon financial matters are incorporated in the Judgment
is a matter of little, if any, interest to the society.

WHAT THE CROWN HAS WON
     Of the three opponents of the Company, the Crown wins the most in that
legal title is vested in the British Crown as Trustee for the inhabitants. The
real position appears to be best summed up in the following passage :--
     "Their Lordships think it sufficient to say that, except in so far, if
at all, as the rights of the Crown are subject to those of the Natives and the 
Company, nothing has been shown to have happened or to have been done,
that would prevent the Crown, if and when the Company's tenure of the
administration of Southern Rhodesia determines, from disposing of the lands
then remaining unalienated by any lawful means and in favour of any
persons or purposes, as it may duly be advised..."

WHAT THE NATIVES HAVE WON.
     The Natives came an easy second to the Crown in what they have
secured, the white settlers receive but scant attention in the Judgment.
In the first place the natives have gained the enormous advantage of finding
the lands they occupy no longer under the control of the Chartered Company's

8
Shareholders but under the direct control of the Crown, and, as will be
observed from the above passage, Crown rights are subject to indigenous
rights. 
     Next to this the Natives have removed from them the menace of a 
perpetual temptation to cut down their reserves. Prior to the Judgment,
the Company's claim to the Commercial ownership of the reserves meant
that it was always in the interest of the Company to make out a case for
cutting off the best portions of the reserves, the Natives were thus constantly
exposed to the threat of eviction, indeed whilst the case was proceeding
it had been decided to evict the Natives from 6,000,000 acres of reserves
and place them elsewhere on 5,000,000 acres. 
     The next step on behalf of the natives is that of securing from the Crown
a settled system of land tenure ; adequate, secure, and in accord with the Judgment. 
The Committee of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Society will at
once address themselves to this new task and at the same time will take
up the question of native costs which, in the opinion of the Committee and
its advisers, should be treated as a Public Charge. 

-----
The main passages of the Speeches of Mr. Leslie
Scott on behalf of the natives of Rhodesia are now published
by the Society in pamphlet form, and can be
obtained * from the Society's Office--Price 6d., gratis to
members of the Society. 
-----

Printed by Butler & Tanner, Frome and London.

-----
This issue includes the ANNUAL REPORT of the Society for 1918.

The
Anti-Slavery Reporter
and Aborigines' Friend

Series V., Vol. 9, No. 1.
April, 1919

CONTENTS
....page
Quarterly Note...2
Peace Terms and Colonial Reconstruction. Important 
Correspondence...2
Miscarriage of Justice in British East Africa...9
Empire Resources Development Committee...12
Parliamentary: New Hebrides: Gold Coast...14
Papua: Annual Report...15
Queensland Aboriginals: Annual Report...16
Obituary: Rev. J.S. Moffat, Mr. J.B. Moffat, Mr. E.E. Dower...17
The Committee: New Members...19
Review: Lady Victoria Buxton...19

Annual Report for 1918...21
Subscriptions and Donations, 1918...27
Summarised Cash Account...34

Price Fourpence

Published under the sanction and at the Offices of
The Anti-Slavery & Aborigines Protection Society
51 Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road
London, S.W.1


Anti-Slavery Reporter and Aborigines' Friend.
April, 1919.
(The Editor, whilst grateful to all correspondents who may be kind enough
to furnish him with information, desires to state that he is not responsible for the
views stated by them, nor for quotations which may be inserted from other journals.
The object of the journal is to spread information, and articles are necessarily quoted
which may contain views or statements for which their authors can alone be held
responsible.)

Quarterly Note.
The Rhodesian Land Case.
This question has been under constant consideration by
the Committee of the Society, which resolved to print a
final statement upon the case for private circulation
among representative men and women, the Missionary Societies, etc., in
the hope of bringing direct influence to bear upon the Government, so as
to avoid, if possible, the wide appeal to the public, which will become
necessary if all else fails. This action has been endorsed by leading
members of Parliament and by the Society's Committees in Scotland.
Meanwhile Lord Milner has agreed to receive a small deputation from the
Society to bring the facts before him for his personal examination and
consideration. This is being arranged as we go to press. 1

Peace Terms and Colonial Reconstruction
It had been hoped that Mr. Balfour would be able to receive a deputation
from the Society, and early in the year a letter from the Foreign Office
informed Sir Victor Buxton that the proposals which had been made "had been carefully considered by the Department in consultation with the 
Colonial Office."
"The great press of work," however, made it difficult to receive a deputation,
but it was suggested that a memorial might be drawn up "which
could be published in the Press, setting out the ends you have in view."
"Such a memorial," it was added, "would be carefully studied."
A memorial was accordingly drafted setting forth the main features of
the Society's repeated representations upon the subject of peace terms and
native races, a copy of which was forwarded to the British Representations

1 It is hoped that it will be possible to report on this subject at the Annual Meeting. 
2

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.    3

at the Peace Conference in Paris, and was also sent to the Press. The terms
of this memorial follow :--

TO THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, 
FOREIGN OFFICE.
JANUARY 14, 1919.
SIR,--In response to your communication of the 7th instant, addressed to Sir
Victor Buxton, the President of this Society, we beg now to place before His
Majesty's Government, in the form of a single memorandum, the main
features of the representations made by the Society upon the question of 
Peace Terms and Native Races. These fall under two main heads :--
I. Territories whose sovereign control may undergo changes as a result 
of the war, and
II. The sphere within which international action can safely and wisely
operate. 

I.
Our Committee has by various means brought to the forefront of public
discussion, and by direct representation to His Majesty's Government, the paramount importance of taking into consideration, so far as ascertainable,
the wishes and welfare of the inhabitants themselves before any transfer or
sovereignty takes place.
In this connection we desire to emphasize that in our opinion special
reasons exist for applying this principle to any colonial territories which were
wholly or in part under British Administration prior to August 4, 1914. Our
Committee ventures to hope that at an early date an assurance may be given
upon this point, because we are convinced that public opinion would welcome
this further assurance that no territory under British Colonial influence will
be surrendered to any Foreign sovereignty without both the inhabitants of
the territories and the British Parliament being given the opportunity of
expressing an opinion. If it appears to His Majesty's Government that this
latter point is unduly emphasize, we beg to say that urgent representations
have been made to our Committee in connection with certain territories.

II.
The second main category of our representations has covered the sphere 
of international control over tropical territories with a view to restraining
retrograde measures, abuse and evil influences, in preference to proposals for
international executive Government, which latter, in our opinion, can only
be fraught with danger to world peace and a menace to just and progressive 
Government. 
In this connection, we beg to repeat our suggestion that, at a date to be
fixed by the Peace Congress, a new official Conference, following on the lines
of the Vienna, Berlin, and Brussels Conferences, should be held to deal with
all questions affecting the aboriginal races of territories wherein there is no

4   ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.

self-government. Our Committee presumes that in fixing a date for the
holding of such Conference the Peace Congress would also prepare comprehensive
terms of reference, and at this stage our Committee only indicates
briefly some of the subjects which have from time to time formed the basis
of our representations to His Majesty's Government. 
   We have asked that any such Conference should define anew the existing
international obligations for the suppression of slave-owning and slave-
trading, secure an international agreement to abolish forced labour for
private profit, lay down the broad lines of protective measures for migrations,
and for labour contracts, obtain effective international action for
controlling the traffic in spirituous liquors, establish an international bureau
for the study and prevention of tropical diseases, make provisions for giving
security and adequacy of land tenure for indigenous populations. 
     If the appointment of such Conference can be secured, our Committee
would be glad to submit further memoranda covering each of these subjects,
but does not propose burdening His Majesty's Government with such
material until we know what form such Conference will take, and what terms
of reference are laid down for its guidance,
We are, etc.,
(Signed) TRAVERS BUXTON, Secretary,
JOHN H. HARRIS, Organizing Secretary.

   Representations were made to the President of the United States when
in London, and an interview was asked for, but was rendered impossible by
the shortness of his stay in this country.
     The text of the letters which passed follows: :--
To H.E. THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
December 28, 1918. 
SIR,-- We beg leave to approach you with reference to the vital question of
Colonial reconstruction in territories, mainly African, where permanent
White residence is impracticable.
     We submit that whilst a detailed consideration of all the problems
which are involved in this subject may be impossible at the Peace Congress, 
such consideration of detail could be committed to a Conference sitting
within a definite period, and with adequate terms of reference, at an agreed
date after the signing of Peace.
     The established abuses arising from White contact with native races
have been due principally to labour conditions, drink, and preventable
diseases which together have decimated whole tribes in circumstances
involving much suffering to the tribes themselves and grave prejudice
to economic and ethical progress. In the economic sphere there is a further
disadvantage from which these people undoubtedly suffer through preferential

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.    5
duties imposed in the interest of European and American national
trade.
     We beg to urge upon your Excellency that the motive for Colonial
expansion should be that implied in the term "Protectorate." This term
implies that the overseas Powers should be in the position of Trustees for
the well being of the inhabitants regardless either of national or colour
distinction, a position which involves :-- The abolition of every form of
compulsory labour for private profit ; the preservation of indigenous land
rights ; the rigid restriction of the sale of ardent spirits within the boundaries
of all such Protectorate territories, such restriction again to be impartially 
imposed ; the recognition of some Protectorate and Native rights
over sub-surface values, forest and virgin produce ; the prevention of 
communicable diseases. 
     In our opinion, the foregoing and kindred subjects which so vitally
affect native races should form a legitimate sphere for super-national control
by international agreement. At the same time we attach the greatest
importance to the setting up of some permanent Court of Appeal before
which Nations, Tribes, scientific and other recognized bodies could lay
allegations of any violation of principles for which international agreement
had been reached. In our opinion the existing international obligations
have hitherto failed, and failed lamentably, owing to the fact that no
machinery has existed for securing the application of agreed principles. 
     We attach hereto a copy of a statement of the case as advocated. 
     Under separate cover we are forwarding certain pamphlets bearing
on the subject.
     If permitted, we shall be happy to lay before your Excellency any
detailed material upon these subjects, but should it be possible to grant
us the favour of an interview, we should prefer to arrange for a small
deputation to wait upon your Excellency at such time and place as you
might be pleased to appoint.
     We have, etc.,
FOR THE ANTI-SLAVERY AND ABORIGINES PROTECTION SOCIETY--
(Signed) T.F. VICTOR BUXTON, President.
TRAVERS BUXTON, Secretary.
JOHN H. HARRIS, Organizing Secretary. 
FOR THE EDINBURGH COMMITTEE FOR THE PROTECTION OF NATIVE RACES--
G.F. BARBOUR, Chairman
JOHN COWAN, Vice-Chairman
{Joint Conveners.
FOR THE GLASGOW COMMITTEE FOR THE PROTECTION OF NATIVE RACES--
SAMUEL CHISHOLM, Chairman.
RICHD. HUNTER, Vice-Chairman. 

6 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND
REPLY
AMERICAN MISSION TO NEGOTIATE PEACE,
PARIS,
January 17, 1919.

DEAR SIRS, -
I am instructed by President Wilson to acknowledge the receipt of your
letter in regard to the protection of the native races in Africa, and asking
for an interview.
In reply, the President expresses regret that owing to the limited time
he had to spare in England, he was unable to make an appointment, but
he does not doubt the question discussed in your letter will receive the
attention of the proper authorities in due time.
I am, dear Sirs,
Yours very truly,
ARTHUR HUGH FRAZIER
Counsellor of Embassy.

To the President
of The Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society.
Arrangements were made for the Organizing Secretary to visit Paris
and meet representatives from Africa who were arranging for a Conference
upon their interests, as well as other influential persons in
that capital for the Peace Conference, but passport difficulties, interposed
at the last moment, unfortunately prevented Mr. Harris from
being able to carry out his plans.  It has been gratifying to learn of the
direction which has been taken on Colonial questions and the matter
of international control, and of the good progress made in the discussions
and conclusions of the representatives of the Powers.  On the suggestion
of Lord Sheffield, the Committee resolved to address an appeal to the 
delegates of each of the Great Powers now meeting in Conference, which was
drawn up in the following terms: -

YOUR EXCELLENCY, -
The Committee of this Society has over eighty years devoted itself
to promoting the welfare of the aboriginal races of the world by opposing
their oppression and exploitation.  Throughout the earlier period of the 
history of the Society its efforts were directed towards securing the abolition
of plantation slave-owning and slave-trading and subsequent forms of
contract labour which were, and in some parts still are, but slave-owning in
this disguise.
Within recent times primitive races have suffered more from the exploitation
of their lands and virgin produce, and the consequent demand for
forced labour.  In the opinion of our Society this inflicts a twofold wrong

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES'  FRIEND 7

upon these indigenous peoples: they are robbed of their ancestral lands and
property, and the forced labour demanded in the interests of private profit
is in principle barely distinguishable from the worst systems of slave-owning.

During the last thirty years the inhabitants of tropical regions in Central
Africa, the South Pacific, South America and elsewhere, have been subjected
in varying degrees to all the foregoing modes of oppression, besides other
forms of degradation introduced by white men.

Our Committee would be quite ready to produce to your Excellency
abundant evidence in support of all the foregoing statements, but we are
more anxious to secure future safeguards than to expose existing wrongs.

We beg to suggest to your Excellency that the Delegates of your Government
to the Peace Congress be asked to insist upon the application of the
principles, herinafter briefly set out, to all tropical and semi-tropical territories
the Sovereign control over which may be varied by the Peace Congress,
and at a suitable stage extend an invitation to all Colonizing Powers to
adopt these same principles in Dependency territories under their Sovereign
control.

I.  RELATIONSHIP OF SOVEREIGN STATE TO DEPENDENCY.
The relation of the Sovereign country to Dependencies varies with 
different Powers.  In the opinion of our Committee the time has arrived
for the stronger Powers to accept as the soundest economic and ethical
relationship that of Trustee for the inhabitants and their territory, and that
the old policy of regarding such territories primarily from the point of view
of possessions to be developed in the interests of the Metropolitan Government
is out of date in practice and indefensible both on political and on moral
grounds.  In our opinion it is vital that the relationship of a mandatory
Power should be that of Trustee for the people and the assets of their country,
and not that of Trustee for any overseas Power or Powers.

II. INTERNATIONAL CONTROL.
The experience of our Committee has demonstrated to us the inadvisability
of International Administration.  When executive functions are
placed in the hands of a group of Nationals with a differing outlook and
diverse training, paralysis tends to overwhelm good Government, and from
such a chaotic condition the inhabitants are the worst sufferers.  International
Control has for many years proved valuable, but its value has been 
restricted because there has been no Court of Appeal against deliberate
violations of agreed International obligations.

III. LAND.
Nothing in recent years has imposed greater suffering on aboriginals
than the loss of ownership in tribal lands.  There are to-day several terri-

8   [center] ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND. [center]

tories in which whole tribes have been entirely dispossessed of the ownership
of their lands.

[center] IV. LABOUR. [center]
[indent] Forced labour for private interests or labour secured by fraud should,
in our opinion, be denounced by International agreement, and provision made
for its abolition wherever its existence can be clearly proved.  Forced labour
for administrative purposes should only be permitted within severely
restricted limits: in no case should such demands violate customary law.
Contract labour should never be subject to criminal penalties:  alleged
breaches of contract should be met only by civil proceedings.

[center] V. COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY. [center]
[indent] (a) The acceptance of the principle of Trusteeship should in our opinion
avert a new menace to the interests of native races which is beginning to 
appear through the stress of war, namely that of imposing tariffs and duties
(import or export) upon local produce as punitive or protective measures
against other nationals.

[indent] (b) The attitude of certain organizations and administrations in denying
to native races the right to engage in other than unskilled tasks solely accord-
ing to the degree of the colour of the man's skin is, in our opinion, indefensible
and inconsistent with sound principle.

[center] VI. ALCOHOL. [center]
[indent] The ravages caused by the uncontrolled sale of ardent spirits to aborigi-
nal races are admitted.  Our Committee is ready to welcome, but only as a
temporary expedient, the prohibition of the sale of alcohol to the indigenous
people of certain territories, but in our opinion total prohibition in territories
where there is no full self-government is the only practical and sound policy.
A measure of prohibition decided solely upon the degree of colour raises
in the Dependencies problems impossible of solution, except at the price of
injustice and disaffection, whilst in practice is is found unworkable, except
at the price of law-breaking.  A measure short of prohibition might be that
of "control," under which permits could be issued by the medical author-
ities-such permits being automatically cancelled by any violation of the
conditions under which they were granted.

[center] VII. APPEAL TRIBUNAL. [center]
[indent] Finally we beg to submit that International obligations towards indi-
genous peoples have lamentably failed in their purpose because there was
no International Court of Appeal to which Governments, responsible bodies
of public opinion, and representatives of local tribes, could present a case
for hearing.  The time has now surely arrived for the setting up of such
Court of Appeal either by the Peace Congress or by the League of Nations.

[center] ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND. [center]   9

[indent] We beg to ask that your Excellency will give to these suggestions your
consideration and support, first as conditions attaching to any territory where
status is changed as a result of the war and generally as a standard which
every Colonizing Power should accept for tropical countriesand people under
its National Control.
[indent] We are, etc.,
[indent] TRAVERS BUXTON, Secretary,
[indent] JOHN H. HARRIS, Organizing Secretary.
[indent] On behalf of the Committee of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protec-
tion Society.

[indent] We have learnt with much satisfaction that the Bureau International
des Ligues de defense des indigenes at Geneva addressed a vigorous memorial
to the American Delegates at the Peace Conference urging in all colonial ques-
tions that the Colonizing Power should respect the liberty, dignity and inter-
ests of the native races, and arguing in favour of an organization for inter-
national control on much the same lines as our own Society has urged.  Our
Friend, M. Rene Claparede, the President of the Bureau, has been in Paris
during these fateful weeks, in communication with Dr. Du Bois and other
representatives of the Africans in the United States.

[indent] Our sister Society in Italy also has seized the opportunity for making
similar representations to the Italian Foreign Minister, who is the delegate of
Italy to the Conference, associating itself with the action which has been
taken by our Society in pressing certain measures upon our Government and
asking that a Congress of the Powers should be summoned after the Peace
Congress to promote the rights and interests of the subject races in the
Dependencies and protect them from improper treatment and exploitation.

[center] MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA [center]
CORRESPONDENCE has taken place with the Colonial Office in regard to a
recent trial for murder in the East Africa Protectorate, in which it would
seem that gross injustice has been done.  Such a case of a jury bringing
in a verdict quite inadequate to the proved facts of the offence, where a
 white man is put on his trial for murder of a native, is not, we fear, a
solitary one, as will be seen from the 1915 case mentioned in the
Society's second letter.
[indent] A correspondent wrote in Truth of December 25:-
[indent] "The recent history of the B.E.A. Protectorate is deplorable . . . Of
course the majority of Europeans in both Protectorates are opposed to
cruelty and violence.  Some of them are excellent types of humanity and 

10 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.

earn the reverence of the natives. There are, however, and appreciable
number of low criminals. . . . British East Africa was, when I left it in
the autumn of 1916, in urgent need of judiciary and an executive capable
of inspiring the respect of everybody and a well-founded apprehension on
the part of criminals."

December 6, 1918.
To the Right Hon. Walter H. Long,
His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State
for the Colonies
Sir, —
We beg leave on behalf of the Committee of this Society to draw your
attention to the case of the murder of a native in British East Africa under
circumstances of great cruelty, for which two white men stood their trial at
Nakuru in September last. Briefly states, the facts are that a native, names
Matunga, having been caught stealing flour from the farm of Mr. H.E. Watts
of Lumbwa, was subjected by Watts to a most brutal flogging, and, according
to the evidence, alternatively immersed in cold water and further repeatedly
flogged until he was unable to stand. The man was then carried to the
house of one of the defendants and "spread-eagled" under a bed, his hands
and feet being chained to the four bed-posts, where he was left. Some time
later, the second defendant was seen carrying the dead body of a native out
of the house. A story was circulated that the native who had been flogged
had run away, but it became known that the defendant Betschart, who had
carried a body into the bush, had been seen later taking a tin of petroleum
and a bundle of wood, with which he had attempted to burn the dead body
of a native. It was ultimately clearly proved that this was the native
Matunga who had been flogged and bound by the two defendants. The
Magistrate before whom the accused were brought in the first instance
said, "I have never heard of such brutality in all my experience." The trial
of the accused Watts and Betschart took place at Nakuru on September 4,
when the jury rejected the charge of murder and brought the accused Watts
in guilty only of "simple hurt," and Betschart of "hurt" in tying the boy
up under the bed. The Judge bound over Betschart in a sum of 1,500
rupees for good behaviour for twelve months with two sureties of 750 rupees
each; Watts was sentenced to a fine of 1,000 rupees or six months' rigorous
imprisonment.

We beg to ask if the attention of the Secretary of State has been called
to this extraordinary verdict and judgment. Our Committee feels sure that
the punishment, which was little more than a fine, must be regarded as
flagrantly inadequate for a crime so grave, and we are to ask whether His
Majesty's Government have taken, or propose taking, action in the matter.
In an editorial which appeared in the East African Standard of September
14 last, which characterized the trial as one of the most unfortunate episodes

11 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.

in the history of the country, reference is made to the murder of a whilte man
by three natives a few months before, when it is stated that "the Administration,"
in order to impress the natives with the working of British justice,
"directed that certain natives from the district should be given special facilities
for realizing the consequences to which acts of violence might lead."
We are to ask if we may receive particulars of these directions, and whether
the were carried out.

We are instructed to recall a case somewhat similar, which occurred in
the East African Protectorate in 1911, when Mr. Galbraith Cole shot a native
for stealing a sheep belonging to him, and was acquitted by the jury at his
trial. The case aroused considerable interest, and the accused was shortly
afterwards deported from the Colony by order of the Government.
We have, etc.,
Travers Buxton, Secretary,
John H. Harris, Organizing Secretary.

Reply.
Downing Street,
December 13,1918.
Sir,—
I am directed by Mr. Secretary Long to acknowledge the receipt of your
letter of December 6, and to inform you that he is in communication with the
Officer Administering the Government of the East Africa Protectorate in
regard to the case of the death of a native to which you call attention.
2. The other case referred to in the East African Standard of September
14 is doubtless that of the murder of Mr. E.B. Drought by three natives on
August 31 last, in which the evidence was stated by Mr. Bowring to have
revealed most clearly a spirit of savage and deliberate brutality as characterizing
alike the manner and the motive of the crime.
3. Mr. Drought was a middle-aged gentleman much enfeebled by rheumatism,
and was living alone in an isolated locality. The nights for the crime
was chosen when all the circumstances lent themselves to its easy and
undetected commission, and after the murder the house and safe of the
victim were ransacked.
4. After carefully considering all the circumstances the Officer Administering
the Government considered that it was a case in which it was specially
necessary that the final execution of the sentence on the condemned persons
should be widely appreciated by their fellow-tribesmen, and with the intention
of securing that objects, while retaining all the decency of privacy desirable
on such occasions, he caused arrangements to be made for a small number of
natives to proceed to Nairobi to witness the execution, which was carried
out, in other respects, in the usual way and at the usual place.
I am, etc.,
(Signed) H.J. Read.

December 31, 1918.

THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE,
COLONIAL OFFICE, S.W.I.
SIR, -
     Referring to correspondence on the subject of the death of the native 
Matunga and the trial Rex v. Watts and Betschart, I beg to send for your 
perusal the following extract from a correspondent in Truth of the 25th 
instant :- 
          "Rex v. Watts and Betschart, the case reported in Truth, contains
features which recall those of a case tried in Nakuru in 1915.  A farmer 
suspected two of his labourers of theft.  Each asserted that he was innocent.  
The farmer secured them to a wagon and flogged them with great cruelty.  
He left them still bound.  In a few hours, when the wounds were beginning 
to close, he returned and gave them a second flogging.  He then set them at 
liberty.  They fled, and one died next day.  His friends buried him.  Three 
weeks later a district officer, having heard what had occurred, disinterred 
the remains, but owing to decomposition it was impossible to ascertain the 
exact cause of death.  The farmer was put upon his trial for homicide, not 
amounting to murder, and for causing grievous hurt.  The jury found him 
guilty of causing simple hurt.  The judge, Sir Robert Hamilton, passed 
sentence of three months' imprisonment, or a fine of Rs. 75, on condition that 
the farmer joined Belfield's Scouts.  This sentence excited no comment 
except in the mess of the King's African Rifles."
     This appears to strengthen the representations made on behalf of my 
Committee in our letter of the 6th instant, and the need for inquiry.
                                                          I am, etc.,
                                                                          TRAVERS BUXTON.
                                                                     DOWNING STREET,
                                                                             January 15, 1919.
SIR, - 
     I am directed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to acknowledge 
the receipt of your letter of December 31 further with regard to the death of 
the native Matunga and the trial Rex v. Watts and Betschart, and to inform 
you that it will be brought to the notice of the East Africa Protectorate 
Government.
                                                                                I am, etc.,
                                                                                        G. GRINDLE.

Empire Resources Development Committee.
     On February 13 Mr. Wilson-Fox, M.P., moved an amendment to the 
Address in the House of Commons urging the adoption of a policy of 
"productive enterprise throughout the Empire" as a means of lightening the 
National burdens.  The mover did not refer to the dependencies, but 
Mr. Bigland, who seconded, dealt with the great possibilities of State 


enterprise in the Colonies, the "reasonable exploitation" of which, he believed,
as the result of careful study, might have vast results in the way of profit;
no "unfair exploitation of native populations," he said, need be feared.
      The proposal for the appointment of a Select Committee to investigate
the matter was sympathetically received by the Government, and Colonel
Amery, the Under-Secretary for the Colonies, assured the speakers that
it would be considered.  Referring, however, to Mr. Bigland's remarks
upon exploitation, he wished to "utter a word of warning," and said :-
      
     "A word like 'exploitation' has its legitimate and its dangerous
sense.  Members of the House know that the bedrock of our Colonial
administration all over the world is that we govern the natives of those
countries we control as trustees for their interest, and that the whole policy
of Government in any of our Colonies, particularly these which are not
self-governing, is directed solely and singly to the point of view of the
welfare of the natives. We have to be very careful - and I just utter this
one word of warning - that we should not put ourselves in a position where
there would be any conflict of interests between the Government of this
country, which has the Colonial administration under its thumb, and the
interests of the natives, or where our Government would be in the direction 
of making a profit for the taxpayer as against the interests of the natives
for whom we are trustees.  I do not think that there is necessarily any conflict
between the two conceptions of utilizing the development of the vast resources
of the Empire in order to help forward trade in this country and at the same
time to help these peoples, * but I do wish to put in a word of warning that
in any particular methods which we apply and any particular measures
taken we have to watch very carefully all the time to see that we should
not be put, as an Imperial Government, in a false position. . . ."
                                                           *Italics ours.
      The proposals are, of course, those of the Empire Resources Development
Committee, and the Society addressed the following letter to the 
Colonial Office :-
                                                                                       February 20, 1919.
To the Under-Secretary of State,
       Colonial Office.
Sir, -
       The attention of the Committee of this Society has been drawn to the
debate in the House of Commons on the 13th instant, upon the motion of
Mr. Wilson Fox, during which the Under-Secretary of State said :-
        "The Government will certainly give careful and sympathetic 
consideration to both the general suggestions made by the Mover and Seconder,
and also more particularly their request for the appointment of a Select
Committee to investigate the matter further."
         His Majesty's Government is aware that the published proposals of
Messrs. Wilson, Fox and Bigland include the control of the native oil and
cocoa industries of West Africa, and that such alarm had been created in
West Africa owing to the "semi-official" atmosphere which originally

14  ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.

attached to the publications of the Empire Resources Development Committee
that Mr. Walter Long issued a repudiation of the impression that the Government had any intention of adopting the proposals.
  We beg to ask whether if such a Select Committee is set up, it will include
members whose interest in and knowledge of commercial and native questions
will be a guarantee of impartial treatment of the subject. Our Committee
also begs to ask whether, if such a Select Committee is formed, native
witness familiar with local conditions will be invited to give evidence.
                     We are, etc.,
      (Signed) TRAVERS BUXTON, Secretary,
                      JOHN H. HARRIS, Organizing Secretary.
                               REPLY.
                                                    Downing Street,
                                                         March 1, 1919.
Sir,--
  I am directed by Viscount Milner to acknowledge the receipt of your
letter of Febraury 20 referring to the proposed appointment of a Select
Committee of the House of Commons to investigate the question of the
development of the resources of the Empire, and to refer you in reply to
the speech of Colonel Amery reported at 431 of the official report of Party
Debates, which of this country towards the natives of the West African Colonies
and Protectorates.
  I am to add that Lord Milner has no doubt that the fullest consideration
will be given to native interests in any action that may be taken by the 
House of Commons.                                   I am, etc.,
                                                                          (Signed) G. GRINDLE.
The Secretary,
        Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society.

                            Parliamentary.
                                                       HOUSE OF COMMONS,
                                                                February 24.
                            NEW HEBRIDES
  Mr. INSKIP asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether      
in view of the unsatisfactory working of the Anglo-French condominium
in the New Hebrides, and the fact that the commercial and agricultural
future of the group chiefly depends, for geographical reasons, on the Commonwealth,
steps will be taken to terminate the condominium and bring
the group entirely under the British Flag, either by direct agreement with
France or by a submission to the decision of the Peace Conference; and

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.     15

whether, in any case, an opportunity will be given before the conclusion
of the Peace Conference to the natives and settlers of the islands to express
their wishes in accordance with the principle of self-determination?
  Mr. C. HARMSWORTH: The question to which the hon. Member alludes
has been referred to the representatives of His Majesty's Government at 
the Peace Conference.
                                                                                February 27.
         GOLD COAST (OIL, SEED, AND KERNEL LEGISLATION).
  Colonel WEDGWOOD asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies
whether he is aware that the introduction in the Legislative Council of the 
Gold Coast of the oil, seed and kernel legislation met with the unanimous
opposition of the unofficial members; that the Governor stated that in
these circumstances he would refer to Downing Street for instructions;
and if he will say whether any instructions have been sent which will have 
the effect of forcing this legislation upon the Colony and Protectorate.
  The UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Colonel AMERY):
The facts are as stated by my hon. and gallant Friend in the first part
of his question. No instructions have yet been given in the matter.

    PAPUA
THE annual report of the Governor of Papua for the year ending June 30,
1917, contains some interesting information as to this extensive territory and
its inhabitants. The tenth year of Australian control of Papua has now been
completed, and a comparison between the conditions in 1917 and 1907 shows
that the territorial revenue, exports, and imports have all alike gone up very
markedly. Indeed, the Governor states that the contrast would have
been much greater had it not been for the handicap of the war. The European
population has, in spite of those who have gone to war, increased by
about 350 in ten years. The rate of progress, however, is not expected to the 
maintained, on account of the increased difficulties of cost of transport, the
irregularity in communication with Australia, and the rise in freights.
Government influence has been extended more widely than ever before; a 
large part of the country has been mapped out and brought under control.
Natives feel no little confidence in the officers of the Government, and as an 
example of this it is mentioned that in a case where some natives were 
murdered by others, two of the men who were attacked called upon the
Magistrate and his Sergeant of Police to help them. The native Police
service is energetic and effective, especially when the difficulties to the swamp
and mountains country which stretch into the interior are taken into account.
  Some patrols by Magistrates into unexplored country are described in

16    ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.

full, and useful work has been done. The population is very sparse in some
parts, while others were well peopled. Some of he natives, it is mentioned,
had never seen a white man and took the Magistrate and his party for
ghosts, fleeing from them in fear.
  The native labour supply is reported as "satisfactory." In the Western
Division about 900 natives worked on the plantation for periods varying
from a week to three months; "generally speaking, they have been well 
treated." In the Gulf Division there has been a sufficient supply of labour,
but, in the Resident Magistrate's opinion, wages will have to be raised and 
other conditions improved to induce the natives to leave their homes.
  The natives are essentially agriculturists, and it could appear that work
on the plantations usually suits them better than mining. Of 280 native
labourers taken from the Eastern Division to a gold field, fourteen deaths
and some forty desertions were reported. The Commissioner for Native
Affiars thinks that desertions are not always due to fault on the part of the
management, but in some cases inexperienced planters do not understand
the native labourers;--which, he says, has possibly much to do with complaints
and desertions in the Eastern Division and elsewhere.
  Coco Palms in Papua are numerous, and in some districts they are well
cultivated by the natives, though such village plantations are never kept as
white men keep them. The Governor advises that the coco planting should 
be maintained. The growth of the coconut is slow; it takes many years to
come to maturity. This is the reason why the 35,000 acres of coconut plantation
in the territory has not yet reached anything like its full production of
copra. It is the same with rubber, of which there are about 7,000 acres
planted, which should, in time, bring in about a thousand tons of rubber,
worth perhaps a quarter of a million, but "the trees must have time to
grow."

QUEENSLAND ABORIGINALS
THE annual report of the Protector for the year 1917 was published at the
end of last year, and is shorter than usual. We are again told that the demand
for Aboriginal Labour often exceeds the supply, and it is significant that one
of the Mission Superintendents reports that this demand is "an ever-
increasing danger to the healthy development of the Settlements. Some of
those employed on Thursday Island during the year returned with little 
in their pockets, and their families and gardens at home were neglected." If
possible, it is thought that it would be "very desirable that all dealings with
other races should cease, at least for another generation. The half-castes,
as well as the aboriginals, have an unfortunate knack o succumbing to the
worst influences of civilization." The number of Savings Bank Accounts

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.    17

continues to increase, and the natives taking part represent 38 percent. of the
population, with a credit balance of over £91,000. Offences against aboriginals
are on the decrease, partly owing to the vigilance of the police and partly
also to the growing intelligence of the native in his dealings with the white
man, resulting in a fuller understanding of the value of the protection afforded
him. Opium offences continue to decrease satisfactorily. On the Reserves,
crimes has been practically non-existent. If there is trouble the fault is said
generally to lie with certain unscrupulous people who allow the aboriginals
undue familiarity and drink or gamble with them. Where the white man
upholds the respect due to him, he seldom has cause to complain.
  The health report has been satisfactory except as regards the spread of 
venereal disease in the Torres Straits and along the Coast. The proposed
Lock hospital, urged by all, has not yet been established.
  A certain number of women and children are sent to institutions on the
Reserves for better care and protection. Those in the city and country 
towns are visited by a female inspector who reports on the conditions of
employment. Reports are given of the Government settlements for aboriginals,
which are satisfactory so far as they go--though it is said that very
little can be done towards the social improvement of the people in the settlements
until the means are available for providing better housing and living
conditions. The state of the native is primitive, and he has not the initiative 
to raise himself without some training. From all the Mission stations the
reports are described as most satisfactory. Manual and domestic training
are the chief features in the instruction given, and one of the superintendents
says that slowness can be trained out of the children if their interest
is awakened and kept awake. They are not lacking in initiative and
originality.
  A tragedy of the year was the brutal murder of the superintendent
of the Mornington Mission Station. The murderers were not natives of the
island, but visitors from the mainland, who evidently intended to kill all the
white people. But the Mission was defended for ten days against them, and
prompt steps were taken to arrest all who were implicated in the murder.
The inmates, it was stated, were not in sympathy with the outrage.
  The aboriginal population numbers nearly the same as last year--
16,600.

     Obituary
     REV. J. S. MOFFAT, C. M. G. 
WE regret to learn of the death at Cape Town on Christmas Day last of the
venerable missionary and well-known official, the REV. JOHN SMITH MOFFAT.
Mr. Moffat was a son of the great missionary, Robert Moffat, and a brother-

18 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.

in-law of Livingstone.  He began his missionary work among the Matabele, 
then was at Kuruman with his father, and subsequently at Molepolole.  
After severing his connection with the London Missionary Society in 1879, 
he was engaged in important administrative work on the Transvaal Border, in
Basutoland and Bechuanaland, as special envoy to Chief Lobengula, and with 
Chief Khama.  In 1890 he was made C.M.G. for special diplomatic services 
in Matabeleland.  "These years of Government service," says The Christian 
Express,
"were marked by consistent endeavour, pressed to the utmost limit, to 
secure that British administration should conform to high ideals of justice 
and righteousness.  They brought him into conflict with administrators 
and statesmen, seeing visions as Rhodes did at that time and making 
history on a vast scale, but inconsiderate of, if not prone to ride rough-shod 
over, the rights of the indigenous peoples that might appear to stand in 
their way. . . .  Rhodesia is no doubt rightly named, but Moffat and 
Mackenzie had a great, and very honourable, if different, share in determining 
the future of that vast country."

     Mr. Moffat published in 1884 the biography of his parents, Robert and 
Mary Moffat, and from 1896 lived in retirement, but helped in many good 
works, filling temporary vacancies and ever showing keen interest in missionary 
enterprise.

                                                              MR. J. B. MOFFAT.

     Very shortly afterwards, in January, came news of the death of Mr. 
JOHN BRUCE MOFFAT, second son of the Rev. J. S. Moffat, whose striking 
report upon the Commission recently held to inquire into the native strikes 
in Johannesburg and certain native grievances was referred to in our last 
issue.  Mr. Moffat was a well-known and honoured Civil servant, having 
held many magistracies and other important posts; at the time of his 
appointment as Commissioner he was Chief Magistrate in the Transkei, 
and only just before his death was announced he had been called to the 
responsible position of Secretary for Native Affairs as successor to the late 
Mr. E. E. Dower.
        "Mr. Moffat's services," says South Africa, "were frequently in 
request, first by the Cape and then by the South African Government, for 
special inquiries.  He succeeded in every duty to which he was called, 
and his uniform efficiency, his obvious strength of character, and his entire 
reliability marked him out for the highest distinction in the Service to which 
he belonged."
     The loss of a man of this character just at the time when his services 
would have been of such high value is nothing less than a calamity for his 
country, and especially for the natives.

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND. 19

Mr. EDWARD E. DOWER.

      Mr. EDWARD DOWER, Secretary for Native Affairs for the Union of South
Africa, died at Cape Town on December 29. The son of an L.M.S. missionary
and educated at Lovedale, he entered the Native Affairs Department 
in 1901 and became Secretary for Native Affairs at the time of the
Union, at the age of 34. He possessed a high degree of insight and sympathy
with the Native standpoint and might, but for the war, have done
much more than has been possible for the interest of the native races whose
rights he loyally recognized and sought to establish on a just basis. He
exerted himself to explain to the natives the proposals of the Natives' Land
Bill, travelling through the native areas for this purpose, though without
much success in reconciling the native mind to the measure.

The Committee.
       We have pleasure in welcoming the following new members, whose names
have been added to the Society's Committee. Sir SYDNEY OLIVIER,
K.C.M.G., Mr. JOSEPH BLISS, J.P., Mr. T. W. H. INSKIP, K.C., M. P., and Mr.
T. F. BUXTON.
       Sir S. Olivier has had long experience of Colonial Affairs and held many
posts in the Colonial Service. He was Governor of Jamaica from 1906-1913.
       Mr. J. Bliss was for many years engaged in commerce in Asia Minor,
and on returning to this country took up public work. He sat as M.P. for
Cockermouth in the last Parliament.
       Mr. T. W. H. Inskip, K.C., is M.P. for Central Bristol.
       Mr. Thomas Fowell Buxton is the eldest son of our President, and
has for some time been a member of the Society.

Review.

LADY VICTORIA BUXTON.

A Memoir, by the Rt. Hon. G. W. Russell.

       Mr. George Russell, whose death we have just had to deplore, wrote this
memoir with a skilful hand and no little insight into the secret of the beauty
of Lady Victoria Buxton's life and of her attractive influence over all who
knew her and especially those who knew her best- the members of her
family and immediate circle. In her early years Lady Victoria is depicted
as a girl of high spirits and marked abilities, holding strong opinions and
capable of great friendships. Brought up in a somewhat narrow religious
circle, it is interesting to trace the gradual expansion of her thought and

20    ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.

beliefs under the different influences which came about her, while she held
fast to the deep fundamental principles which were the spring of her life.
The account of Lady Victoria Buxton's long married life is largely compiled
from notes by and correspondence with members of her family, who were
devotedly attached to her and whose varied circle of interests she made
her own. The close and sacred ties which bound her to her husband, Sir
T. Fowell Buxton, are indicated with rare insight; so devoted was he in his
attention to her needs, and so inseparable were they in their lives and interests
that Mr. Russell found it necessary to devote a chapter of the book to Sir
Fowell's life, both public and private, of which three pages relate to his
anti-slavery work. Invalid though she was for over forty-six years, crippled
by physical infirmities which bound her to a sofa or "prone couch,"
Lady Victoria always took a keen interest in things and people, maintained 
a brave and cheerful spirit through all, and was able to be a gracious hostess
to the large number of visitors who were entertained at her house, and a 
valued adviser and source of inspiration to many good causes as well as 
to her large circle of friends. Prominent among Lady Victoria's qualities
were the adventurousness of spirit which enabled her to enjoy her life in
Australia and to "surmount the incredible difficulties and limitations of
a Governor's wife who was a confirmed invalid," and the sense of humour
which, as a daughter describes it, enabled her--not without amusement
--"to see herself from outside," and which was "the source of her lightheartedness,
her hopefulness, her humility, her imagination" and "her
unfailing strength and support throughout a life of constant suffering and
discomfort." Above all, her religion was her life, and along with a deep
sense of the mystery of things she combined an unquenchable hopefulness.
  After the death of Sir Fowell, Lady Victoria Buxton accepted the position
of a Vice-President of our society, in which she took a genuine interest.

ANNUAL REPORT
1918

THE two main subjects which have occupied the Society during the year
have been the land of Rhodesia and the interests of the native races in the
Colonial Settlement which must follow the war. On both these questions
the Committee has expended much thought and work. Of their extreme
importance there can be no doubt, and we may fairly claim that apart
from the question how far its work has promised to be successful, the Society
has taken a large share in directing and educating public opinion upon
the magnitude of the issues involved.
  This great case, which it had taken four years to prepare, opened
before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on April 16. [*THE RHODESIAN LAND CASE. *] The 
Court consisted of five law lords, Earl Loreburn being President. While
the technical reference was restricted to the question whether the Chartered
Company owned the unalienated land of Rhodesia (i.e. all land, including 
the reserves, not definitely alienated to white men) in its commercial or
administrative capacity, large issues were raised connected with sovereignty
and Colonial policy which were of especial importance as affecting the 
rights of the native inhabitants. There were four Parties to the Reference
--the Chartered Company, claiming, in the interest of its shareholders, the
whole 73,000,000 acres of land; the Crown; the White Settlers of Rhodesia;
and the natives, for the presentation of whose case our Society had
assumed responsibility. These alst three parties contested the Company's
claim from different points of view. The hearing lasted eleven days, and 
Counsel for the Natives were Mr. Leslie Scott, K.C., M.P., and Mr. Stuart
Bevan, whose main argument was that the 800,000 Matabili and Mashona
people had never been legally dispossessed of their lands, nor had they lost
their tribal ownership by any act of their own.
  The Lords' Report was delivered on July 29 by Lord Summer, in a long
statement which dealt with complicated issues of a difficult nature to
follow. Judgement was given that legal title was vested in the Crown as
Power Paramount in succession to Lobengula, the Company losing its
claim to the ownership, and its only land concession being declared valueless.
It was of course disappointing that the natives were declared to have
no rights of ownership, but the Report dealt solely with legal title; the 
Government was found to be in the position of Trustee for the inhabitants.
One passage in the Report declared that the presentation of the natives' 
case "undoubtedly rendered the inquiry more complete."
21

22 ANNUAL REPORT.
The society took an early opportunity of urging upon the Government
the importance of securing for the natives an assured title to the lands
beneficially occupied by them, and of bringing about an adequate settlement
of the whole land question in South Africa. An influential deputation,
including several Members of Parliament and the Bishop of Hereford,
waited on Mr. Long at the Colonial Office on October 16 to present a full
memorial upon the situation, asking that steps should be taken by means
of a Commission or otherwise, to consider broad principles of land settlement
for Africa south of Zambesi, and that the costs of the natives in
the recent appeal should be paid from public funds; for this course several
cogent reasons were assigned. The Secretary of State in receiving the
deputation, gave its members but little encouragement, and replied to the
memorial later in very unsympathetic terms, stating that the question of the
natives' costs was one which he must leave to the Company and the Legislative
Council!
The Society next drafted an appeal on the whole issue, which has
been privately circulated with a view to bringing the matter before Lord
Milner, the new Colonial Secretary, from different influential quarters.
[*PEACE TERMS AND COLONIAL RECONSTRUCTION*]
The Committee has followed up its approaches to the Government on
this profoundly important question by several further communications. A
public meeting towards the end of the year was contemplated, but this
was rendered impossible by the General Election, and then it was hoped
to arrange a strong deputation to press the Society's representatives upon
the Foreign Minister. Eventually this proposal, too, had to be given up,
as Mr. Balfour pleaded that "press of work" prevented him from receiving
a deputation, but suggested the sending of a memorial* setting out the
Society's ends, which should be published in the Press and would be fully
considered by the Government. This was done, and copies sent to the
British representatives at the Paris Peace Conference and to the Press.
The Committee addressed a letter to the President of the United
States and asked for an interview. This was rendered impossible by the
shortness of the President's stay in England, but a reply was received from
the Counsellor of Embassy expressing the President's belief that the questions
raised would receive due attention. Arrangements were made for
the Organizing Secretary to visit Paris in January and meet representatives
from Africa who were arranging for a "Pan-African Conference" there
upon their interests, as well as other influential persons attending the
Peace Conference, but at the last moment passport difficulties unfortunately
prevented Mr. Harris from carrying out this plan.
An appeal was addressed by the Committee to the Delegates of the
principal Powers assembled for the Conference, France, America, Italy,
Belgium and Portugal, urging that the Powers should accept the position
of trustees for the interests of the backward races under their rule, and
that while international administration has been proved to be unworkable,
international control was much to be desired, as was the establishment of
a Court of Appeal against violations of agreed international obligations.
Certain principles affecting land, labour, trade, liquor traffic, etc., were
laid down, the application of which was recommended as a standard to be
*See pages 3-4

ANNUAL REPORT. 23
accepted by every Colonizing Power for tropical countries and peoples
under its control. The Swiss League and the Italian Anti-Slavery Society
memorialized the Peace Conference in a similar sense. Two articles which
Mr. Harris wrote for the Manchester Guardian upon the principles which
should control the coming resettlement of Colonial territories were republished
by the Society in pamphlet form.
The Draft Agreement for a League of Nations presented to the Plenary
Conference in February and published in the Press, shows in its Article
19 a recognition of the principle of trusteeship for backward peoples, and
the importance of obtaining the prohibition of the slave trade and the
traffic in arms and liquor, etc., and we have reason for thinking that the
Society is entitled to claim that the persistent representations which it has
been able to make have contributed not a little to this result. We should,
however, go further and apply these principles, including self-determination,
to all Colonial Dependencies, not only those which change hands as
the result of the war.
[*GERMAN EAST AFRICA.*]
The Society again appealed to the Colonial Office on the subject of
slavery in this former German territory now being administered by Great
Britain, and asked that at an early date the abolition of the legal status
of slavery should be proclaimed, after which no contracts based upon or
implying the ownership of or dealings in human beings should be recognized.
The letter, which urged that such a measure would make it clear that Great
Britain was resolutely determined not to tolerate slavery under her rule,
even though such rule was only temporary, was signed by a number of
Bishops and leaders of the Free Churches, by members of both Houses of
Parliament, and several Editors of leading newspapers.
In his reply the Secretary of State gave the approximate number of
slaves in German East Africa in 1914 as between 70,000 and 80,000, and
repeated that it was not practicable to do what the Society asked "while
the territory was merely in British occupation." Even if not legally
abolished, he said, "slavery would cease to exist within a few years."
The Society pointed out that the number of 185,000 slaves was obtained
from a British Consular report issued by the Foreign Office in 1915 and was
confirmed by a German Government White Paper (summarized in The
Times). No reply to this has been received.
[*NATIVE CARRIERS IN EAST AFRICA.*]
Questions were put in the House of Commons as to the alarming mortality
among the carriers in East Africa and the deficiency in the provision
of doctors and hospital accommodation. The official reply pointed to a
steady decrease in the death rate and stated that everything possible was
being done, the carriers being "as well looked after as the troops." More
recent information from (the former German) East Africa describes the
natives of some of the districts as being in a terrible plight owing to the
drought, which is causing hundreds of deaths by starvation. There are
said to be supplies of native foodstuffs, notnow needed for the military,
which might be used to feed people, but which are now being sold to
Greek and Indian traders to be re-sold to the natives at high prices. The
Government has promised inquiry into this also.
[*SOUTH AFRICAN NATIVES.*]
It was announced this year in South Africa that the Union Government
did not intend to press the Native Affairs Administration Bill until

24                                                  ANNUAL REPORT.

after the war, but that the reports of the local Natives' Land Committees 
appointed to revise the areas scheduled in the Bill would be circulated 
through the country, and that the Bill would be published, with amendments 
suggested, and criticisms invited from all interested.  The Scully 
Committee appointed for the Cape Province reported that more land was 
needed for natives than the Beaumont Commission had recommended; 
they recommended that the native be kept in as close contact with the 
land as possible, and that individual tenure be encouraged; it was of vital 
importance to remove the prevailing notion that native labour is being 
exploited in the European interest.  There seems a widespread feeling 
that in view of strong native dislike of the Bill, this delay is all to the 
good, affording time for inviting consideration and representations from 
the native point of view, and overcoming prejudices which might be 
founded on ignorance of the fundamental principle of the Bill.

     The heavy sentences passed on the native strikers, in Johannesburg, 
who only followed the example of the white employees of the 
Municipality (who held up the motive and lighting power of the city 
until their demands were conceded), excited a strong public opinion at 
the Cape against the injustice of the procedure.  The sentences were 
suspended by the Government and the strikers provisionally liberated.  The 
Premier afterwards met native representatives and gave a sympathetic 
hearing to their grievances, to investigate which the Moffat Commission 
was appointed and issued a notable report, in which the action of the Municipality 
and the proceedings taken against the native strikers were condemned 
as a cause of the embittered native feeling.  The inequity of the 
Colour Bar regulations on the Rand was insisted upon, and the importance 
of encouraging the natives to improve their position and of allowing them 
some means of voicing their views and wishes was pointed out in frank 
terms.  It was felt, the Report said, that the tendency of Government 
legislation had been to emphasize and perpetuate the position of the natives 
as a subject race, and so long as natives were denied citizen rights there 
could be no real contentment in the country.

     On the death of Mr. E. E. Dower, Secretary for Native affairs, at the 
end of the year, Mr. J. B. Moffat, the author of the notable Report just 
referred to, was appointed to succeed him, but, sad to say, Mr. Moffat died 
suddenly in January, almost immediately after his appointment had been 
announced.  The death of such an experienced civil servant and friend of 
the natives is a great loss to the country.  Mr. Moffat's death followed 
within a few weeks that of his father,  the well-known magistrate and missionary, 
the Rev. John S. Moffat, who was himself a son of Robert Moffat, 
the great African Missionary.

THE NEW 
HEBRIDES.

     We have had little information concerning the conditions in the Islands, 
but it has been stated that the authorities were about to deal with the 
question of legislation for inter-native offences, the need for which in the 
northern islands has long been clamant.  An inter-state Trade Commission 
in Australia which recently considered general questions of the Pacific, condemned 
the present Condominium system as unsatisfactory both from the 
British and French point of view, and called attention to the need for "a 
better international arrangement."

ANNUAL REPORT. 25

     A private meeting was held in November, when members of the Society
were invited by our President to meet Lieut. Edward Jacomb and hear
from him an account of the working of the Condominium Government in
the group, where he lived for many years. Lieut. Jacomb, who regards
the Dual Government as an unqualified failure, gave reasons for wishing that
in the post-war Colonial re-settlement the group should come under the
sole control of the Australian Commonwealth. The John Paton Mission
which has approached the Government with a similar petition, has been
informed that the question has been referred to the Peace Conference.

INDIANS OF
BRITISH 
COLUMBIA.

     The question of the rights of these natives to the tribal ownership of
their land which they have for a long time past been asking to have referred
to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was again brought before the
Society by the Rev. A. E. O'Meara. The Committee passed a resolution
expressing its sense of the importance of the questions at issue, and its
hope that the petition of the Tribes might be referred to the Privy Council
at an early date. A copy of the resolution was sent to the Colonial Office.

EMPIRE RESOURCES
DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE.

     That this Committee is still actively pushing its projects is shown by the
debate in the House of Commons initiated by Mr. Wilson-Fox, M.P., in Feburary
on the need for developing Imperial resources by productive enterprise,
when the Government replied sympathetically to the request for the appointement
of a Select Committee. A letter was at once addressed to the Colonial
Office stating the Society's apprehensions and asking for particulars as
to the proposed Select Committee, to which a reply has been received
that native interests will be fully safeguarded.

     The opposition of the West Coast natives to these insidious proposals
continues unabated. In a debate in the Legislative Council of Nigeria
Mr. Ajasa appealed to the Government to oppose them, and obtained from
the Central Secretary an assurance that the Empire Resources Committee
had no official standing whatever. In the Gold Coast also an important
resolution was passed at a Conference, signed by several Kings and Chiefs
and by two native unofficial members of the Legislative Council and sent
to the Secretary of State who gave a similar reply to that given in Nigeria.

INDIAN 
INDENTURED
LABOUR.

     The Society has received correspondence from the Australian Association
upon the abuses connected with the employment of Indian coolies
on the sugar plantations of Fiji, and specially dealing with the hospitals
provided for the labourers. Our Committee wrote to the Colonial and
India Offices asking for the appointment of trained matrons in such
hospitals, as this was a question in which much anxiety was was felt in India,
and received a favourable reply.

ANNUAL 
MEETING.

     The Annual Meeting was held on April 11, when it was decided to
adopt the new Constitution which had been drafted on the lines of that of
the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. The main part of the meeting
was given to consideration of the Rhodesia Land case; after the
Conference a brief service of Intercession for Divine guidance in these
proceedings was conducted by the Rev. R. C. Gillie.

LECTURES.

     During the year Mr. and Mrs. Harris have continued their lectures
in England, visiting Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds, Guildford, Aldershot and
many other places. A feature of this work has been the large number of

26                                                    ANNUAL REPORT.

lectures delivered by Mrs. Harris to the troops in the Camps both in England and in France.

THE COMMITTEE

     During the year six new members have been elected to the Committee: - The Rev. Canon J. G. SIMPSON of St. Paul;s cathedral; Mr. S. V. BLAKE, a Canadian barrister, practising in London as a Privy Council agent; SIR SYDNEY OLIVER, K.C.M.G., the well-known ex-Colonial Official and former Governor of Jamaica; Mr. JOSEPH BLISS, J.P., ex-M.P. for Cockermouth; Mr. T. W. H. INSKIP, K.C., M.P. for Bristol Central; Mr. THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, eldest son of the President of the society.  The following members resigned on account of the pressure of other duties: Rev. Canon Masterman, Right Hon. H. Pike Pease, the Rev. Canon Gamble (now Dean of Exeter), Sir George Toulmin, and the Rt. Hon. J. M. Robertson.

OBITUARY

     The Society has lost three of its Vice-Presidents by death during the year.  Mr. FRANCIS W. Fox, who died early in April, had been closely associated with our work for a great many years.  He took an active part with Mr. Fox Bourne in the conduct of the Aborigines Protection Society, and on the amalgamation in 1909 became Vice-Chairman of the joint Society, in which he took a continuous interest and regularly attended meetings until he was laid aside by serious illness.

     Dr. JOHN PERCIVAL, until lately Bishop of Hereford, and LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH had both been connected with the Aborigines Protection Society before the amalgamation, and and were earnest champions of the interest of the backward races.

     Among other supporters of the Society who have died during the year were Messrs. H. J. Allen, J. S. Bogg, Thomas bush, W. H. Brown, C. J. Derry, Mrs. Edward Dymond, Sir Edward Fry, Mr. Francis Fry, Miss I. Metford, Miss A. E. Shaen, Mr. Isaac Sharp, Mr. E. D. Till, and Miss A. M. Wilder.

                                                    Subscriptions.   Donations.
                                                         L  s.  d.               L.  s.  d.
Birmingham Ladies' Negro Friend
     Society (per Mrs. Joel Cabdury)  5  0  0
Bishop, Miss S. J.    ..    ..    ..             0 10  0
Black, Arthur ..        ..    ..    ..             0 10  6
Blackwell, Althans   ..    ..    ..             0 10  0
Blumlein, Mrs. S. J.  ..    ..    ..             2   2  0
Boadle, J. W.           ..    ..    ..             1   1  0
Bottomley, Miss A. ..    ..    ..              0  5  0
Bottomley, Samuel ..    ..    ..             1   1  0
Bourne, Mrs. Fox   ....    ..    ..             1   1  0
Bowly, Christopher ..    ..    ..             1   0  0                1  0  0
Bragg, The Misses  ..    ..    ..             1   0  0
Braithwaite, Isaac   ..    ..    ..             1   1  0
Braithwaite, Misses  R. B.  and C.L.,
    (1918 and 1919) ..    ..    ..             0 10  0
Brooks, Alfred         ..    ..    ..                 -                     1  1  0
Brooks, E. Wright    ..    ..    ..            10  0  0
Brown & Polson, Messrs.   ..              3  3  0
Bruce, Sir Charles    ..    ..    ..              2  2  0
Bruce, Miss M. L.     ..    ..    ..                 -                    2 10  0
Bryden, W. F.           ..    ..    ..             0   5  0
Bull, Rev. Father       ..    ..    ..             0 10  0
Buncombe, W. H.     ..    ..    ..             0 10  6
Bunting, Lady           ..    ..    ..             0 10  6
Burder, Mrs. Russell ..    ..    ..             1   1  0
Burtt, T., Esq.            ..    ..    ..             0 10  0
Busch-Michell, A. P.       ..    ..             1   1  0
Butler, Cephas          ..    ..    ..             1   1  0
Buxton, Miss Mabel  ..    ..    ..             2   2  0
Buxton, A. F.              ..    ..    ..             2   2  0
Buxton, Rev. Barclay F.    ..    ..             0  10 0
Buxton, C. Roden       ..    ..    ..             1   1  0
Buxton, Miss Ethel M.      ..    ..             5   0  0
Buxton, G. F...             ..    ..    ..             1   1  0 
Buxton, Leland           ..    ..    ..             1   1  0               2  0  0
Buxton, Noel  ..          ..    ..    ..              5   0  0
Buxton, Sir T. F. Victor, Bart.  ..             30  0  0
Buxton, Capt. T. F. (1918-1919)             2   0  0

                                                        Subscriptions.     Donations.
                                                              L   s.  d.              L   s.  d.
Buxton, Mr. and Mrs. Travers..              10  0  0               
Cadbury, Barrow.       ..    ..    ..               2   0  0
Cadbury, Edward       ..    ..    ..               1   1  0
Cadbury, George       ..    ..    ..              10 10  0
Cadbury J. Hotham    ..    ..    ..               1   1  0
Cadbury, Mrs. Joel     ..    ..    ..               1   0   0 
Cadbury, Miss M. C.   ..    ..    ..               0  10  6 
Cadbury, Richard       ..    ..    ..               1   1   0            
Candler, The Misses   ..    ..    ..               1   1  0
Carpenter, Rev. J. Estlin    ..    ..               1   1  0
Carr, Miss E.       ..        ..    ..    ..               0   5  0
Chalmers, Miss            ..    ..    ..              10  0  0
Chapman, J. B. W.        ..    ..    ..               0 12  6  
Charrett, Frank             ..    ..    ..               0   2  6
Churchill, Miss Caroline     ..    ..               1   0  0
Claparede, M. Rene'     ..    ..    ..               0 10  0
Clark, Dr. Annie E., M.D.     ..    ..               0 10  6
Clark, J. B.    ..                ..    ..    ..               1   0  0
Clark, J. Edmund           ..    ..    ..                   -                     1   0  0            28
Clark, Roger ..                ..    ..    ..               0 10  6  
Clark, W. S.   ..                ..    ..    ..             10   0  0
Clark, W.       ..                ..    ..    ..               1   0  0
Cleaver, Rev. F. C.           ..    ..    ..               0 10  6
Clifford, Miss E. C.          ..    ..    ..               1   0  0
Coats, Sir T. Glen, Bart.        ..    ..               5   0  0
Coldstream, Capt. W.          ..    ..               0  10  0
Collier, Joseph               ..    ..    ..               1   1  0
Compagnie Francaise de l'Afrique
     Occidentale              ..    ..    ..                    -                      1   1  0
Connell, Rev. A.             ..    ..    ..                1   1  0
Cook, Miss     ..              ..    ..    ..                0 10  0
Cooke-Taylor, C. R.        ..    ..    ..                1   1  0
Cooper, Mrs. J. W.         ..    ..    ..                1   1  0
Copeman, The Misses   ..    ..    ..                0   5  0
Copeman, Miss H.         ..    ..    ..                1   1  0
Cordes, Mrs. M. A.         ..    ..    ..                     -                     2   0  0
Cotton, T. A.    ..             ..    ..    ..                1   0  0
Coupland, R.   ..             ..     ..    ..                1   1  0

                                                             Subscriptions         Donations
                                                                   L   s.  d.               L   s.  d.
Cox, E. Young                 ..    ..    ..               0  10  6
Craig, J.        ..                 ..    ..    ..               1   1   0
Crewdson, Alfred           ..    ..    ..                     -                     5   0   0
Croft, D.       ..                 ..    ..    ..                0 10  6
Crommelin, J. P.             ..    ..    ..                2   2   0
Crosfield, G. Theodore   ..    ..    ..                0  10  6
Crosfield, Hugh T.          ..    ..    ..                0  10  0
Crosfield J. Backhouse   ..    ..    ..                2    0   0
Cross, A. C.     ..              ..    ..    ..                1    1   0
Cruddas, Miss E.            ..    ..    ..                 1   1   0
Cuthbert, W.   ..             ..    ..    ..                 0   10  6
Daly, Rev. J. Fairley and Mrs.    ..                 1   1    0
Davies, Dixon Henry           ..    ..                 1   1   0
Davis, B. W.    ..              ..    ..    ..                      -                     2   2   0
Deacon, J. F. W.             ..    ..    ..                 1   1   0
Dell, Miss C.   ..              ..    ..    ..                 1   0   0
Dell, Henry    ..               ..    ..    ..                 1   1   0
Dennis, G. Gordan         ..    ..    ..                 1   0   0
Derry, Miss E.                 ..    ..    ..                 0   5   0
Doggart, A. R.                ..    ..    ..                 0  10  6
Doncaster, Miss P.         ..    ..    ..                 0  10  6
Doubleday, Miss A. M.   ..    ..    ..                0   10  6
Dove, Miss D. J. M.         ..    ..    ..                0   5   0
Drummond, Rev. W. H.   ..    ..    ..               1   1   0
Dymond, C. J.    ..            ..    ..    ..               1   0   0
Dymond, Miss S.             ..    ..    ..               0  10  0
Eddison, J. A.                   ..    ..    ..               1   1   0
Edwards, R. Clarke           ..    ..    ..               1   1   0
Elliott, Rev. M. J.               ..    ..    ..               0  10  6
Ellis, Miss       ..                 ..    ..    ..               0  10  0
Ellis, Mrs. G. H.                 ..    ..    ..               0   5   0
Ellis, Miss Hannah            ..    ..    ..               1   1   0
Ellis, Theodore B.             ..    ..    ..               0   10  6
Exeter, Very Rev. Dean of      ..    ..               1   0   0
Eyre, G. E. B.                     ..    ..    ..               0   10  6
Fallow, J. A. (1916-1919)        ..    ..               4   0   0
Ferens, Rt. Hon. T. R.              ..    ..               1   1   0
Figures, Miss    ..               ..    ..    ..               0   5   0

                                                                Subscriptions.          Donations
                                                                     L   s.  d.                     L   s.   d.
Finnemore, W.                  ..    ..    ..               1   1   0
Fisher-Smith, Sir G. H.      ..     ..    ..               1   1   0
Fitz-Fredericks, E.             ..     ..    ..               0  10  6
Fitzmaurice, Rt. Hon. Lord      ..    ..               2   0   0
Flint, C. A.     ..                  ..    ..     ..               1   1   0
Flower, Rev. J. E.               ..    ..    ..                0   5   0
Ford, Mrs. E.  ..                  ..    ..    ..                    -                          0   7   6
Ford, The Misses               ..    ..    ..               0   5   0
Forfeitt, Rev. Lawson         ..    ..    ..               0  10  6
Fowler, Miss L. M.              ..    ..    ..               2   2   0
Fox, Mrs. Abe                     ..    ..    ..               1   0   0 
Fox, A. Elliston                   ..     ..    ..                   -                        2   2   0
Fox, A. F.      ..                     ..    ..    ..               1   1   0
Fox, Sir Douglas and Lady       ..    ..               2   2   0
Fox, E. Bonvile                    ..    ..    ..               0  10  6
Fox, G. H.    ..                      ..    ..    ..               0  10  0
Freeman, Frederick            ..    ..    ..               0  10  0
Fry, Miss     ..                      ..    ..    ..               0  10  6                                             29
Fry, Miss Agnes                  ..    ..    ..              1   0   0
Fry, Claude B.                     ..    ..    ..              1   1   0
Fry, Lady      ..                     ..    ..    ..              1   1   0
Fry, Miss Isabella                ..    ..    ..              0  10  0
Fry, Miss Joan M.                ..    ..    ..              1   1   0                  0  10  0
Fry, Miss Ruth                     ..    ..    ..              1   0   0
Gainford, Rt. Hon. Lord       ..    ..    ..              1   1   0
Gallenkamp, A.                    ..    ..    ..              1   1   0                  3   3   0
Gamlen, Miss E. B.               ..    ..    ..                    -                       1   0   0
Garvie, Rev. Principal A. E., D. D.     ..              0  10  0
Gaudin, J. de Gruchy           ..    ..    ..              0   10  0
Gayner, Miss M. A.              ..    ..    ..              0   10  0
"G. G."        ..                        ..    ..    ..              1   1   0
Gibbins, Miss C. E.               ..    ..    ..              0   5   0
Gibbins, Miss Henrietta       ..    ..    ..              0   2   6
Gibbins, John                       ..    ..    ..              2   2   0
Gibbins, R. C.                        ..    ..    ..              1   0   0
Gibbins, Mrs. R. C.                ..    ..    ..              0   10  6
Gibbins, W. Waterhouse       ..    ..    ..              1   0   0   
Gibson, Mrs. J. A. I.               ..    ..    ..              0   10  6                      1   1   0                          



                                                     Subscriptions.    Donations.                                            
                                                       £  s.  d.                £  s.  d. 
Gibson, Miss M. F.            .. .. ..   1   0   0
Gibson, Mrs. M. W.           .. .. ..   5   5   0
Gillett, Mrs. G.                   .. .. ..       —                     2  10  6
Gillett, Mrs. J. P.                .. .. ..   0   5   0
Gillett, Mrs. L. B.               .. .. ..   0   10  6
Gillie, J Wilson.                 .. .. ..    0   10  0
Gillie, Rev. R. C.                 .. .. ..   0  10  6
Gillie, Mrs. R. C.                 .. .. ..   0  10  6        
Glover, Sir John                 .. .. ..   1  1  0
Gooch, G. P.                       .. .. ..   5  0  0
Goodfellow, Alexander         .. ..   1  0  0 
Grace, Alex                      .. .. .. ..   1  11  0
Grace, Mrs.                      .. .. .. ..   0  10  6
Grace, Mrs. Abram R.           .. ..   0  10  0
Graham, J. B.                      .. .. ..   0  2  6
Griffith, Miss F.                   .. .. ..   0  5  0
Grimwade, E. W.                 .. .. ..   1  1  0     
Grubb, Edward                   .. .. ..   0  10  0
Gurney, Henry                    .. .. ..   0  5  0
Gurney, J. H.                       .. .. ..   2  2  0
Gurney, Mrs. J. J.               .. .. ..   2  2  0
Guthrie, Alexander             .. .. ..   1  0  0
Gyll, Miss Rica F.                 .. .. ..   0  1  0
Hailes, W. T.                     .. .. .. ..   0  5  0
Hall, H. Duncan                   .. .. ..   0  2  6
Hamilton, Mrs. A. J. Rowan      ..     —                     5  0  0          
Hanbury, Lady                     .. .. ..   1  0  0
Hanbury, Frederick J.            .. ..   2  2  0
Harris, J. H.                      .. .. .. ..   10  10  0
Harris, W. Cecil                   .. .. ..   0  10  6
Harrison, Miss A. J.               .. ..   0  5  0
Harrison, Mrs. Smith             .. ..   2  2  0                2  0  0
Harrison, F. Lloyd               .. .. ..   0  10  6
Harse, Benjamin                 .. .. ..   0  10  0
Harvey T. E.                         .. .. ..   1  1  0   
Harvey, William                   .. .. ..   10  0  0
Harwood, Rev. James           .. ..   0  2  6
Haste, Rev. A. G.                 .. .. ..     —                    0  2  6

                                                     Subscriptions.   Donations.
                                                        £   s.  d                £   s.  d.
Havelock, J.                     .. .. .. ..   1  0  0   
Hawkins, F. H.                     .. .. ..   0  10  6    
Haworth, Jesse                  .. .. ..   5  0  0
Haworth, J. G.                    .. .. ..   1  0  0
Hayward, Miss G. G.             .. ..   0  15  0
Henderson, R. C. (1917 and 1918) 2  0  0
Hepburn, Mrs.                    .. .. ..     —                      0  2  6
Hereford, Rt. Rev. the Lord Bishop
of                                   .. .. .. .. ..   1  1  0
Hervey, Miss I. M.               .. .. ..   0  2  6
Hield, Joseph                  .. .. .. ..   1  0  0
Higham, John S.                 .. .. ..   1  1  0
Hill, Lady Gray                    .. .. ..   0  10  0
Hill, J. R.                           .. .. .. ..   1  0  0   
Hoare, Hugh E.                   .. .. ..   1  1  0
Hodgkin, Miss A. M.              .. ..   0  10  6
Hodgkin, H.                      .. .. .. ..   0  10  0
Hodgkin, J. B.                      .. .. ..   1  0  0
Hodgkin, T. E.                      .. .. ..   5  0  0
Hoggan, Dr. Frances           .. .. ..  0  10  0
Holden, James                    .. .. ..   1  1  0
Holdsworth, C. J.                .. .. ..   0  10  0
Holloway, Sir Henry            .. .. ..   2  2  0
Holt, Mrs.                          .. .. .. ..   5  0  0
Holt, G. B.                          .. .. .. ..     —                    2  2  0
Holt, John, Jr.                      .. .. ..   1  1  0
Holt, John, & Co.                .. .. ..      —                   50  0  0
Holt, Johnathan C.             .. .. ..   1  0  0
Hooper, Stephen                .. .. ..   0  10  6
Hooper, T. R.                    .. .. .. ..   0  10  6
Horsfall, Sir J. C., Bart          .. ..   0  10  0
Hosken, W.                       .. .. .. ..   2  2  0
Howard, Joseph                 .. .. ..   2  2  0
Hughes & Co., Messrs. E.    .. ..   0  10  6
Hunter, Sir G. B., K.B.E.        .. ..   10  0  0
Hutchinson, W. O.              .. .. ..   0  10  0             0  10  6
Hutchinson, Mrs. Robert      .. ..   0  10  0
Hyett, The Misses (1916-1919) .. 1  0  0
[*30]

                                                     Subscriptions.    Donations.
                                                        £  s.  d.               £  s.  d.
Impey, The Misses             .. .. ..   0  10  0   
In Memoriam (R. B. Blaize)      ..   21  0  0
Jacomb, E. (1918 and 1919) .. ..   2  2  0
Jardine, Sir John, Bart.         .. ..   0  10  6
Jebb, Miss Eglantyne            .. ..   0  10  0
Jenkin, A. P.                         .. .. ..   1  1  0                1  0  0
Johnson, Rev. H.                               —                    0  3  0
Johnson, Miss H. M. (1917 and 1918) 0  10  0
Johnston, Sir H. H.             .. .. ..   1  1  0
Jones, Mrs. F. H.                 .. .. ..   0  10  0
Jones, Mrs. Gresford         .. .. ..   1  0  0
Jones, Miss M. R.               .. .. ..   0  10  6
Judd, Harold G.                  .. .. ..   0  10  6
Jupp, W. J.                       .. .. .. ..      —                   0  2  6
"K. E. F."                           .. .. .. ..   0  0  0
Keep, H. F.                       .. .. .. ..   1  1  0
Kemp, Mrs. Caleb R.             .. ..   1  0  0
Kensett, The Misses          .. .. ..      —                   0  4  0
Kidd, Miss Elizabeth             .. ..   0  5  0
Kidd, Miss Martha             .. .. ..   0  5  0
King, Joseph                   .. .. .. ..   1  0  0               1  0  0
Kinnersley, Bros..              .. .. ..      —                    1  1  0
Kitching, Miss S. A.           .. .. ..   0  10  0   
Knight, Mrs. J. M.              .. .. ..   3  0  0
Lack, J. E. (1917 and 1918)     ..      —                   1  0  0 
Lamington, Rt. Hon. Lord    .. ..   0  10  0
Langlois, Mrs. (Canada)      .. ..   2  0  0
Langridge, A. K.                .. .. ..   5  5  0   
Lawrence, F. W. Pethick      .. ..   1  1  0
Leather, J. P.                     .. .. ..   0  10  0
Lee, Miss E. R.                  .. .. ..   1  1  0
Leechman, G. B.               .. .. ..   1  1  0
Lefroy, Rev. C. E. C.             .. ..   1  1  0
Lefroy, Miss R.                  .. .. ..      —                    2  0  0
Lenwood, Rev. Frank and Mrs. ..   1  1  0
Leverhulme, Rt. Hon. Lord     ..   5  0  0   
Levey, M. F.                     .. .. .. ..   0  10  6
Lewis, F. T.                      .. .. .. ..   0  10  0

                                                     Subscriptions.    Donations.
                                                        £  s.  d.               £  s.  d.
Lewis, Mrs. King                 .. .. ..   5  0  0
Lidstone, N.                     .. .. .. ..   0  10  0   
Lincoln, Rt. Rev. The Lord Bishop of 1  1  0
Lindley, Miss Julia              .. .. ..   1  1  0
Lingford, Joseph                .. .. ..   2  0  0
Linney, B.                         .. .. .. ..   0  10  6
Lloyd, John Henry              .. .. ..   2  2  0
Longdon, Miss                 .. .. .. ..   0  15  0
Loring, A. H.                     .. .. .. ..   1  1  0
Loring, Mrs. A. H.               .. .. ..      —                     2  2  0
Luff, Mrs.                          .. .. .. ..   1  1  0   
Lupton, Arnold                    .. .. ..   0  10  0   
Macalpine, Sir G. W.              .. ..   1  1  0
Malcolmson, John P. J.         .. ..   0  10  6
Mander, Miss J. T.              .. .. ..   2  0  0
Marriage, Mrs. Wilson          .. ..   0  10  0
Marriot, A. J.                       .. .. ..   0  5  0
Marshall, E. W.                    .. .. ..   0  10  0
Marshall, Mrs. E. W.              .. ..   1  0  0   
Martelli, Miss                   .. .. .. ..   0  3  0
Martelli, Miss Agnes          .. .. ..   0  5  0
Martelli, Francis                 .. .. ..   0  5  0
Martley, Mrs. W. G.               .. ..   0  6  10
Massey, Stephen              .. .. ..   0  10  0 
Masterman, Rev. Canon J. H. B. ..   1  1  0
Masterman, W. F.              .. .. ..      —                      1  0  0
Mathieson, Miss M. L.         .. ..   0  10  6
Maurice, Mrs. and Mrs. C. E.  ..   1  0  0                  1  0  0
M'Corquodale, Alex          .. .. ..   0  10  6                0  9  6
M'Kerrow, W. L.                 .. .. ..      —                      5  5  0
Mennell, H. Tuke               .. .. ..   1  1  0
Meyer, Rev. F. B.               .. .. ..   0  10  6
Milburn, Rev. R. G.               .. ..   0  10  6               0  10  0
Mills, Colonel Dudley           .. ..   1  0  0   
Milner, Isaac                    .. .. .. ..   2  0  0
Moffat, H. M. (1918 and 1919) ..   1  0  0
Moir, John W.                      .. .. ..   0  10  0
Molteno, P. A.                      .. .. ..   5  0  0
[*31]

Subscriptions.    Donations
                                                                            £    s.   d.          £    s.   d.
Moncrieff, Lady Scott        . .                     . .       2   0     0
Moncrieff, J. Forbes   . .     . .                     . .        0   5    0
Monkswell, The Dowager Lady                 . .        5   0    0
Moore, Miss M. H.     . .      . .                     . .        0  10   6
Moorhouse, Miss M.  . .      . .                     . .        0    5   0
Morel, E. D.        . .      . .      . .                     .  .       1    1   0
Morgan, W.C.  (1918 and 1919)                 .  .        2    2   0
Morland, John  . .        . .      . .                    .   .       1     0   0
Morland, J. Coleby      . .      .  ,                   .   .        0   10  0
Morris, Mrs. Haydn     . .      .  .                   .    .             ----          0  10  6
Mounsey, The Misses  . .     .   .                  .    .         0    10   0
Mounsey, Mrs. E. Backhouse  . .                 .    .         5      0   0
Mullard, T. S.           . .             .  .                .    .         0    10   6
Mullard, Mrs. T.S.    .  .            .   .               .     .        0    10   6
Murray, Professor Gilbert       .  .                .     .        0    10   6
Nairn, Miss M.        .  .                .  .               .   .        0    10   0
Nevinson, H. W.       . .            . .                 .  .           1       1   0
Nicholson, W. E.      . .            . .                  .  .             ------           2  2  0
Ogden, Miss E. M.          . .          . .          . .               0   10  6
Ogden, H. J.        . .          . .          . .                          2  2  0
Oke, Alfred W.          . .          . .          . .                     1  1  0      1  1  0
Oldham, Rev. J. E.          . .          . .          . .               1  1  0
Oldham, Mr. and Mrs. J. H.       . .          . .                 1  1  0
O'Neill, Henry E.         . .          . .          . .                  0  10  6
Palmer, Alfred       . .       . .             . .                       10  0  0
Paton, Alex Forrester            . .              . .                 2  2  0
Payne, A. W.         . .          . .              . .                     0  10  6
Pease, Sir A. E., Bart.          . .              . .                    1  1  0
Pease, Mrs. Charles    . .           . .            . .               2  0  0
Pease, Rt. Hon. H. Pike, M. P.          . .                         ----          5  0  0
Pease, Mrs. J. W.        . .            . .          . .                  2  0  0
Peckover, Rt. Hon. Lord            . .              . .               5  0  0
Peckover, Miss P. H.            . .              . .                   20  0  0
Penney, Mrs. R. H.  . .            . .          . .                       1  0  0
Penney, R. A. . .           . .          . .          . .                     1  1  0
Penney, T. S.    . .         . .          . .          . .                   0  10  6
Phillips, Miss Mary E.          . .          . .                         0  10  0
Phillips, Rev. L.          . .         . .          . .                         1  1  0

                                                                                    Subscriptions.    Donations.
                                                                                        £   s.  d.              £  s.  d.
Pim, Mrs. (India)    . .           . .          . .                          0  10  6
Pitman, Miss E. B.   . .          . .          . .                          0  5  0
Polak, H. S. L.          . .           . .         . .                            -----                 0  10  6
Potter, Ven. Archdeacon B.              . .                          5  0  0
Potts, T. C. T. (1917 and 1918)                  . .                0  10  6
Powell, Miss Sylvia    . .             . .               . .               0  2  6
Price, C. E.     . .             . .               . .             . .           1  1  0
Price, S.      . .               . .              . .            . .               1  0  0
Priestman, F.         . .            . .             . .                       -----                    2  2  0
Priestman, George     . .                . .             . .              1  0  0
Priestman, Thomas    . .              . .               . .             0  10  6
Proctor, J. W.          . .                . .               . .                 1  1  0
Pumphrey, Miss E. L.             . .               . .                    1  0  0
Pumphrey, Miss M. C.           . .               . .                     0  5  0
Pumphrey, Miss Mary         . .              . .                        0  10  0
Pye-Smith, Arnold                . .               . .                      1  1  0
Rackham, Mrs.              . .                . .               . .          0  10  6
Ransom, Francis           . .             . .               . .              1  1  0
Ransom, Miss Priscilla          . .          . .                           1  1  0
Rawlings, Mrs.            . .              . .                . .               -----              0  10  0
Reckitt, Sir James, Bart.                . .               . .             5  5  0
Reckitt, A. L. (1917 and 1918)                  . .                    2  2  0
Redmayne, W. B.              . .                . .             . .         1  0  0
Reed, Rev. E. T.              . .              . .             . .             0  10  0            0  10  0
Reed, Ernest           . .              . .            . .            . .       1  1  0
Reeve, Henry J., C.M.G.            . .               . .                 1  1  0
Reynolds, E. B.           . .             . .              . .                 0  10  6
Reynolds, Miss Joan B.          . .                . .                    1  0  0
Richards, Dr. G. W.     . .            . .            . .                    0  10  0
Richardson, Miss A. W.              . .                 . .               1  0  0
Richardson, Mrs. D.  . .                . .               . .                0  10  0
Richardson, William  . .              . .                 . .                 2  0  0
Roberts, His Honour Judge Bryn               . .                   1  1  0
Robinson, Richard            . .            . .             . .               2  2  0
Rosling, A.           . .             . .              . .              . .          1  1  0
Ross, Mrs. N. Audley                . .                 . .                  0  5  0
Rowntree, Arnold             . .               . .             . .             1  1  0
Rowntree, Mrs. J. S.  . .               . .                 . .                1  0  0

                                                                                           Subscriptions.       Donations.
                                                                                              £  s.  d.                   £  s.  d.
Rowntree, J. Watson                 . .               . .                      1  1  0
Rushbrooke, W. G.     . .            . .                . .                     1  10  0
Russell, Miss M. E.    . .                . .              . .                    0  10  6
Rygate, Capt. J. R.       . .              . .              . .                   0  10  6
Saint, H. B.    . .             . .              . .             . .                    0  10  6
Salisbury, Miss            . .                . .               . .                  0  2  6
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Herbert              . .             . .                    2  0  0
Saxelby, Mrs.     . .        . .              . .              . .                    0  10  6
Sayers, E. Cubitt, J. P.                 . .                . .                    1  1  0
Schiff, S.          . .          . .              . .               . .                     -----                   1  0  0
Scott, C. N.      . .          . .             . .                . .                   0  10  6
Scott, C. P.       . .          . .              . .                . .                   1  1  0
Scott, H. Spencer          . .            . .                 . .                   1  0  0
Scott, Miss Isabella        . .            . .                 . .                   2  2  0
Scott, The Hon. Mrs.                      . .                 . .                  1  0  0
Serpell, E. Wilson            . .            . .                  . .                  1  1  0
Shaw, Joseph    . .            . .            . .                . .                   0  11  0
Sheffield, Rt. Hon. Lord                  . .                 . .                 10  0  0
Shore, The Hon. C. E.                                          . .                   1  0  0
Sierra Leone Auxiliary                      . .                . .                  21  0  0
Simpson, Henry C.           . .            . .                  . .                    -----               1  1  0
Simpson, Rev. Canon J. G. 1 1 0
Smith, Arthur T.H.1 1 0
Smith, F 0 10 6
Smythe, J.H. Ralph 1 1 0
Soga, Miss F. 0 10 6
Solomon, Mrs. Saul 1 1 0
Southall, Alfred 1 1 0
Southall, Miss Lucy K. 1 5 0
Sowter, Rev Canon 1 1 0
Spence, Howard 1 1 0
Spicer, The Rt. Hon. Sir A., Bart 2 2 0
Spicer, Sir Evan 1 1 0
Stansfield, F 1 10 0
Stephens, Rev. J.R.M. 0 10 0
Strachey, J. St. Loe 2 2 0
Streatfield, Mrs. 1 1 0
Sturge, Mrs (1918 and 1919) 1 0 0
Sturge Miss E.H. 1 0 0
Sturge, Miss Elizabeth 0 10 0
Sturge, E.P. 1 0 0
Sturge, F.A. 0 10 6
Sturge, F.L.P (1915 to 1919) 1 5 0
Sturge, Joseph 1 0 0
Sutton, Miss 0 3 6
Swaine, Miss 1 0 0
Swan, Mrs. 0 5 0
Swanzy, F. 1 1 0
Tabor, Mr. and Mrs. H.S. 1 1 0
Tabor, T.S. 0 10 6
Tangye, Allan 1 1 0
Tarring, Sir Charles 0 10 0
Thomas, Edmund 1 5 0
Thomasson, Mrs. J.P. 5 0 0
Thompson, Dr. A. Hugh 1 1 0
Thompson, Charles 1 1 0
Thompson, Herbert M. 1 1 0
Thresher, W. 1 0 0
Thursfield, J.H. 0 10 0
Town, John 1 0 0
Town, W.A. 0 10 0
Tremenheere, Rev. G.H. 0 5 0 0 5 0
Trevelyan, Charles P. 0 10 0
Trinity Presbyterian Church, Clapham, pre G. Lewin 1 1 0
Tugwell, Rt. Rev. Bishop (Lagos) 1 1 0
Turner, R. Brett 1 1 0
Unwin, T. Fisher 1 1 0
Vickers, Miss F. 0 3 6
Viner, Miss F.A. 0 2 6
Wade, Miss 0 2 0 0 1 0
Wadsworth, Mrs 1 1 0 2 2 0
Walker, Joseph 0 10 6
Wason, J. Cathcart 1 0 0
Wasteneys, Lady 0 10 0
Watkins, Miss Lucy B. 0 2 0


Subscriptions. Donations.
£. s. d.             £. s. d.        
Watson, Mrs. Spence.. .. .. 1 1 0     1   1 0
Weeks, H.F. .. .. .. ..    -         0 10 0
Wells, G. A. .. .. .. .. 1 0 0
Welsh, T. & Co. .. .. ..     -          3 0 0
Wheeler, Chas. H. .. .. .. 0 5 0
White, Miss Frances E. .. .. 0 5 6
White, Miss H. M. .. .. .. 1 0 0
Whiteman, F. G. .. .. .. 1 0 0 
Wickham, Rev. E. S. G. .. ..    -        0 10 0
Wicksteed, Miss E. M. .. ..    -        0   7 6 
Wicksteed, Rev. Dr. P. H. .. 1 1 0
Wicksteed, T. S. .. .. .. 1 0 0     1 0 0
Wigham, Leonard .. .. .. 0 10 6            
Wilberforce, H. W. W. .. .. .. 3 0 0
Wilder, Miss A. M. .. .. .. 0 5 0
Wilford, Harry T. .. .. .. 0 5 0
Williams, Albion .. .. .. 2 2 0          
Williams, Aneurin, M.P. .. .. 2 2 0
William Dr. J. P. .. .. .. 1 1 0
Williams, James .. .. .. 0 5 0
Wilson, Miss .. .. .. 0 10 0
Wilson, Albert .. .. .. 2 5 0

Subscriptions. Donations.          
£ s d     £ s d
Wilson, Alexander C. ..  .. 1 0 0
Wilson, Alfred .. .. .. .. 1 1 0
Wilson, Mr. and Mrs. Cecil H. .. 2 0 0
Wilson, G. Edward .. .. .. 1 0 0
Wilson, H. Arnold .. .. .. 2 2 0
Wilson, Mrs. H. J. .. .. .. 3 0 0
Wilson, H. Lloyd .. .. .. 1 1 0
Wilson, Miss M. .. .. .. 0 2 0
Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W., M.P. .. 1 1 0
Wilson, Mr. and Mrs. J. Wycliffe .. 1 1 0
Wilson, Mrs. T. (1918 and 1919) .. 2 2 0
Winterbottom, Miss F. .. ..    -         0 5 0
Wood, Herbert G. .. .. .. 0 10 6
Woods, Miss Charlotte .. .. 2 2 0
Woolf, L. S. .. .. .. .. 0 10 6
Wright, Charles .. .. .. 1 1 0
Wrench, E. .. .. .. ..    -         1 1 0
Yorke, Miss H. (1918 and 1919) .. 1 1 0 
York Friends Sub-Committee .. 26 7 0
Zangwill, Israel .. .. .. 0 10 0
Zimmern, A. E. .. .. .. 1 1 0

To Totals as per Account £777 3 6     £140 8 6
[*34*]

INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT FOR YEAR ENDED MARCH 31, 1919.
EXPENDITURE.
£ s. d.     £ s. d.
To Secretaries' Salaries .. .. 630 0 0
" Rent, Rates and Insurance .. 237 16 8
" Housekeeper, Lighting, Fires, etc. 35 7 2
" Printing Reporter, Papers, etc.,
less sales .. .. .. .. 159 0 7½
" Postages .. .. .. .. 70 2 10
" Expenses of Meetings, Lectures, etc. 17 10 8
" Travelling Expenses .. .. 11 8 2½
" Stationery, Typing, Office Salaries
and Sundry Expenses .. .. 416 6 7½
" Interest on Loan .. .. .. 4 18 10
" Advertising, Sundry Subscriptions,
etc. .. .. .. .. .. 21 4 3
1,603 15 10½

INCOME.
£ s. d.
By Legacies, less 20 per cent. thereof transferred to
Investigation Account .. .. .. .. 152 8 0
" Subscriptions .. .. .. .. .. .. 177 3 6
" Donations .. .. .. .. .. .. 140 8 6
" Dividends and Interest .. .. .. .. 264 17 2
" Received from ommittee for the Welfare of Africans
in Europe toward office accommodation,
clerical assistance, etc. .. .. .. .. 200 0 0
" Fees received from Lectures .. .. .. 47 11 10
" Sundries .. .. .. .. .. .. 0 2 0
" Excess of Expenditure over Income carried to
Balance Sheet .. .. .. .. 21 4 10½
£1,603 15 10½

The Anti-Slavery & Aborigines
Protection Society

President:
SIR THOMAS FOWELL VICTOR BUXTON, BART.
Chairman of General Committee:
LORD HENRY CAVENDISH-BENTINCK, M.P
Vice-Chairman of General Committee:
CHARLES ROBERTS, ESQ.
Treasurer:
E. WRIGHT BROOKS, ESQ., J.P.
Secretary:
TRAVERS BUXTON, M.A.
Organizing Secretary:
JOHN H. HARRIS
Hon. Lecturer
MRS. JOHN H. HARRIS
Chairman of Parliamentary Committee:
RIGHT HON. J. W. WILSON, M.P.

Bankers:
BARCLAY'S BANK, LTD.
95 Victoria Street, S.W.1

Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner, Frome and London.


Anti-Slavery Reporter
and Aborigines' Friend

Series V., Vol. 9, No. 3               October, 1919

CONTENTS
                                                                                                       PAGE
NEW PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY, MR. CHARLES ROBERTS (WITH PORTRAIT)                                                                                        62
NEW JOINT-TREASURER, SIR FOWELL BUXTON, BART.             63
QUARTERLY NOTE                                                                            63
NATIVE RACES AND PEACE TERMS: THE COLONIAL MANDATES 63
SOME PRESS COMMENTS                                                                 68
THE NATIVES OF TOGOLAND: PETITION TO LORD MILNER          69
PARLIAMENTARY: THE COLONIAL OFFICE DEBATE                         71
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: SOUTHERN RHODESIA, ETC.           79
MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA                      86
SOUTH AFRICAN NATIVE LABOUR CORPS                                        87
SIR HUGH CLIFFORD                                                                            88
DEATH OF MR. W. P. SCHREINER, K.C.                                               90

Price Fourpence
Published under the sanction and at the Offices of
The Anti-Slavery & Aborigines Protection Society
51 Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road
London, S.W. I

Aniti-Slavery Reporter and Aborigines' Friend.
OCTOBER, 1919.
(The Editor, whilst grateful to all correspondents who may be kind enough
to furnish him with information, desires to state that he is not responsible for the
views stated by them, nor for quotations which may be inserted from other journals.
The object of the journal is to spread information, and articles are necessarily quoted
which may contain views or statements for which their authors can alone be held
responsible.)

THE PRESIDENCY OF THE SOCIETY.
WE have great satisfaction in announcing that the post of President of the
Society has been accepted by Mr. CHARLES ROBERTS, who has been Vice
Chairman of the Committee since 1917.
Mr. Roberts, who represented Lincoln in the House of Commons for
many years, was Under-Secretary of State for India in Mr. Asquith's Govern-
ment, and is deeply interested in questions affecting the natives of India.
Many will recall his able chairmanship of the Select Committee of the House
of Commons appointed to inquire into the abuses of the Putumayo Company
in 1913.

Aniti-Slavery Reporter and Aborigines' Friend.                                                63
New Joint-Treasurer.
WE are very glad to be able to report that Sir FOWELL BUXTON, the
eldest sone of our late President, has accepted the position of Joint-Treasurer
of the Society with Mr. E. W. Brooks.

Quarterly Note.
Rhodesia: Lord Cave's Commission.
REPRESENTATIVES of the Society were heard at one of
the sittings of this Commission appointed to inquire into
the accounts of the Chartered Company to determine,
in accordance with the report of the Judicial Committee
of the Privy Council, the amount due to it for its administrative expenditure.
A statement was put in on behalf of the Society, taking exception to the
Company's claim for expenditure incurred in the Matabele Wars of 1893
and 1896, and pointing out that the costs of the natives' case before the
Privy Council had been borne by the private effort of the Society in spite
of the Resolutions of the Legislative Council of Rhodesia providing out
of the Revenue for the representative of the case " the inhabitants and
people of Rhodesia." Mr. Harris spoke to this statement. The Company
and the Crown reserved their observations upon it until a later date.

Native Races and Peace Terms.
MEMORANDUM ON COLONIAL MANDATES.
THE Committee of the Society has had the opportunity of submitting to the
"Commission on Mandates appointed by the Council of the principal
Associated and Allied Powers" a draft mandate in which its views are fully
see forth, the terms of which follow.  Some months have been spent upon the
preparation of this document, to which great importance is attached, because
the principles stated are designed to secure an extension of existing beneficent
elements in Colonia administration and definitely to eliminate admitted
abuses.
A deputation from the Society was received in July by Viscount Milner,
M. Simon (France), and other members of the Commission, when Mr. Charles
Roberts, Mr. Molteno, Sir Fowell Buxton and the Secretaries attended and
presented their case, which they were assured by Lord Milner would receive
careful consideration.

MEMORANDUM
TERRITORIAL.
The Committee of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society
has observed with regret that no provision has yet been made to carry out

64 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.
the promise of the British Prime Minister, namely that before reaching a
decision as to the political future of these territories steps would be taken
to ascertain as far as practicable the opinions of the "Chiefs and Councils
who are competent to speak for their tribes and members," and begs to urge
that failure to carry out these deliberate pledges must have a deplorable
effect upon the people of Africa. The Committee is also of the opinion
that any decision arbitrarily reached which forces a native tribe against the
wishes of the people under any particular Mandatory would not merely be a
breach of faith, but could only lead to political unrest and disaffection. 

Where the boundaries of territory, as fixed between the spheres of 
 nfluence of any two European Powers by treaties or conventions subsequent
to the Berlin Act, 1885, should be found to intersect tribal units, the Mandatory
Powers should agree to undertake to restore the original boundaries in accordance
with the decision of any Commission or Arbitration appointed
for the purpose by the Mandatory Commission. 
---
The Committee begs to submit in the form of a draft mandate the
principles which in the opinion of the Society should be incorporated in
order to secure the moral and material welfare of the peoples of the mandated
areas. 

1. The Mandatory Power accepts administrative responsibility upon
the principle of a Trusteeship for and on behalf of the inhabitants of the
mandated area.

2. Revenue.-The Mandatory Power hereby agrees to adhere to the
principle that all local revenue, whether accruing from duties, imports,
exports, or by taxes and licenses, shall be devoted to local expenditure. 

3. Slave-owning, Slave-Trading, Forced-Labour.-The Mandatory Power
undertakes to enforce the absolute prohibition of the sale, gift or transfer, or
introduction into this territory of slaves, including the system of "pawning"
persons, and of adoption in circumstances analogous to enslaving; not to
recognize the status of slavery in any Court of Law, and to permit any person
over whom rights as a slave are claimed by any other person to assert and
maintain his or her freedom forthwith; the onus of proof of any debt or
obligation alleged to be due by the person claimed as a slave shall be on the
person claiming such debt. 

The prohibition of compulsory labour shall be absolute, except for purely
native purposes of public utility, and then only when demanded in accordance
with native law and custom within tribal areas. Tribal rulers shall not be
permitted to assign any powers they possess for calling out tribal labour. 
All voluntary labour shall be paid a wage in cash to the labourer and

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND. 65
not to the Chief, or any other third party. All taxation discriminating between
the natives engaged upon indigenous industry and those in the employ
of immigrants or white men shall be prohibited. 

No labour contract shall be valid which relies for its enforcement upon
the sanctions of Criminal Law; all labour contracts shall be made before
a Magistrate or other officer of the Administration. Breaches of Civil
contracts shall be remedied by civil process only. No labour contract shall
be valid for a period exceeding six months, at the termination of which
the labourer shall be free to offer his services to any employer. 

The Mandatory Power agrees to prohibit any recruiting, official or
private, of labour from the mandated area for purposes outside those areas.
The Mandatory Power agrees to submit to the Mandatory Commission
copies of authorized labour contracts, which shall always provide for wages
and hours of labour. The Mandatory Power further undertakes to make
illegal the flogging of labourers and the Truck system. 

4. Arms and Ammunition.-The traffic in arms and ammunition shall
be controlled in accordance with the General Convention entered into by
the High Contracting Parties on this subject. But proper provision shall
be made for the sale to the inhabitants of flintlock and "Dane" guns, also
gunpowder for the purposes of preventing depredations by large game. The
Mandatory Power agrees to furnish the Mandatory Commission with an
annual return of all gun licenses issued by the Administration. 

5. Spiritous Liquors.- The supply of spiritous liquors, the sale of
opium and intoxicating drink of a strength exceeding 2 per cent. of alcohol,
shall be prohibited, and only supplied in limited quantities by a medical
certificate. The issue of certificates shall be in the hands of a Government
medical officer (adequately paid), and the fee for such certificate shall be
paid into the revenue of the country. In the event of any holder of a certificate
being convicted of intoxication the certificate shall be cancelled and
the recipient disqualified from again holding such certificate. 

6. Military Forces.- Native armed forces shall not be organized or
maintained except such as are necessary for the preservation of the public
peace. No hinterland wireless stations shall be erected or maintained possessing
a radius exceeding 300 miles.

7. Commerce and Travel.- The subjects of all nations shall be entitled
on an equal footing to enter into, travel or reside, or engage in commerce,
in this territory, subject only to compliance with the local law which shall
contain no discriminating clauses resting solely upon race, creed or colour. 

The commerce and navigation of all nations while engaged in lawful
enterprises shall enjoy equal treatment in this territory. No attempt shall

66 Aniti-Slavery Reporter and Aborigines' Friend.
be made by the Mandatory Power to obtain for the commerce or navigation
of it national treatment more favourable than that which is accorded to
the commerce and navigation of all other nations. The Mandatory cannot
within the territory above mentioned concede any monopoly or privilege
of any sort in mining, commercial or industrial matters.  Customs duties
shall be levied equally on the importation of goods, produce or manufacture
of any member of the League. No discriminating duties upon exports shall
be imposed which would have the effect of restricting the world's markets
to the native producer.
8. Religious and Educational Work.--The Mandatory Power undertakes
to maintain throughout this territory, subject only to any necessary limitation
in the interest of public order or morals, complete freedom of conscience
and religious toleration, together with the free and outward exercise of all
forms of worship. No political or civil disability shall be imposed on the
ground of religious belief or in consequence of a change of faith. Missionaries
shall have the full right to enter into, travel and reside in the territory
with a view to prosecuting their calling, and shall be entitled, on behalf of the
missionary or educational institutions with which they are connected, to
buy and hold property of every description and to erect buildings for
missionary or educational purposes and to maintain schools and institution in
connection with their work without distinction of creed. No difficulty shall
be placed in the way of any community carrying on its schools in its own
language, and there shall be no discrimination against such schools and
institutions as compared with other establishments providing the same standard
of education.
The native shall be secured the free right to obtain education for their
moral, material and intellectual development.
9. Diseases.--The Mandatory Power undertakes to co-operate with all
Colonizing Nations in combating disease. The Mandatory Power agrees to
adhere to the stipulations of all existing conventions for the abolition of
sleeping sickness and other diseases and the Wild Animal Convention.
10. Land.--(a) The Mandatory Power agrees to recognize that the man-
dated areas are generally unsuited to European Colonization and that the
economic stability of the territory is inherent in native industry, and under-
takes therefore to declare that all lands not already alienated by regular
title shall be declared native lands and that according to native law and
custom the ownership is incapable of alienation. Provision shall be made
in each mandated area for making native land occupation secure in title and
sufficiently adequate in area to permit of both communal and individual
holdings, and the tribes shall not be dispossessed of their ancestral lands,
notwithstanding any concession purporting to have been made by their

Aniti-Slavery Reporter and Aborigines' Friend.                                        67
chiefs.  The Mandatory Power agrees only to permit leases of land for areas
not exceeding acres and subject to periodic revision of terms. Further, that
in the event of land being required for public purposes, adequate compensation
both in land and for disturbance shall be made to the indigenous occupiers.
In all matters affecting land, the Mandatory Power as Trustee for
the inhabitants shall agree to observe native law and custom as the dominant
factor in all land transactions.
(b) The Mandatory Power agrees that once native reserves have been
officially allotted to indigenous tribes the title to them should be a secure one,
and that portions of reserve land should only be alienated from the natives
for indispensable public works and then only upon the same conditions as
those applying to the alienation of lands occupied by immigrants or settlers.
11. Reports.--The Mandatory Power undertakes to submit to the Mandatory
Commission of the League of Nations annual reports upon the conditions
of the inhabitants of this territory. These reports shall include full
information upon all matters affecting the inhabitants, including measures
taken to maintain public order, disturbances--with full reports upon casualties
--the progress of education, the granting of land leases, public works,
judicial proceedings. The Mandatory Commission established by the League
of Nations shall be capable of hearing and adjudicating upon allegations of
violation of these international obligations, whether preferred by the natives,
tribes, or responsible bodies representing public opinion; and shall be charged
with the duty of maintaining the observance of the Convention.
12. Political.--Adequate provision shall be made for consultation with
the natives either through their recognized chiefs of otherwise, as for instance
in the case of the National Council of Basutoland and the Transkeian Council
in the Cape Province, in all matters of legislation affecting them, in such a
manner that they shall be informed of any proposed legislation and enabled
to give their views upon the effects of such legislation upon their interests.
The purpose should be kept in view of securing for the natives full citizenship
in the mandated area. In the event of any person being deported from the
territory full reports of the charge and evidence shall be submitted to the
Mandatory Commission.
The Articles 10 and 11 of the General Act of Berlin shall apply to the
area covered by the Mandate, and the Mandatory shall within five years
declare the permanent neutrality of the mandatory area.
13. Revenue and Taxation.--The administrative expenditure of this
territory is the liability of the Mandatory Power and may be met by taxation 
but not collection of revenue shall be "farmed" out to any official or unofficial
person, nor shall any official benefit personally thereby.

68     ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.

     14.  The Mandatory Power agrees to surrender any and all of its rights 
or privileges in the said territories in case the Mandatory Commission, after 
full inquiry, should establish clear violations of the Convention.  In the 
inquiry which may be held into allegations of default, responsible persons 
acting in a representative capacity shall be competent to submit evidence 
to any Commission which may be set up for the purpose of the inquiry.

     The Committee of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society 
attaches great importance to the selection of the Members of the Mandatory 
Commission and begs to urge that the members should be chosen not only 
for their knowledge of Colonial questions, but also for their breadth of vision 
and known sympathies with the progressive aspirations of the native races.  
The Committee also begs to submit for consideration the advisability of 
including an African in the personnel of the Mandatory Commission.
     July, 1919.

                                                 SOME PRESS COMMENTS.
                                                   
                                                   AN AFRICAN CHARTER.

"There is now existence as part of the Paris Conference machinery a 'Commission 
on Mandates,' and this Commission has requested that highly expert 
and disinterested body the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society 
to draw up a model mandate, which we published on Saturday.  This whole 
question of mandates, their definition, supervision, and enforcement, has by 
the Peace Treaty been made a special charge of the League of Nations, and is 
dealt with in article 22 of the Covenant which forms part of the Treaty . . . . 
It is declared in the Covenant that 'the well-being and development' of the 
peoples concerned 'form a sacred trust of civilization' for which securities 
are to be taken.  The mandates and the powers of the League in relation to them 
constitute these securities, and obviously the need for them is greater in proportion 
to the backwardness and helplessness of the peoples concerned.  It is 
this which gives its importance to the draft mandate now submitted as a model 
for an African colony.
     "Certain things are vital in this matter - that the rights of the native population 
in their land should be respected, that their labour should remain their own 
and not be subject by any device to force, that their territories should not be 
liable to the special exploitation of a mandatory Power, or their trade to restrictions 
in its interest . . . . 
     "Thus, short of naked slavery, many abuses are possible in the recruitment 
of native labour which fall very little short of it, and the Society's draft mandate 
proposes a number of precautions, suggested by its long experience of evasion 
and abuse in this matter, of the highest value, and which are indeed in 
great part essential if the purpose which the prohibition has in view is in fact 
to be carried out.  In the matter of land rights, the Society makes a 
very drastic and far-reaching proposal.  It asks that, as a first step, 
it shall be agreed by the mandatory Power that 'the mandated areas are 
generally unsuited to European colonization, and that the economic stability 
of the territory is inherent in native industry.'  Accordingly, 'all lands not 
already alienated by regular title shall be declared native lands'-that is,

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND. 69

lands by native law and custom inalienable. That indeed would be a wonderful
change in the whole status and outlook of the native populations, and would
constitute such a charger of freedom as they can in no way otherwise attain, for
the whole future of the native depends on his possession of the land, and
it is expulsion from this primitive heritage which has everywhere been the root
cause of his misery and his oppression. In lands capable of white settlement
this ideal may be unattainable, but in the tropical regions it is still open to us,
and it would indeed be a glory to the administration of the League if it could
establish so precious a rule. As to trade and the exploitation of natural resources,
the draft mandate again very properly enlarges and defines the far too vague
and limited prescription of the Covenant. This merely enjoins that the mandatory
shall 'secure equal opportunities for the Trade and commerce of other members
of the League.' Obviously that is only a temporary provision, and the restriction
extends them to 'subjects of all nations,' and forbids at the same time 'any
monopoly of any sort, in mining, commercial, or industrial matters,' as also
any 'discriminating duties upon exports which would have the effect of restricting
the world's markets to the native producer.' That is a clear application
of the principle that we shall in the administration of these lands treat the
interests of their peoples as, in all sincerity, a trust. If that principle is accepted
the rest follows; if it is not accepted, what becomes of the fine profession of
the Covenant to which every signatory Power has pledged itself, and what is
to be put in its place? At long last there is here a chance of making practice
square with profession." - Manchester Guardian, July 28.

"The terms of mandate issued by our own Aborigines Protection Society
present a definition of the relations between ruler and ruled which may well
become a Declaration of Rights. Its principles should apply not only in cases
where a mandate exists, but wherever one race takes the great responsibility
involved in ruling another. . . The final safeguard of the native's rights,
however, is his ownership of the land, and the demand that the League of Nations
should preserve to the natives all the land not already alienated is at the base
of the charter. Without these clauses no mandate can be carried out 'upon the
principle of a trusteeship for and on behalf of the inhabitants of the mandated
area.' Without the guarantee of that principle no mandate should be granted
or continued." - Daily News, July 25.

"The Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society issues a memorandum
laying down the principles which they think should be subscribed to by those
who accept mandates for the late German Colonies. There are many colonial
systems in vogue, and it would not be fair to impose upon a mandatory Power
terms of government inconsistent with its peculiar governing genius. Nevertheless,
if the League of Nations is to be a reality, and the mandate a real one, it
is evident that general principles of government laid down by the League must
be accepted by those who derive authority from the League. The memorandum
of the Society sets forth a very useful draft mandate which might be well accepted
as a working basis for discussion." - Daily Chronicle, July 25.

The Natives of Togoland.

THE following letter has been received from the natives of Togoland, together
with a copy of a petition which has been forwarded to Lord Milner, appealing

70 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.
that their country may remain, in accordance with native wishes, under the administration of Great Britain as Mandatory.
LOME-TOGOLAND,
June 16, 1919.

To ANTI-SLAVERY AND A.P. SOCIETY, LONDON.
SIR,-
Enclosed please find the following letter and copy of petition forwarded
by the people of Togoland to His Majesty's Secretary of State for the
Colonies, and trust your press will assist the natives of Togoland to stay
under the present Government. 
Yours very truly, 
R. AFLAWO COLE.
LOME-TOGOLAND,
June 16, 1919.

SIR,-
Permit us please to insert in your valuable paper the following for
publication:-
As the world drama is coming to a close and peace would soon be
signed, we would like to know if we shall be consulted as to the Government
we desire to serve under, or if the wish of the people would be consulted in
accordance with President Wilson's Fourteen Points? We point out that 
it will be the interest of the British Government to save us from the political 
ruin which is approaching us; if a mandate is given to any other Power 
besides the present Government it would be an indelible stain on the fair
name of England if we are handed over to alien Government of not our
choice.
To avoid being handed over to a Government of not our choice the
following petition has been forwarded straight by the people of Lome, to
the Secretary of State for the Colonies, LORD MILNER, pointing out our
determination to stay under the Mandatory of Great Britain.

We have every hope that your powerful press would be an exponent
to invoke England during the peace Conference to hear our prayer.
We remain, etc.,
NATIVES.

CABLEGRAM TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES, LONDON.
Please convey the following petition to the Peace Conference through
the proper channel.
We, the undersigned, inhabitants of Togoland, humbly submit this
for consideration in the Peace Conference.

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.    71
1. That according to the definite assurances of President Wilson and
Mr. Lloyd George, published in th newspapers to the effect that the wishes
of inhabitants would always be considered when deciding what Power
should administer their country, we confidently hope they will redeem this 
pledge in the case of Togoland.
2. The people of Togoland are English-speaking, and during the régime
of the late German Government the necessity for the acquisition of the
English language was so great that influential men had to send their sons
abroad for English education.
3. Since the British occupation the Administration is considered just,
humane and uplifting, and we ardently desire the continuity of such a
benevolent Government.
4. It will be an irreparable injustice to us natives of Togoland if we are 
handed over to rulers other than the British whose influence is predominant
here.
In the event of our wishes not being granted we must feel that we are
dealt with contrary to the popular demand.
This we solemnly and sincerely commend to your serious consideration
in deciding the fate of this Colony which is sentimentally British.
(Signed) OCTAVIANO OLYMPIO,
President of Committee on behalf of Togoland Natives.
 
The Gold Coast Aborigines Society, "composed of Kings, Chiefs,
Eastern, Central, Western Provinces in Conference at Cape Coast," have 
also sent a cablegram to the King-Emperor, praying "for retention at the
Peace Conference Togoland, which is contiguous to Gold Coast, inhabitants
whereof being their own kith and kin."

Parliamentary.
THE COLONIAL OFFICE DEBATE.
The Under-Secretary for the Colonies in his statement in the House of
Commons upon the introduction of the Colonial Office Vote on July 30
made very interesting references to a number of Colonial problems (other
than the question of the Chartered Company and Rhodesia, which is specially
referred to below), of which some record should appear in these pages.
After referring to the part borne by the Dominions and Colonies in
the War and the great military effort which had been put forth by the 
Crown Colonies, as for instances in East Africa and Rhodesia where more
than two-thirds of the male inhabitants joined the Army, while the Native
troops had done valuable work, both as combatants, carriers and other



72        ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.

auxiliaries, Colonel Amery spoke of the importance of repair and reconstruction 
in the Colonies and Protectorates: this he said

     " must mean something more than the restoration of pre-war conditions; 
it must mean that we must set up a new and more positive standard of 
our duty and obligation towards the peoples to whom this House is in the 
position of a trustee, and to those territories whose boundless potentialities 
call urgently for development in the interests of their own inhabitants, 
of the British Empire as a whole, and of the impoverished and wasted 
world."

     Large territories were likely to be assigned to Great Britain by mandate 
under the terms of the Peace Treaty; this would not, Colonel Amery 
believed, impose upon us conditions which we should not impose upon 
ourselves in dealing with subject peoples, but it was now our task to do 
this work more strenuously and successfully than ever.

          "We must have a new standard of effort and achievement, and a new 
consciousness in regard to the task that lies before us."

     On the question of Health, Col. Amery said much had already been 
done and the death rate, both amongst white officials and natives, had 
largely gone down in East Africa, but owing to the War and the need for 
porters and carriers there had been a great flow of population backwards 
and forwards which had spread disease, and the state of that country called 
for very great efforts to bring it back to the pre-war position.

     Colonel Amery contended that we had been in advance of other administrations 
in our endeavour to cope with the Liquor traffic.  Last year the 
Colonial Secretary had announced complete prohibition of imported trade 
spirits for British West African Colonies, which involved a loss to the revenue 
of Nigeria alone of something like £1,000,000 a year, and of £500,000 to that 
of the Gold Coast.  The British and French Governments had between 
themselves agreed to the raising of the minimum duty on trade spirits 
into their tropical Colonies to 17s. 6d. per gallon.

     As regards the great labour problem Colonel Amery said we had to 
deal with it in a constructive spirit.  The Government hoped to induce 
the Native to become his own employer and his own cultivator, and he 
instanced the success of the Cocoa Industry in the Gold Coast.  He was 
not, he said, one who believed that the white man's plantation with hired 
coloured labour should cover the whole field, for he wished to see the field 
of the small native cultivator extended as widely as possible, but there was 
plenty of room and need for both kinds.  The old indenture system had 
aroused strong opposition in India.

     Referring to the education of Natives, Colonel Amery emphasized the 
importance of practical education in Agriculture.  The Government wanted

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND. 73

to start Agricultural colleges for research from whom new ideas and better
methods would be diffused; the War had put a stop to measures of this
sort, but he hoped to take the matter up again.

The Under-Secretary said that we had never realized sufficiently the
immense possibilities of the Crown Colonies and Protectorates and the 
immense wealth which would be created by science, energy and organization.

"The prime object, of course, of that development must be the welfare
of the inhabitants of those regions. Our first duty is to them; our
object is not to exploit them but to enable them materially as well as in
every other respect to rise to a higher plane of living and civilization."

RHODESIA.

The Rhodesian land question and the position of the Chartered company
were well discussed in the debate.

COLONEL AMERY made special reference to it in his opening speech,
and began by justifying the work of the Company, which he said was not
a mere trading concern but had been started by Mr. Rhodes in order to
retain a great region of Southern Central Africa under the British flag.
"The fact that Rhodesia was British was invaluable in South Africa."
The Company had been declared by the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council to have acted as agent of the Crown which owned the land, and
as it was therefore entitled to reimbursement of deficits incurred on its
administrative expenditure, the Government had appointed a Commission,
with Lord Cave as Chairman, in order to determine what were commercial
and what administrative expenses. The Commission would take evidence
both here and in South Africa.

Colonel Amery said, in reply to questions by Sir Donald Maclean,
that the Commission would consider whether the Matabele War expenditure
was necessary and proper, and that the Government would accept
the assessment of the Commission "as a correct and final interpretation
in terms of money of the Privy Council judgment," but the whole question
would be fully discussed in the House before Parliament was asked to vote
any money.

Referring to the attack made upon the Chartered Company in Mr.
Harris's pamphlet which he stigmatized as "rather lurid and highly inaccurate,"
-although it was significant that Colonel Amery refrained from
intimating a single inaccuracy, -Colonel Amery said that these matters
had been discussed at the time of the War, dwelt on the misrule of the
Matabele, and said that the Imperial Government did then take effective
steps to look after the interests of the natives.

The Under-Secretary also made a brief reference to the position of

74  ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND

the South African natives who were under the Union and the native deputation 
to this country whose full case he said he had heard. We could
not, however, interfere with the responsible Government of the Union.

   Sir DONALD MACLEAN, who said that the Chartered Company had 
always been regarded in this country as a very big and successful commercial
undertaking, hoped that in the future it would live up much more
closely to its charter with its trusteeship clauses that it had in the past.
He feared there were some discreditable chapters in our attitude towards
the native races even in Rhodesia. It was the duty of the Government 
to see that the Company did its duty.

   "What," he said, "is the position of the natives at the present moment?
With the exception of those who have acquired land by purchase
or by some such transaction, not a single native owns a foot of the land
in which he lives. That being the case, and the revenues of the country
and the future development of its natural riches depending upon the labour
of its natives, surely this country, with the League of Nations shedding
its new ray upon a world sadly needing enlightenment, will see that this
territory which, after all, is being mandated to us owing to the circumstances
of the past, is administered in a spirit of trusteeship not only for
the white settlers, but also for the natives."

   As regards Lord Cave's Commission, Sir Donald Maclean expressed
the hope that when it took evidence in South Africa the natives would
have full opportunities of making representations.

   Mr. SPOOR, in the course of a long and able speech, dealt with the claims
made by the Chartered Company, and went on to speak of the treatment
of the natives. Colonel Amery had rightly spoken of our first duty in
Rhodesia and countries like it as being to the native inhabitants.

    "He repeated what has frequently been repeated in this House--and 
I only wish it had always been acted upon by some who have gone oversea
--that it was not our intention or desire to exploit these people. I have
in my hand a pamphlet that I imagine has been sent to every Member of
this House. I notice it bears on the back the names of men well known
in the public life of our country, and one or two who are distinguished
Members of the House of Commons. If the statements contained in this
pamphlet are true--if these statements are substantially true--I say that 
here we have a record of commercial criminality and of bad administration
that it would indeed be very difficult to parallel. I would like to suggest
that the terms of reference under which this Commission is going to work
should be wider, so as to take in the whole question of administration in 
that country, and especially in so far as that affects the life of the nation. 
To take one or two sentences in this pamphlet:

   "'The fact presented is that no single native of the Mashona and
Matabele and kindred tribes owns, either personally or through membership
of his tribe, a foot of land, a spring of water, a sacred graveyard, a
patch of garden, or even a plot on which the native hut is erected.'

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND. 75

    "I say if that statement is true, this is obviously a case for very, very
serious and close investigation, and for reformation as well.

    " . . .  We are told that whilst this Company could have its case
prepared out of public funds the natives themselves were compelled through
taxation to pay for preparing the case for the white settlers, they were not
allowed to contribute towards funds to prepare their own case. If that
statement is also true, it is high time we had an investigation of a very
thorough kind. I do not want to go on quoting that pamphlet. I only
hope it has been read by Members of the House who have received it, and
I submit that the very closest investigation should be made into the
allegations that are contained in it."

    Adverting to the Rhodesian native certificate of registration, he expressed
the belief that there was a tendency towards real slavery in the methods
of government, and added:-

    "I do not believe that this method of administering a country like
Rhodesia is one that would commend itself for a single moment to the 
public of this country, were they aware of the actual facts, and I believe
--again, I say if the statements that have been made are true--that the
continuance of such a state of affairs will disgrace our national honour
and lower our national prestige."

NATIVES UNDER THE UNION.

    Mr. Spoor spoke of the Boer ascendancy in political matters since
the Act of Union and the prevalence of Boer views on the natives.

    "From the moment of the passing of the Act of Union and the coming
into existence of the new South Africa, there has been a definite tendency
to eliminate and destroy the rights of the natives. The natives feel this
very strongly. They have petitioned this Government, so far without
success. They have applied to the Colonial Office. The Colonial Secretary
tells them that that is a question that cannot be dealt with here; they
must fight their case out in South Africa. I want to ask how it is possible
for the natives of South Africa to fight their case out in that country, when
in that country they are denied all constitutional rights. Those people
consequently look to the Imperial Government, and I submit that this is 
a question in which the Imperial Government should exercise every power
they have got in order to restore to the natives of that country the conditions
which existed before the Act of Union, and in order to let them 
recognize that, so far as British rule is concerned, it is our desire that all
classes and all colours shall live equally and freely together, enjoying
common rights.

    "I would, therefore, urge the Colonial Office to do everything in their 
power to remedy a state of affairs which is a disgrace to the Government 
of South Africa, and I cannot but believe that any representations made 
by the Imperial Government to South Africa would have some effect.
At all events, I do think, that inasmuch as the natives in the British part
of South Africa before the Act of Union enjoyed conditions of freedom
and equality with the whites it is our duty to see that they enjoy no less

76 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.
privileges than they did then. I would like to suggest to the Colonial
Office--I do not know whether or not it is a practical proposition--that
an attempt should be made to bring about an exhaustive study of the
native question in South Africa, if possible in conjunction with the Union
Government, and the investigation might be, say, pretty much on the
lines of the investigation which is now being conducted into Indian affairs."
Lord HENRY BENTINCK emphasized the importance of recognizing
the right of the native to security of tenure for his land which was
"the very keystone, not only of loyalty and contentment, but also of
commercial prosperity. So long as you treat the native merely as a hewer
of wood and a drawer of water, as a person destined to labour merely for
the white man, so long as you deny him equal privileges with the white,
so long will you have discontent and disloyalty, and so long will you omit
the means of obtaining the highest amount of produce from your Colonial
territories.
"What are the most prosperous portions of tropical and South Africa?
Is not your export of cocoa from the Gold Coast enormous? The producers
of this enormous output of cocoa are the native producers. Natives
are the owners and cultivators of their own land. It is not plantations,
but it is the smallholders that are the cheapest producers. Take again
Basuto land, which is the most prosperous and financially the strongest
portion of South Africa. They never have a deficit and they are now in
a position to lend money to other places. There is nothing more splendid
than the way in which the natives have come to our assistance in this War,
and there is nothing more pathetic than the way in which they place their
faith in all the splendid announcements of ideals which we have made
from time to time during the War. They really have believed that we
fought this War for liberty, and for the weak and small nations. The
hon. Gentleman is perfectly well aware that what is going on in the mind of
the black worker is what has been going on in the mind of the white worker.
The white worker is tired of being treated as a mere cog in the wheel. He
is asking the fullest development both spiritually and morally. The black
worker is doing exactly the same thing.
"That brings me to the question of the treatment of the natives of
Rhodesia. I have got no particular vendetta against the Chartered Company...
but I do not think that my hon. Friend who spoke will deny
the fact that whereas in days gone by the natives had security for their
own private tenure they now have no security whatever. On unalienated
lands they are merely there on sufferance at the present moment. In fact, I
am not sure that Commissioners are not going round warning them that
they will be turned out. I am also not sure that the Government at the
present moment are not preparing an edict to evict them. It is idle to
tell me that the natives in those conditions are being governed in the best
possible way. Neither can it be asserted that in the reserves they have
security of tenure. Only a few years ago the reserves were cut down by
6,000,000 acres. What guarantee have these natives of Rhodesia that
the reserves will not be again cut down? My hon. Friend said that was
perfectly true when he stated that the natives in Rhodesia were a good

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND. 77
deal better off than the native under the Union Government, and than
those in British East Africa. That is not saying very much. The natives
in the Union territory are most shamefully misgoverned. It is true that
they are given reserves, but whereas 5,000,000 natives are given only 13
per cent. of the land, 87 per cent. of the land is given to the whites, who
number only one and a half millions. I am informed that these natives
are working under a system which is more or less veiled slavery. They
are subject to the law of passes. If they wish to leave an employer they
have to get from him a pass, and, of course, they are entirely subject to
his will and caprice and sense of fairness. If an employer wishes to keep
his servant on the land, he has only to refuse him a licence. If they migrate
to the towns they are met by a threat to take away from them all the right
of engaging in trade or holding property. If a white man strikes, he gets
an increase in wages, but if a black man strikes with the object of increasing
his 6d. or 8d. per day, he is fined or imprisoned.
"... One cannot say that the things are in a satisfactory state as far
as the natives are concerned.  Of course it is a delicate subject. My hon.
Friend may tell me that we have no right to interfere, but you will never
persuade the natives of that; you will never persuade them that His
Majesty the King and the Imperial Government and Imperial Parliament
have not the power to get them justice. They point out that the Indian
Government can get at least an improvement in the conditions of the
Indian, and they ask why the Imperial Government cannot get an improvement
in their conditions. As hon. Gentleman opposite made the very
good suggestion that there should be a joint commission to inquire into
the condition of the natives. I would urge the necessity of that very
strongly. It is a very favour opportunity for interfering on the part
of the natives. I would strongly object to a single inch of territory being
handed over to the Union Government unless they set their house in
order..."
Colonel WEDGWOOD said that, after the War, there was a temptation
on the part of the Colonial Office and capitalists to look upon our African
Crown Colonies from the point of view of getting raw material and dividends
out of them. This was opposed to the principles on which the Colonial
Office has been carried on for many years. He instanced the successful
native industries in Nigeria and the Gold Coast, and said that Nigeria
had increased in prosperity and in revenue under the administration which
safeguarded native rights to land and prevented any white man from acquiring
land in the Colony at all.
From the point of view of the natives we wanted to see "an independent
people on their own land supplying us with the products of their toil."
All through the ages there had been attempts to make the black people
work for the white masters. Slavery had been followed by indentured
labour, but the cruelties and injustice connected with it had so changed
public opinion that indentured labour over the greater part of the Empire
had become a thing of the past. But natives were dispossessed of their

78    ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.

lands under the guise of sales to white exploiters who introduced the chief
to part with the land of the tribe by means of a bottle of whisky. These
natives then became labourers for some Company, instead of living on
their own land, at any wage which was offered.
  Referring to the position of the natives in South Africa, Colonel Wedgwood
said that, under the Union Government, very thinly vailed slavery
was maintained... We were powerless in Union territory, but in
Rhodesia we ought to safeguard the interests of the natives far more
fully. The native reserves in Rhodesia were absolutely at the mercy of
the Chartered Company and every white settler was almost bound to be
in favour of curtailing them. It was the duty of the Colonial Office to
look at the question from the Native interest first.
  We talked about teaching men the dignity of labour, but when that
lessons is taught by the people who are going to benefit by it we needed to
look very closely at it before we could admit the argument.
  Colonel Wedgwood went on the deal with the claims of the Chartered
Company, and said that it was putting an unfair charge on the tax-payer
that he should have to meet all the claims lumped into the £7,000,000
that the Company asked for, which might include items which the British
public ought on no possible ground to be asked to pay. Colonel Amery
had stated that the Native reserves were well protected and that the Chartered
Company had the interests of the Natives at heart, but not only had
the Company refused to appoint one of their Native Commissioners as a 
member of the Reserves Commission, but they had nominated as their
representative a man who had been the chief in agitating for the reduction
of the reserves. What could you expect from a Commission like that
which took no native evidence? He hoped that our reputation for running
our Crown Colonies in the interests of the Native Inhabitants would be
sustained and that we should keep up a high standard.
  At the end of the debate Mr. ACLAND emphasized as important the
statement which Colonel Amery had made with regard to the Rhodesian
natives.
    "I understood that he said quite definitely that in any transactions
    which many in future take place with regard to Rhodesia the portion of the
    natives with regard to their land would be safeguarded and secured.
    That is a quite important statement, and very satisfactory to those
    Members of the House who are interested in that question. I take
    note of that statement, and, of course, we shall be certain that it will be
    faithfully carried out when the time comes."

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.  79
       QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
                                             June 3.
       EAST AFRICAN CAMPAIGN: NATIVE CARRIER CORPS
  Brigadier-General Sir OWEN THOMAS asked the Secretary for War if
he will state the number of African natives enrolled in the Carrier Corps
during the East African campaign and the number of these natives who died
during the campaign; if an inquiry was held into the cause of the number
of deaths; and, if so, whether the Report of such inquiry is available?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I have no figures showing the total number of African
natives enrolled in the Carrier Corps during the East African campaign.
The largest number on the strength at any one time was about 137,000.
From the beginning of operations up to the end of October, 1917, the deaths
from disease or accident amongst "Followers" were: Indian, 243; East
African 28,830; South African, 1.214; West African, 793; Seychelles, 246.
I have no figures of deaths subsequent to October, 1917, but I understand
the death rate showed a falling off from January, 1918. I have no knowledge
of any inquiry into the cause of the number of deaths.
                                                                  June 4.

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO (HABITUAL IDLERS' ORDINANCE).
  Mr. SPOOR asked the Under-Secretary of State of the Colonies whether
he is aware that the closure of the Crown lands in Trinidad and Tobago and
the operation of the Habitual Idlers' Ordinance compel labourers to hire
themselves for lower wages than they would otherwise be able to demand;
and whether, seeing that the Habitual Idlers' Ordinance relieves the prosecutor 
from the obligation of proving a charge brought under it and throws
on the accused the obligation of proving his innocence, he will explain why
assent was not withheld from the Ordinance?
  Lieut.-Colonel AMERY: So far as I am aware, the Habitual Idlers'
Ordinance is not yet in operation, and I see no reason to anticipate that it
will have the effect which with Hon. Member fears. As regards the question
of the onus of proof of charges under the Ordinance, the Secretary of State
gave special consideration to the point, but was satisfied by the representations
received from the Colonial Government that the ordinance would be
quite ineffectual if the onus of proof were placed upon the prosecutor. He
consequently came to the conclusion that the case was a proper one for making
an exception to the ordinary rule, but directed that an annual report
should be furnished on the working of the Ordinance. I should add that the
Ordinance provides that if habitual idleness is proved, the case is to be
adjourned by the magistrate for at least a month to enable the accused to
make an effort to work.

80
ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.

Colonel WEDGWOOD : Is not this Ordinance solely directed to providing
cheap labor for employers in the island?
Lieut.-Colonel AMERY : No, sir.

SOUTHERN RHODESIA.
June 30.
Mr. ADAMSON asked the Lord Privy Seal (I) whether, under the
secret agreement signed by Sir Starr Jameson on August 14, 1893,
half the loot seized from the Matabele became the property of the British
South Africa Company ; whether the total loot exceeded 70,000 head of
cattle ; and whether, in view of the statement that the British South Africa 
Company is claiming the costs of the Matabele war from His Majesty's
Government, the value of the cattle and other loot will be deducted from the
total claim. (2) Whether His Majesty's Government has reached any decision
as to the liability of the Crown for those administrative charges which
have devolved upon the British South Africa Company arising out of the
action of their agents in South Africa acting in defiance of the imperial
authorities, or charges incurred through mis-statements made to the
representative of the Imperial Government. (3) Whether his attention has been
drawn to the published admissions of the British South Africa Company,
notably in the statement of policy issued in 1913, that it had not been 
possible for the company to keep distinct their administrative and commercial
accounts ; and whether in view of this and the claim of the company in the
interests of their shareholders, he will consider the advisability of having a
special examination of the accounts of the British South Africa Company
and present, for the information of this House, a Report upon the alleged
deficits in the company's accounts.
Lieut.-Colonel AMERY : I have been asked to answer the three questions
addressed to the Lord Privy Seal, and I will deal with them together. As
the Lord Privy Seal informed the Right Honourable Member on April 16
and May 13, His Majesty's Government recognize that the claim of
the Company demands the closest scrutiny and are considering in what
manner the nature and extend of the financial obligations arising out of the
recent judgment of the Privy Council can be ascertained. It is hoped
to make a statement on the subject shortly.
Mr. ADAMSON asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
whether the British South Africa Company has included in its provisional
claim any sum for public works ; whether in the statement of policy issued
by the Company in 1913 the directors stated that public works would have
to be taken over at fair valuation, whereas the royal charter provides that
these works shall be taken over at a reasonable compensation ; and whether
he will draw the attention of the Company to this distinction.

81
ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.

Lieut.-Colonel AMERY : The answer to the first part of the question
is in the affirmative. As regards the second and third parts of the question,
Mr. Maguire in the statement, to which I understand my Right Honourable
friend refers, quoted the actual terms of Article thirty-three of the Charter
which bear on this point, and may be presumed to have had them in mind in
his subsequent reference to the subject.

July 23.
Major LANE-FOX (by private notice) asked the Under-Secretary of State
for the Colonies what actio it has been decided to take in connection with
the Report of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the special
reference as to the ownership of the unalienated land in Southern Rhodesia?
Lieut-Colonel AMERY : As I stated on April 2, the British South Africa
Company have approached the Secretary of State with a view to obtaining
a settlement of the amount due to the company for its administrative expenditure
in accordance with the Report of the Judicial Committee. The
Secretary of State has now appointed a Commission to examine the Company's
claim. The Commission will consist of Lord Cave, who will act as
chairman, Lord Chalmers, and Sir W. Peat. The terms of reference are as
follow:
WHEREAS under and by virtue of an ORDER of His Majesty in Council
dated July 16, 1914, the question of the ownership of the unalienated
land in Southern Rhodesia has been the subject of a Special Reference
to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
AND WHEREAS the Report of the Judicial Committee dated July 29,
1918, inter alia stated that so long as the British South Africa
Company continues to administer Southern Rhodesia under his Majesty the
administration and to apply the moneys or revenues derived therefrom in
duly reimbursing all proper outlays on administrative account in any
current year or in past years, and further if the Company's administration of
Southern Rhodesia should be determined by His Majesty the Company
would have the right to look to the Crown to secure to it, either out of the
proceeds of further sales of the lands by whomsoever made or if His Majesty
should grant away these lands or the proceeds to others form public funds,
the due reimbursement of any outstanding balance of aggregated advances
made by the Company for necessary and proper expenditure upon the
administration of Southern Rhodesia.
AND WHEREAS an Order of His Majesty in Council dated August 2,
1918 (a copy whereof is appended hereto), His Majesty was pleased
to approve of the said report.

82
ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND

AND WHEREAS the British South Africa Company has asked that the
amount due to it for its administrative expenditure should be determined
at the earliest possible moment, and submitted on November 21, 1918, and
on July 7, 1919, provisional statements (copies whereof are appended hereto)
of net expenditure by the Company in connection with Southern Rhodesia
on account of the Crown, up to the date of the Company's latest balance
sheet, that is to say, March 31, 1918.

NOW THEREFORE I, Viscount Milner, P.C., G.C.B., G.C.M.G., His
Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies,
APPOINT YOU,
The Right Honourable Viscount Cave, P.C.,
The Right Honourable Lord Chalmers, P.C., G.C.B.,
Sir William Barclay Peat,
to be a Commission (whereof Viscount Cave shall be the Chairman) to
examine the said statements of the British South Africa Company and to
investigate the records and accounts of the Company in London and in
Rhodesia, and to make all such inquiries as may seem to you desirable and
the said Report of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, if the
administration of Southern Rhodesia by the Company had been determined
on March 31, 1918.
I appoint Hugh Nimmo Tait, Esq., to be the Secretary to the
Commission.—July 17, 1919.

Captain ORMSBY-GORE : Are the terms of reference confined to assessing
the actual amount, or are they going to survey the whole question of the
administration of the Company and whether or not its expenditure has been
extravagant?

Lieut-Colonel AMERY : The terms of the reference are "to examine
the statements of the British South Africa Company and to investigate the
records and accounts of the Company in London and in Rhodesia and to make
all such inquiries as may seem to be desirable."

July 29.
Mr. ADAMSON asked the Lord Privy Seal whether His Majesty's
Government have agreed to accept as binding the recommendations of Lord Cave's
Commission as to the amount of money to be paid to the Chartered
Company ; and whether he will bear in mind the promise made that His Majesty's
Government would not commit themselves to any payment without the
sanction of the House of Commons?

The UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES : The answer to
both parts of the question is in the affirmative.

83
ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINE'S FRIEND.

August 7.
RHODESIA (LAND-INQUIRY COSTS).
Colonel WEDGWOOD asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies
whether the Rhodesian Legislative Council passed a resolution whereby
the costs of preparing the land inquiry for the inhabitants and people of
Rhodesia were to be defrayed from administrative revenue ; and whether
he can state the amount of the expenditure incurred by the white settlers
and natives, respectively?

The UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Lieut.-Colonel
Amery) : A resolution was passed by the Legislative Council of Southern
Rhodesia in 1914 requesting the Administration to provide a sum of £5,000
to defray the cost of presenting the case of the inhabitants and people of
Rhodesia to the Privy Council ; but the total cost of the case presented by
the elected members amounted ultimately, I understand to about £10,000.
The costs incurred by the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society
in respect of the case presented by them on behalf of certain natives amounted,
I believe, to about £7,000.

Colonel WEDGWOOD : Am I to understand from that answer that the
costs incurred by the white settlers have been paid out of adminstrative
revenue, and the costs incurred by those who represented the natives have
not been so met?

Lieut.-Colonel AMERY : I have explained it. Up to £5,000 the costs
incurred by the elected embers on behalf of the inhabitants of Rhodesia
have, so far, been met out of moneys provided ; but the whole question
as to administrative revenue will come before Lord Cave's Commission.
The costs of the case presented by the independent body, the Aborigines
Protection Society, have been paid by themselves.

Colonel WEDGWOOD : Although the natives contribute to this administrative
revenue not one penny-piece has been used to protect their interests,
which have been left to a private body of people?

Lieut.-Colonel AMERY : Well, sir, I cannot accept that for a moment.
The fact that the elected members are elected in the main by the white
settlers, and that only a small number of natives have the franchise at the
moment, does not necessarily mean that if the issue had gone in favour of
the view of the elected members the interests of the natives would have been
neglectd. These interests are, under Order in Council, fully safeguarded by
the Crown ; that position existed before, and obtains to-day.

Mr. MACQUISTEN : Why are the natives not getting their costs paid ;
are they not the original inhabitants of the country?


84
ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.

Lieut.-Colonel AMERY : It is not a question of costs to the natives. A
philanthropic society, being of opinion, for its own reasons, that the interests
of the natives were not sufficiently safeguarded, not even by the Crown,
introduced their own case in Court—which is their own affair—and they have
paid for it. Even so, I think the interests of the natives are, and will be,
fully safeguarded by the Crown.
Colonel WEDGWOOD : Is it not the fact that the Aborigines Protection
Society put their case before the Court, and provided it with the facts on 
which their judgment was based?
Lieut.-Colonel AMERY : No, sir, I think the Society offered to put their
case, and the Court was quite willing to hear it.
Colonel WEDGWOOD : That is not so.
Lieut.-Colonel AMERY : No, sir, I think the Society offered ot put their
case, and the Court was quite willing to hear it.
Colonel WEDGWOOD : That is not so.
Mr. MACQUISTEN : Seeing that the work of the Aborigines Protection
Society served a very useful purpose in bringing the facts before the Court,
should they not have had some of the costs they incurred?
Lieut.-Colonel AMERY : I am only trying to make the position clear.
The interests of the natives are protected and safeguarded by the Crown :
in which respect they are as well off as before hearing the advice of the Aborigines Protection Society.
Mr. MACQUISTEN : Why, then, was not the evidence of the Aborigines
Protection Society ruled out of Court?
Mr. SPEAKER : Any further questions had better be put down.
Colonel WEDGWOOD asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies
whether the British South Africa Company has refused to allow the 
Legislative Council of Rhodesia to pay the expenses incurred by the natives in
preparing evidence for the Rhodesian land inquiry, and has in a written
statement declared that such costs should be paid by the philanthropic
public ; whether this attitude has at any time received the approval of His
Majesty's Government ; and, if not, whether a proposal would be a
sympathetically considered to submit to Lord Cave's Commission the reasons which
exist for making the costs of the natives, like those of other parties to the
inquiry, a public charge?
Lieut.-Colonel AMERY : I am aware that the British South Africa
Company have refused to ask the Legislative Council of Southern Rhodesia
to vote the costs incurred by the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection
Society in presenting the case to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
on behalf of certain natives. The case was taken up by the Society entirely
on its own responsibility, and neither the present Secretary of State nor his
predecessor has felt able to take any action in the matter. I understand

85
ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.

that Lord Cave's Commission has agreed to hear the Society upon such
matters as may come within the terms of reference to the Commission.
Colonel WEDGWOOD : May I ask whether it is a fact that the Legislative
Council of Rhodesia wished to pay these expenses, and it is also a fact that
the Commission, that represented the natives, backed up the British South
Africa Company in refusing to allow this offer to be made?
Lieut.-Colonel AMERY : I do not understand that the Legislative
Council did ask that.

August 11.
LORD CAVE'S COMMISSION.
Mr. ADAMSON asked the Lord Privy Seal whether he is aware that
the Royal Commission to inquire into the claim of the British South Africa
Chartered Company is holding its meetings to receive evidence in private ;
and whether, in view of the public interest in this matter, he will represent
to the Commission the necessity for holding their meetings in public?
The UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Lieut.-Colonel
Amery) : I understand that none of the meetings at which evidence is taken
or counsel is heard are private.

July 9.
GERMAN COLONIES.
Mr. J. DAVISON asked the Prime Minister whether, as in the case of the
Draft Covenant for the League of Nations, the draft mandates for the late
German Colonies will be published before being finally approved by the
League?
Mr. BONAR LAW : The substance of the Mandate is already contained
in Article twenty-two of the Covenant of the League of Nations.

July 31.
THE GAMBIA.
Mr. J. W. WILSON asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies
whether the Commission of Inquiry appointed by the Governor of the Gambia
colony in January last to investigate certain disturbances and complaints
affected the administration of the Upper Saloum district of the
protectorate has completed its investigation ; and whether its report has yet been
issued.
Lieut.-Colonel AMERY : The Secretary of State has received the report
referred to, and has taken such action upon it as appeared necessary. 



86                                  ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.

   Miscarriage of Justice in British East Africa.

In reference to the case of the trial, for murder of a native, of two white men in the East
Africa Protectorate, about which correspondence with the Colonial Office was published
in our April issue, we have received the following further letter from the Department: -
                                                                     
                                                                        DOWNING STREET
                                                                           July 4, 1919.

SIR - 
    With reference to the letter from this Department of the 7th of May I am directed
by Viscount Milner to inform you that he has now received from the Governor of the
East Africa Protectorate a report on the trial of Mr. H.E. Watts and Mr. C.S.L. Betschart.
     2. The facts of the trial are as follows: -
   Mr. Watts was committed for trial on a charge of voluntarily causing grievous hurt
under section 325 of the Indian Penal Code; he was found guilty of the lesser offence of
voluntarily causing hurt, for which the maximum penalty is imprisonment for one year
or a fine not exceeding Ricco/ or both; and he was sentenced to pay a fine of Ricco/ - or to
undergo six months' rigorous imprisonment.  Mr. Betschart was committed for trail on a 
charge of murder under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code; he was found gulty
of voluntarily causing hurt; and he was bound over in a sum of RI500/- (with two sureties of
R750/ - each) to be of good conduct for twelve months.
      3.  It appears that in the case of Mr. Watts, who was charged with causing grievous hurt,
the main question was whether the testimony of the native witnesses could be accepted
in its entirety; and from questions put to the jury by the judge it seems clear that the jury
accepted the evidence of the flogging of the native Matunga at Mr. Watts' house, but that
they did not accept the evidence of subsequent floggings and immersion in the river.
      4. The second accused was committed on the charge of murder by causing the death
of the Native Matunga by strangulation; but with regard to this charge and the lesser charge
of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, the Prosecution was confronted by a
difficulty which in the Governor's opinion was insurmountable.  The Indian Sub-Assistant Surgeon
who examined the body of the deceased was precise on the point that the cause of death was
strangulation, the usual symptoms of death by strangulation being found on the body; but 
there was no evidence that the accused did any act which caused or could have contributed
to death by strangulation. In these circumstances the jury refused to convict either of murder
or of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.



88  ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.
been 3,221, while 894 natives had received compensation on account of
injury or sickness, and compensation had been paid to 2,504 dependants.
In the address the opinion was expressed that his presence compelled
them to hope that he would help to advance the legitimate aspirations of the
Bantu people.
In reply, Colonel Pritchard spoke of the work of the corps in France
in glowing terms. Referring to the text of the address, he said he knew
they had those aspirations. There was a great deal yet to be done. He
was aware there was a good deal yet in our laws which was harassing and 
irritating to natives, and he favoured very generous treatment of natives
who are fitted by education or by being semi-skilled men, all being good
citizens. They had to go by degrees. He asked for their complete confidence.

Sir Hugh Clifford.
THE appointment of the late Governor of the Gold Coast to the Governorship
of Nigeria has caused widespread satisfaction, and not least to the Anti-Slavery
Society, which knows and appreciates the wise and valuable work
which he has done on the Gold Coast. The Governor Designate was entertained
at dinner by the African Society in June, when he gave an interesting 
speech on developments in that country, from which we quote some important
paragraphs:-
EUROPEAN COMPETITION WITH NATIVES.
"With regard to the opening up of a great tropical country, it seems to
me the primary object of the administrator should be to secure that where 
European effort can alone effect its object, it should be heartily welcomed
and encouraged; but that where you have any industry which the native,
under proper guidance and with proper assistance and sympathetic help
can develop for himself, you should avoid as far as possible bringing the
European into the field in competition with any local industry."
THE COCOA INDUSTRY: NATIVE ENTERPRISE.
"But, of course, as you all know who are familiar with the Gold Coast,
a striking fact connected with the colony is the extraordinary development
of the cocoa trade. In 1891 a packet of 91 lbs. of cocoa was exported from
the Gold Coast. I took up my duties at the end of 1912, and in 1913 50,000
tons of cocoa were exported from the Gold Coast. Then the war began in
August, 1914, but in 1917 90,000 tons of cocoa were exported from the Gold
Coast, and I am credibly informed by the Acting Governor of the Gold 
Coast that during the current year the export of cocoa will not be very far
short of 120,000 tons.
"But to me the great advantage of this industry is that it has
been throughout, and is to this day, and entirely native industry. I

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.  89
emphasize this fact, although without the guidance and the assistance
of Europeans, the encouragement of European merchants, without the
European ships that carry it home, and the home manufacturer who converts
the cocoa bean into the finished product, this native industry on the
Gold Coast would be of no value. But instead of the people of the Gold
Coast being exploited for the for the advantage of the European, he is co-operating
with the European in producing to-day something between a half to three-fifths
of the total cocoa of the world, and it appears to me that an achievement
such as this shows the possession by the natives of enterprise and
energy, especially when it is remembered that this is the first introduction
of native of the Gold Coast to permanent cultivation....
"But this has not been a gradual change, it is a growth of less than thirty
years. It fills me with great hope that the people who have so rapidly
seized this opportunity may in the near future develop along lines which
may result in still greater achievements. It is our business to see that the
native of the Gold Coast is assisted as far as possible in these lines of
development."
SIR HARRY JOHNSTON ON THE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.
Sir H. H. Johnston, President of the African Society, speaking at the
dinner, referred in his remarks to our Society, and to its appreciation of the
services of Sir H. Clifford.
A friend who is prominently associated with the Society, he said,
had called to his notice, not only that the relations of that Society with
the Governors of the Gold Coast had been singularly happy, but that during
the long governorship of Sir Hugh Clifford, there had been no remonstrance,
no word of counsel, tendered on the part of the Aborigines Protection
Society towards his Excellency's administration.
A SOCIETY FOR IMPERIAL INSURANCE.
"There are people who sit on the Committee of the  Aborigines Protection 
Society, who have themselves been governors or held responsible positions
in Crown Colonies. There is hardly a person in the Society who has not
travelled and seen the Empire for himself or herself, and it is thought in
some quarters that the Society exists to carp at administration abroad.
Nothing could be more untrue. It is really a society for Imperial Insurance. 
Those who promoted it, and who support it now, are anxious for the sake
of the Empire in general that there should be no wrong-doing brought to
light which is not protested against, so that the smoking flax should not
burst out into flame. It is rather with that desire privately, and it may 
be only privately, the Society has sent some slight suggestion or remonstrance
or questions of principle to the administration of this or that colony
where there are predominating numbers of backward peoples.
"It was brought home to me that it was not once necessary to do so
while Sir Hugh Clifford was in charge of the Gold Coast, and that is why the
Gold Coast has been used increasingly as a text by the Aborigines' Protection
Society and the other philanthropic societies to show firstly that the natives of
Africa, the Negro and Negroid, and higher types as well, cannot get on in
Africa without the partnership of the white man, and the white man cannot

90 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND.
get on without the full partnership of the native. (Cheers.) I think Sir
Hugh Clifford has brought that home to us.
"The story of how cocoa has been developed in the Gold Coast is a really
wonderful thing. It is something like this, and it shows how the history
of the West Indies is connected with that of the West Coast of Africa.
First of all, missionaries went out from our country and helped the Negro
to become a man, and earn a free livelihood. They trained and educated
the Negroes of the West Indies, and went out to West Africa, and it occurred
to them that what did so well in the West Indies might do well on the West
Coast of Africa."

SIR VICTOR BUXTON.
On the same occasion Sir Harry referred in very sympathetic terms.
which we should like also to record, to the loss of Sir Victor Buxton: -
"Before I say the few words that may be necessary for you to realize
what Sir Hugh Clifford has done for the British Empire, I should like to
express the feelings of all present in voicing our very deep regret over two
deaths which have occurred since we last met. Sir Victor Buxton, a very
valued councillor of the African Society and the President of the Anti-Slavery
and Aborigines Protection Society. Sir Victor Buxton, as you all
know, was a widely travelled man of the world, a great sportsman and as
well-night perfect, I think, as a human being could be. He was always wise
in expressing his views, he was always warm-hearted, and he has served the
cause of the African peoples by not rushing too rapidly to conclusions, but
has endeavoured to get at the truth in as pleasant a manner as possible, and
thus has made his influence widely felt." (Hear, hear.).

Death of Mr. W. P. Schreiner, K. C.
THE death of Mr. Schreiner, the High Commissioner for the Union of
South Africa, has removed a true friend of the African people, and one who
was always ready to give the officers of the Society such help and advice
as was possible when they consulted him on questions affecting the natives
of South Africa.
We quote an extract from an account of Mr. Schreiner in the Morning
Post which is of special interest as stating his attitude on the question of
the Colour Bar.

When the question of union came to the fore Mr. Schreiner declared
for federation on the ground that union could not be achieved without the
Cape Colony sacrificing her more advanced native policy to the reactionary
prejudices of the other colonies .... He argued that the Cape delegates
had betrayed the interests of the natives, and his criticism was chiefly
directed against what proved the most vulnerable clause in the Constitution,
that which confined eligibility for a seat in Parliament to candidates of
European descent. The Basutos and Native Associations asked Mr.
Schreiner to go to England to represent their interests and apprehensions to


ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER AND ABORIGINES' FRIEND. 91
the Imperial Government, and when the Constitution Bill was passing
through Parliament Mr. Schreiner was a most active lobbyist against it.
He succeeded, however, in enlisting the opposition of only the Labour
Party, and a few Radicals headed by Sir Charles Dilke. At this juncture
he expressed his views with great vigour to a representative of the Morning
Post, characterizing the Constitution as barbarous and medieval, and predicting
the gravest consequences to the white, coloured, and native population
of South Africa.

When Mr. Schreiner came to London in 199 with Dr. Abdurahman
and other South African representatives (as mentioned above), the Society
entertained him at a breakfast, presided over by the late Sir Fowell Buxton,
its President, when the late statesman expressed his views with great clearness.
These are worth recalling now that the questions of the Colour bar
and the natives' disabilities in South Africa are again prominently before us.

"The Union which is proposed has its foundation on bad faith towards
the native and coloured population, upon a breach of faith and honour
towards them. Statesmen were bound to see that these privileges which
were given to the natives of Cape Colony generations ago, should not be
whittled away.

"Sixty years ago the Imperial Government laid down the principle of
non-discrimination on account of race or colour in Cape Colony when its
Constitution was granted. That principle, so far as Cape Colony is concerned,
has never been departed from. Those political rights have been
continuously enjoyed without a shadow of abuse for two generations by
all qualified men without distinction of race or colour. Now all the coloured
people of South Africa stand alarmed at the prospect that those rights will
be taken away. Parliament is to be asked now to deprive every native or
coloured inhabitant of Cape Colony, however highly educated and cultured,
of the qualification for membership of the proposed Union of Parliament as
being not 'of European descent.' It is not suggested that the opportunity
enjoyed by both white and coloured people in South Africa has ever been
abused or that its continuance would operate detrimentally to the interests
of the Union or of the Empire....There has never been an abuse of the
vote. This is a matter which is deeply felt by ever man throughout South
Africa whose race and colour do not entitle him to the use of the mystic
words 'European Descent' - whatever they may mean."

The Anti-Slavery & Aborigines
Protection Society

President:
CHARLES ROBERTS, Esq.

Chairman of General Committee:
LORD HENRY CAVENDISH-BENTINCK, M.P.

Vice-Chairman of General Committee:

Treasurers:
E. WRIGHT BROOKS, Esq., J.P.
SIR T. FOWELL BUXTON, BART.

Secretary:
TRAVERS BUXTON, M.A.

Organizing Secretary: 
JOHN H. HARRIS.

Hon. Lecturer:
MRS. JOHN H. HARRIS.

Chairman of Parliamentary Committee:
RIGHT HON. J.W. WILSON, M.P.

Bankers:
BARCLAY'S BANK, LTD.
95 Victoria Street, S.W.1.

Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner, Frome and London


THE AFRICA OF THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE

[*Mrs. Mary Church Terrell
from the author-
When you [return?] to the 
States, you should read my 
novel: THE GAY DOMBEYS
published by Macmillan Co.
Fifth Avenue
New York*]

BY
SIR HARRY JOHNSTON
G.C.M.G, K.C.B., D.Sc.
{President of the Society}

[*H.h. Johnston*]
[*[Police?] [Arundel?] [?]*]

REPRINTED FROM THE 
JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY
1919



Sir Harry Johnston.
  From London comes the news of the 
death in England of Sir Harry Johnston, 
explorer, author, painter and 
pioneer in British colonization in 
Africa. He was sixty-nine years of 
age, and in that span of life had done 
many things of note. He was, indeed, 
one of the remarkable men of the 
period, a type of the British adventurer 
imbued with the purpose of extending 
the dominion of the empire 
and maintaining its prestige. To 
Americans Sir Harry Johnston is best 
known as the author of a number of

THE EVENING
books of particular interest. Gifted 
with an easy literary style, he largely 
occupied himself after his retirement 
from the British foreign service in 
the production of a series of imaginary 
sequels to works by great authors. 
Three of these, "The Gay Dombeys," 
"Mrs. Warren's Daughter" and "The 
Veneerings," carried forward tales of 
Dickens and Shaw in a fascinating 
manner. But his concern was chiefly 
in the spread of clearer information on 
the part of the British people regarding 
Africa, and he wrote voluminously 
on such subjects as his experiences 
had qualified him to deal with effectively. 
  Such men as Sir Harry Johnston 
have carried the British flag into remote 
regions, and have kept it there 
against difficulties and hardships. 
Johnston himself entered into the life 
of the peoples of Africa with whom 
he came in contact, learned their languages, 
studied their dialects, adjusted 
administrative conditions to their 
peculiarities and traditions, and while 
he ruled upon occasion with a rigid 
hand, he was nevertheless considerate. 
He did much for the sanitation of disease-
infected areas and his service in Africa 
made for a happier land and 
an advance toward civilization. 
When a prominent Democrat declares 
he will not be

NOTICES

The objects of the African Society are thus set forth in Article I of the
Society's Constitution: -
"The African Society has been founded in commemoration of the work of
Miss Mary Kingsley.  It is instituted for the purpose of investigating the usages,
institutions, customs, religions, antiquities, history, and languages of the native
races of Africa; of facilitating the commercial and industrial development of the
Continent in the manner best fitted to secure the welfare of its inhabitants; as a
central institution in England for the study of African subjects, the diffusion of
knowledge relating to such subjects, and to do all such other things as are
incidental or conducive to the attainment of the objects for which the Society is
founded or any of them."

Copies of the Rules and Constitution, Candidates' Proposal, and Membership 
Forms are supplied on application at the Society's Office, 64 Victoria
Street, London, S.W. I.  Candidates for admission into the Society who may
be residents abroad, and unable to obtain the papers, may apply to the
Secretary, giving their description and address.  On receipt of these the
Secretary will prepare the necessary documents for submission to the Council.

Every Ordinary Member shall pay on his election [L]I Is. as his first
annual subscription; or he may become a Life Member by one payment of
[L15 15s]

Subscriptions are payable in advance, on the 1st of January.

The privileges of a Member include admission (with the right to
introduce friends either personally or by card) to the Luncheon-meetings
and all ordinary meetings of the Society, and the use of the Library.

Each Member is also entitled to receive a copy of the Society's Journal.

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L.T.D., at 113 CANNON STREET, E.C. 4, and at i's Branches in SOUTH and
EAST AFRICA, from the NATIONAL BANK OF EGYPT at 4 and 5 KING
WILLIAM STREET, E.C.4, and the Head Office in Cairo, and from the 
BANK OF BRITISH WEST AFRICA, 14 CASTLE STREET, LIVERPOOL, or
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TARKWA, CAPE COAST CASTLE, ACCRA, and LAGOS.

JOURNAL OF THE
AFRICAN SOCIETY

VOL. XVIII.    NO. LXXI

APRIL, 1919

Note. - There are many subjects in Africa, such as Racial Characteristics, Political
and Industrial Conditions, Labour, Disease, Currency, Banking, Education, and so 
on, about which information is imperfect and opinion divided. On none of these
complicated and difficult questions has Science said the last word. Under these
circumstances it has been considered best to allow those competent to form an opinion to express freely in this Journal the conclusions at which they themselves
have arrived. It must be clearly understood that the object of the Journal is to
gather information, and that each writer must be held responsible for his own views.

THE AFRICA OF THE IMMEDIATE 
FUTURE 1

     Our own home life in Great Britain, that of the United
States, of France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, of Eastern
Europe and Nearer Asia will be profoundly affected by the
Four Years' War. Things will never be the same again,
for good or for evil. We must breast the wave of change
and strive hard that it shall not overwhelm us; hope that
we be only braced by the rude billows when the first shock
of their contact is over.
     Africa will be no less affected than Europe, Asia, and
America. Perhaps ore so than any other continent save 
Europe. If we can project our thoughts ahead and call up
a vision of the Africa that is to be, the Africa shaken to its
heart by this world-war, we may be better prepared to face
these changes: our anchor as a colonising power may hold,
despite the swell that lifts the vessel, or some passing
hurricane that threatens to fling our Empire on the rocks.
     I am never tired of pointing out - in contradiction to some
other writers - that the Great War was more occasioned by

1. Being the Presidential Address delivered by Sir Henry Johnson, G.C.M.G.,
K.C.B., D.Sc., to Members of the Society at a Luncheon Meeting on March
28th, 1919.
VOL. XVII. - NO. LXXI.                                    M

164 JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY

231,000 square miles of mountain, fertile plain, and semi-
desert. It is a territory that might easily support 30,000,000
inhabitants, were it sure of peace and security, were modern
science applied to put down locust plagues, to replant forests,
eliminate germ diseases of livestock, irrigate arid lands with
the waters above and below ground now running to waste.
These six to seven millions of people are mostly Berbers of
the best human stock; patient agriculturists; one of the fines
of human races.

Islam at first united them with the incoming Arabs and
offered a refuge to the tortured Jews of Spain and Portugal;
then it cut the Moors off from Europe by its own religious
fanaticism. The religious venom of Morocco was fully
equalled by the cruellest from of Christianity which developed
in Spain. The expulsion of the Moors from Spain released
an extraordinary force which has played a quite remarkable 
part in the opening up of Africa, but has enhanced the
hatred with which Christians came to be regarded in
Morocco and, through the influence of the Moors, as far
south as Western Nigeria - see for this the story of Mungo
Park. These expelled Spanish Moors, one of the most intelligent
and splendid races ever produced, had stayed long
enough in Spain to become acquainted with artillery and
gun-making and many of the more modern arts of war, and
they gave a new impetus to the Emperors of Morocco to
resist all European attempts to dominate that country.  The
first result of this awakened strength was the drastic defeat
of the Portuguese at the Battle of Kasr-al-Kabir, in 1578,
one of the decisive battles of the world, though not included
in the orthodox list. In this defeat fell the Portuguese king
and the flower of his chivalry and perished for ever the
Portuguese hold over Morocco, supported at one time by the
possession of most of the coast ports.

The British in 1661 named as part price of their support
of Portuguese independence as against Spain the town of
Tangier; but so insistent and wearing were the attacks of
the Moors - then armed as well as we were - that Tangier
was evacuated in 1684. In the middle of the seventeenth
century, with the aid of the Spanish Moors and their


THE AFRICA OF THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE 165

artillery, Morocco conquered Western Nigeria and dominated
the upper Niger for a century or more, leaving an uneffaced
and beneficial - even if religiously fanatical - impress on 
interior West Africa. During the second half of the
nineteenth century, Morocco was a thorn in the side of
France and her attempts to rule Algeria.

The French were impelled at last to intervene in Moroccan
affairs, especially when Germany threatened to implant herself
in Morocco, either independently or in alliance with 
Spain. France, guided by her experience in Tunis, has
sought persistently not to destroy the Moorish Empire and
nationhood, but to sustain this framework of native rule; and
she has done well. The only dissolvent is the Spanish action
and inaction in the north. During the Great War, the
Spanish sphere was the refuge and basis of German and
Austrian intriguers, for hostile action against the Allies,
especially of the spies who worked under the protection of
Rais Uli: a brigan with a remarkable career who has gradually
won his way to the status of an independent chief. Rais
Uli may yet prove a stumbling block in the way of peace in
Morocco. Perhaps in the near future Spain may see the
advantage of withdrawing her nominal protection from him
and leaving him to find his own level under the National
Moorish Government. She may prefer to exchange her
small but unruly sphere in the north of Morocco for an
enlargement of her area of influence in the south-west,
opposite the Canary Islands; reserving, of course, her long
held ports of Ceuta and Melilla and the Chafarinas Islands. 
Her sphere in the south-west of Morocco has not drawn her
into strife with the natives; its enlargement would
interfere less with Moroccan sovereignty and would bring
great prosperity to the island paradises of the Canary
archipelago. 

Under French tutelage, Morocco may become far better
populated, far happier, far more important in the world than
left with complete independence to go to ruin by divers ways.
It is the pick of the African basket. Its indigenous people
are not far removed racially from Spaniards, Portuguese,
and Southern Frenchmen. European colonisation in a 

166 JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY

limited degree and fusion with the Berbers would only
enhance the potentiality of this great country. 

But it cannot be denied that the position, the resources, the
history of Morocco give it an interest in the eyes of other
civilised nations which France and Spain cannot afford to
overlook. The position of Morocco at the western end of
the Mediterranean is somewhat analogous to that of Egypt
at the eastern end. Great Britain was impelled to interfere
in the road-to-ruin that Egypt was following, just as France
was drawn into the Moroccan imbroglio. Egypt commands
the Suez Canal; Morocco guards the western access to the
Mediterranean. France, Italy, Greece had special interests
in Egypt which we have never sought to overlook or injure. 
Similarly, Morocco has a great importance for Great Britain,
Portugal, the United States, Holland, Scandinavia, and Italy. 
The abrogation of Free Trade principles in Morocco is as
inadmissible as it would be in Egypt. Under Free Trade
our commerce with Egypt is splendid, but we are in control
there not merely to protect our own interests by legitimate
means but to deny the Suez Canal and the sea route to
India and the Nile route to the Sudan, East Africa, and the 
Cape of Good Hope. Provided these ways by land and
water are unimpeded we are not merely willing but desirous
of seeing Egypt a nation once more, such as she has not been
since her conquest by Persia twenty-four centuries ago.

It is dangerous to prophesy in these uncertain times when
bolts fall from the blue as they never did before; but if there
are two countries in Africa to whom peaceful days seem
assured they are Algeria and Tunis. Both seem well-contented
with French rule and supervision. The regeneration
of Tunisia is one of the greatest successes the French have
achieved. To make it perfect, France should remove the 
last traces of protection or special favour to French trade at
the expense of the commerce of other friendly European
Powers. The Constitution of Algeria may be greatly
wanting in perfection of form, but in this case practice has
been better than theory. Here it is possible, as in India, to
be a Muhammadan and yet progressive and in line with
advanced European and American science and thought. 


THE AFRICA OF THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE 167

There is no Al-Azhar University here, disseminating
fanaticism and falsity and puerility in instruction.

Italy has a hard task before her to resume the long-lapsed
work of Rome in Tripoli and the Cyrenaica. These portions
of Roman and Greek Africa have slipped back into worse
sterility and depopulation than prevailed before the ruinous
invasion of the Islamic Arabs. Yet, I believe this region
between Tunis and Egypt will repay Italy in the long run
for her efforts and expenditure in keeping the peace and
opening up the closed interior to free contact with European
civilisation. Cyrene may offer sites for Italian colonisation
without injustice to the natives. In the western parts, in the
Sahara oases, Italy has a share of that handsome, intelligent
Berber race to reconcile to the culture and the ideals of Europe
from which unhappy schism of Islam has long estranged
it. An interesting link with the past, however, is that 
the great oases of Italian Libya still bear the names the
Romans gave them - or rather the Roman adaptation of the
prehistoric terminology of the Libyan speech. Left to their
own initiative, the six hundred thousand Berbers, Arabs,
Tibus would do nothing to arrest the progress of the drifting
sands, the ravages of locusts, the spread of germ diseases
in the oases by the pestiferous mosquitoes, but all these wars
with natural conditions will be carried on scientifically by 
the modern Romans, just as they were fought by the ancient
Romans by practice not founded on theory or supported by
science. 

As to the hinterland of Tripoli, it will no doubt be
enlarged by the joint good will of France to the west and
Britain to the east, though not to anything like the extent
now demanded by Italian imperialism; for this reason,
among others, that we cannot bring ourselves to barter away
portions of Africa which under our supervision have achieved
a nationality of their own. But a mutual regard for Free
Trade should open to Italian enterprise all the commerce to
which the extended frontiers of an enlarged Libya will have
access. Aeroplanes will in this respect exercise a great
revolution in the development of the Italian as of the French 
Sahara. 




168    JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY

  What will Egypt be in the near future? Never again an 
appanage of Turkey and perhaps not even the happy hunting
ground of the Levantine adventurer of nondescript ace
and uncertain allegiance. Egypt proper ought gradually 
to be educated and to educate itself to reach the status of an
independent Mediterranean kingdom worthy of the dynastic
Egyptians who founded it and who contributed hugely to
the intelligence and greatness of modern man. But the 
Sudan to the south of Egypt must remain still longer under
direct British control because it is inhabited preponderatingly
by Negroes, and could not be trusted to the sons, grandsons
and great-grandsons of the Egypt of the Turkish Pashas.
The future of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan will have a different
orientation to that of Egypt, towards the Red Sea and the 
Indian Ocean; towards Nigeria and Central Africa. For
the safety of the British Empire and of the League of 
Nations, of which we shall be the mandatory, we shall have
to occupy indefinitely the Siniatic Peninsula and defend the
Suez Canal; but with these reservations, once we are assured
that Egypt has become too modernly educated to give way
to religious fanaticism and persecution or to dishonesty and
waste in finance, we shall not be eager to continue our
military occupation or our control of the internal government. 
Certain it is that we have no desire to colonise Egypt ourselves 
or let any other European nation do so.
  What is the grievance of the Egyptian Nationalists against
us? Many of these so-called Nationalists are not of Egyptian
racial stock; they are Turks, Kurds, Albanians, Circassians,
Arabs, Syrians or Levantines of mixed race and Christian 
descent. Their chief grievance is that we have displaced them 
from their control of affairs under the mongrel Turkish regime.
Even accepting them on their own valuation as Egyptians, 
I would ask them to face facts. The principal fact in Africa 
as in Central America, is that all backward or newly-opened
up-countries are in need of capital, of money with which to 
develop their resources, improve their conditions of life and
rise to greatness in nationhood. In the course of time, the
white peoples of Northern and Western Europe and of North 
America have accumulated an enormous wealth in money, a 

JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY    169

monopoly, almost, of skill in machinery and an unconquerable
degree of energy in combating Nature and subduing
her to Man's will. They are prepared to place these
resources at the disposal of the backward peoples provided
they get reasonable security that their money will be safely
invested, their skill rewarded, and their energy prove profitable.
Under native governments, other than those of
Southern South America, and Eastern Asia, this security
is completely lacking. Therefore, Abyssinia is unable to
build railways, to develop her mines and her great vegetable
wealth; Afghanistan still remains semi-barbarous country,
scarcely emerged from the Middle Ages; Arabia is in a 
similar condition. Liberia was founded as a State only a
few years later than Sierra Leone or the Gold Coast. Yet, look
at the difference there is between the condition and realised
wealth of this West African Negro Republic and these two 
British West African States--States, not "colonies"--until
two or three years ago, when the United States tacitly put
her Liberian Protectorate into force.
  We ourselves--I used often to explain to native chiefs in
Central Africa--did not spring into the arena of nations as a 
fully armed, highly educated, independent power, generated
on our own soil by a simple evolution from the Neolithic
stock. We were moulded--and no doubt with much 
attendant suffering and unpleasant stimulation--by bronze
and iron-using Kelts, by the Romans, the North-west
Germans, the Danes and Norsemen, the Norman and
Angevin French, by Gascons and Flemings, Spaniards--
Portuguese even--French Huguenots and Hanoverian 
Germans. Our later music, our chemistry, our economic
botany, much of our religion, many of our industrial arts
came to us from Germany. We employed Germans in the
17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries to explore, enlarge, and even
to administer our unparalleled Empire. We have not been 
too proud to borrow and to learn and we are now eager to
repay and to teach. I cannot see, therefore, provided we 
govern justly and sympathetically, why any African people 
in the present condition of Africa should feel their nascent
sense of nationality offended by accepting our rule or our

172 JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY
But a hundred years after the Crucifixion we see the ethics
of the Gospels and Epistles overclouded with the superstitious
beliefs and fantastic theories of Asia Minor and
Pontus, Greece, and Italy, and further cumbered with an
irrelevant mass of Jewish legends. And this new kaleidoscopic
aspect of religion proceeds to break off continuity with
the classical world and to destroy all it can of the wisdom,
art, and knowledge of "pagan" Greece, Rome, Syria,
Babylonia, and Egypt.
Muhammad arises as a reformer, who revolts against the
barbarism and superstition of Arabia yet cannot accept the
monstrous Christianity of his day or the creed of the vagrant
Jews. He is in many ways a sound and instinctive
reformer, but is an ignorant, unlettered man. He joins to
his sound ethics and practical, though sometimes puerile,
reforms a certain amount of nonsensical theology, the
dreams and visions of an epilept, the religious jargon of
Persia, and the absurdities of the Jewish legends.
He regenerates, unifies, invigorates a people. They
become in many ways the better for his gospel, but they
fasten the absurdities of his beliefs and speculations on to the
Eastern world and cramp its mental development.
They - the executors of Muhammad - write and edit the
way that Christians - not Jews - have done with the Jewish
Scriptures: to oppose scientific research and human improvement,
to support slavery and a great many harmful practices,
including the abasement of women.
Above all, rancid Christianity - say, for an example, the
Christianity of Abyssinia and of sixteenth-, seventeenth-century
Spain - and post-Muhammad Islam have intensified
race feuds, have provoked crusades, have choked research,
buried or repudiates the past, sanctified ignorance, sloth,
dirt, disease, waste of time and idleness of effort.
And the result is that for three or four centuries Northern
and Western Europe and its great child in North America
have been fighting their way out of Religion and back to
elemental Christianity.
A somewhat similar process under different names has


THE AFRICA OF THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE 173
been going on in Japan. Thus strengthened, the White Man
of Europe and America has felt impelled to intervene in the
affairs of Africa and Southern Asia. In Africa more than in
Asia he finds Islam in an encrusted, degenerate Christianity
athwart his path: most of all, in Egypt, in Abyssinia, in
Morocco, and Tripoli. But for Islam and Spanish
Christianity of two and three hundred years ago (one of the
most horrible religions man ever invented), North Africa and
Europe would by now have been inseparable. There is no
racial reason why the Berbers of North Africa and the people
of Spain, Italy, France, and indeed all Western and
Southern Europe should not intermarry. But Christian
Europe has disdained the union and Islam has equally forbidden
the alliance. It has in preference promoted the
Negrification of all North African and of Arabia, to keep it
more aloof from its kindred human races of the northern
Mediterranean.
Yet we must remember in our survey of the religious
conquests of Africa that Christian missions have been the
means of slavery and elevating many a Negro tribe and
nation. They have indeed - as they did in South American,
even those very Spaniards who were so execrable with the
Holy Inquisition in Europe - stepped in to restrain the
triumphing, truculent White man from exterminating native
races that got in his way, or reducing them to grinding
slavery. Similarly, the traveller, merchant, administrator in
tropical Africa is often led to regard the progress of Islam
as a boon, especially if it be in East and Central Africa and
above all in West Africa. In the same way we unconsciously
favour the Muhammadan in India, in Malaysia, and
Ceylon, in Syria, Central Asia, China and Mesopotamia.
The religion is not so fanatical in these lands as it is in
Afghanistan, Kurdistan, Turkey, Persia, Morocco or Egypt;
the Muhammadans are more disposed to make common cause
with us in the pursuit of inquiry, in the practice of science.
They are businesslike, usually more honest than Christian
or pagan, truthful, brave, self-respecting, clean and
temperate.
If only we could be united as to ethics and agreed to differ



174                                  JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY

on theology, Africa and Asia and many parts of Europe would be far happier and much nearer to the Millennium.
   And now to resume and conclude or survey of what Africa may be like in the immediate future.
   Is the Egyptian Nationalist - often only a Turk in disguise - only to blame for the unrest in Egypt? No.  Though
the British occupation has conferred almost immeasurable benefits on the country, doubled its water supply'
and doubled its cultivable area and its population, secured rights and freedom to the humblest peasant, secured - or
nearly so - toleration and equality for the Copt as against his arrogant Muhammadan oppressors, restored the 
finances of Egypt, endowed it with colossal public works, increased its wealth fifty-fold, revealed its radiant and
wonderful pat; yet the mass of the Egyptians and more especially the educated even if mal-educated Egyptians
of the middle class, the town-dwellers, do not like us.  Why?  Solely because there seem to come or to be sent
to Egypt the most unlikeable of our great and less great men - with a few exceptions, of course.   The wonders,
the climate of Egypt have made the country fashionable, have attracted many of the favourites of our society,
the smartest of our regiments, the most eyeglassed and insolently, silently superior of our civil servants.  
Take one concrete instance to cover the lot; the late Earl of Cromer, a justly honoured fellow of this society and one
of the really great man of the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, a man to whom not only Egypt as a whole, but
Egyptian Nationalism owes so much that Egypt, without foreign contributions, should raise a commemorative statue
to him.
   Yet, Lord Cromer, by his manner of speaking, his unnecessary assumption of autocracy, his unconcealed contempt
for the poor worms - and they often were poor worms - that stood in his way and attempted to argue with him, 
made many enemies for the British regime.  Whereas a more courteous demeanour, a more sympathetic attitude
might have doubled the esteem to which his prescience, his ability, his incorruptibility entitled him.  It was 
characteristic of Lord Cromer that in spite of his long connection

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                                    THE AFRICA OF THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE                              175

with Egypt from the end of the 'seventies to 1906, he never learnt Arabic or Coptic; devoted himself instead with a
passionate ardour to the study of ancient and modern Greek, as though he thought the Semitic or Hamitic speech 
of the country he ruled beneath his notice.
   But Lord Cromer was, of course, only blunt, abrupt, dogmatic in his intercourse with educated and uneducated
Egyptians.  I have heard myself, between 1884 and 1901, other instances of really outrageous speech and breaches
of good manners as between British officers, officials and lesser officials and the Egyptians.  Apparently this tendency
persisted till quite recently, if it is extinct now; for I remember in 1910 Theodore Roosevelt telling me he had noticed and
regretted the same thing.
   There is no doubt that in most parts of Africa the British administrator, soldier-officer, and merchant is less popular
with the natives than are their French colleagues.  And I say this in full knowledge and recognition of the many noble
examples of philanthropy I have known or heard of among such men: men who have risked and sometimes lost their
lives for the native's cause; yet who - or whose colleagues - undid much of the devotion and gratitude their work should
have elicited by their disagreeable, arrogant manners and their lack of sympathy with native ways and speech.  Sometimes
it was only a smile that was lacking.  The French methods are often autocratic, selfishly regardant of France, but - it is 
difficult to translate "dam nigger' into French.
   One really bright spot - and it is a very large spot - is the present condition of the Belgian Congo, with every reason
to suppose that its present will be its future condition.  Here there are contented natives and here there is Free Trade
for every peaceful nation.
   In the Cameroons - supposing that the Paris partitions of Africa are fixed and permanent - we are faced by a small
stupidity in the defining of frontiers which may be the source of much future trouble and dissatisfaction.  Liverpool firms
which carry on a trade with the Cameroons River and the Duala people - and this trade is in some houses a matter of
fifty to sixty years old - are showing themselves very discon-

176 JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY
tented with the appointment of this former German
possession, a territory of nearly 200,000 square miles,
stretching from the Calabar or Cross River region on the
north-west and the French Gaboon on the south-west to Lake
Chad and the Upper Benue and southwards to the Equatorial
Congo.
The whole of the dissatisfaction is connected with the
bestowal of the "Duala" country and the lower course of the
Cameroons River on the French. This district amounts in
all to about 1,500 square miles, and its trade for years was
entirely British. Then two German firms established themselves
here, but never any French firm, down to the time of
writing.
A special British Consular jurisdiction was established
here in 1872. The decrees of the Consul and the maintenance
of order were enforced by British war vessels. The
British Baptist Mission meantime, from 1844 onwards, was
attending to the education of the natives, and already in the
'seventies their work showed surprising results. So pleased
were the Duala chiefs with this reign of order that in 1879
they petitioned Queen Victoria to annex their country and
govern it as Lagos and other West African settlements were
being governed. In 1882 and 1883 they renewed this
request. The Colonial Office approved, and so did the
Foreign Office; but in 1884 the late Lord Derby began his
characteristic dilly-dally policy, and whilst he was balancing
this and that Germany stepped in and seized the estuary of
the Cameroons River and the Duala country by force. The
Duala chiefs and people were eventually counselled by us
to accept the fait accompli and obey the Germans. The
British Baptist missionaries were expropriated by the
Germans, but in justice to the latter it must be admitted that
a Free Trade system was maintained, and the Liverpool firms
did not, once things had settled down, suffer in the least
from the establishment of the Germans in the Duala country.
The remarkable Duala people--one of the most intelligent
and progressive Bantu peoples in Central Africa--never
became reconciled to German rule. They stuck to English
as a trade language, and eventually, in order to administer

THE AFRICA OF THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE 177
the affairs of their country, the German authorities had to
admit the use of English to a great extent in their
transactions.
Then occurred the outbreak of war in 1914, and a few days
after war was declared several of the Duala chiefs and headmen
suffered for their pro-British sentiments by being
hanged out of hand. Then British ships, however, soon
came, and the Duala country rapidly passed into British
occupation. The Duala men enlisted by the thousand on the
British side in order to free their country from the hared
German. But when the Germans were finally expelled, to
their immense disgust the natives found Dualaland handed
over to the French to administer and apparently to hold as a
permanency. Liverpool is annoyed at this because the
Cameroons does not come within the Free Trade area of the
conventional Congo Basin, and consequently France may
extend to Dualaland her protectionist policy of the Gaboon
and eventually squeeze out foreign commerce with the
Cameroons River. But it is perhaps the Duala people themselves
who have been worst treated. They possessed exceptional
claims to have been consulted as to their political fate.
Sixty years' predilection for British methods of administration
and for the English language need not have been
ignored so cavalierly. There are many and vast areas of
formerly German Africa where it is impracticable to consult
the native tribes as to their wishes in regard to a protecting
or administering foreign Power, but Dualaland is on the
coast, within a few hours' telegraphic communication with
Great Britain. It is peopled by a very intelligent Negro
race quite able to express its wishes, even to put them into
good English. The total area of the land over which they
and their influence extend is only about 1,500 square miles
(its limits on the coast are between the Bimbia peninsula on
the north and the north bank of the Sanagá River on the
south), which is nothing compared with the total area of
"Kamerun." This is nearly 200,000 square miles, and
about nine-tenths of it has already been allotted to France.
In putting forward once more the claims of the Duala
people for a slight revision of the Cameroons' partition, so
VOL. XVIII.--NO. LXXI.             N

178     JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY

that they came under British rule (as do their immediate
neighbours to the north-west), and not under, French,
no reflection whatever is intended by me to be cast
on the character of French rule. It is probably as
good as British. It is quite conceivable in Congoland or
in Togoland that there might be native tribes or chiefs that
would greatly dislike being removed from French administration
and handed over to some form of British rule to
which they were not accustomed; or who, having already
taken to using Senegalese-Creole-French as a trading
language, would not relish having to use instead pidgin-
English. The inclusion of Dualand within the British
sphere could upset no previous French interest, investment,
or tradition, and it would eliminate a source of future trouble.
In compensation, some bend of the frontier elsewhere in the
large area of the Cameroons might be interpreted in favour of France.
  If the Colonial Office has shown itself indifferent to details
in the African settlement and neglectful both of British and
of Native interests in small matters, there is little to criticise
and much to praise in the way in which Downing Street
administers the British "Colonies" and Protectorates in
West, East, and Central Africa, north and south of the
Zambezi. The aggressiveness of the white settlers in East
Africa towards native rights in kept in check, yet those 
settlements, which are really conferring great benefits on
East Africa and on Nyasaland, are steadily prospering.
Nothing could be more satisfactory than the general situation
in Uganda, in Nigeria and on the West Coast of Africa,
where we are now definitely promised the removal of the last
blot on an intelligent administration, the traffic in distilled
alcohol.
  A new interest has been taken by a European Power in
the fate of Portuguese West Africa
  Portuguese East Africa, I might remark, is distinctly
looking up, and its government has greatly improved by
contact, ever growing closer, with the Governments of Natal,
Nyasaland, and Northern Rhodesia. But in place of the
German desire to help Portugal in the development of

THE AFRICA OF THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE    179

Angola stands forth Italy, or at least the new Imperial Party
in Italy.
  There has recently been published as part of the Italian
programme to be realised at or after the Peace Conference
the creation of Italian ports on the North-west and South
west Coasts of Africa whence Italy might carry on a closer 
intercourse with Eastern South America. Indeed, to facilitate
this movement in the direction of Argentina and the
Brazil, an Italian editor or society has proposed that we and
the French should cede to Italy not only access to Lake
Chad--a far from unreasonable idea--but a long lane
through the German Cameroons to the Atlantic Coast. Also
that Italy, while respecting with reverence the sovereignty
of Portugal in Angola should nevertheless help her in the
development of that territory.
  All Great Britain wishes well to Italy; but I fear the
realisation of the extreme demands of the Italian Imperial
party must be postponed indefinitely, at any rate till we see
what use Italy will make of her North and East African
positions and opportunities. We must sympathise with her
imperative need of tropical African produce, but the upholding
of Free Trade all over African commerce without the 
acquisition of wide-spread territorial rights.
  It is a great grief to the many true friends of Portugal in
this country that for the last nine years she should have been
racked and half ruined by revolutions, and that patriotism in
Portugal cannot rise superior to the desire for forcible
changes of rulers and ministries; but nevertheless Portuguese
changes of rulers and ministries; but nevertheless Portuguese
Africa has been making steady progress during the same
period. The principle of free and well-paid native labour
has gained the day. Those who-like most of the European
theorists--have not seen Angola are unaware of the degree
to which that large country has been civilised and developed
to which that large country has been civilised and developed
by Portugal in three centuries with some aid from Brazil.
Between Brazil and Great Britain, Portugal will find all the
help and advice she needs and yet will retain her Colony of
Angola, which is nearer to an actual colony than other
European possessions in Tropical Africa. At the same time
                                                                 N 2

180 JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY

if the Portuguese Government is wisely inspired it will
abolish its restrictions on foreign commerce in Portuguese
Africa (especially in Angola) and its system of differential
duties. Italy should be as free to seek her tropical
produce in Angola as Spain or any other European or
American Power. Italians were much associated with the
early Portuguese explorers of West Africa, Angola and
Congoland; and Italy's traffic with Portuguese West Africa
- or East Africa - should be sympathetically regarded in
Lisbon.

And now we come to the difficult problems of British
South Africa, the southernmost part of which as become
virtually an ally of Great Britan, a co-equal portion of the
British Empire, while the remainder of Trans-Zambezian
Africa is still ruled more or less directly from London, but
very much in consonance with the influence and interests
of the Union of South Africa.

It is regrettably evident that this nascent great Power,
this United States of South Africa, is not yet properly
equipped with knowledge of African peoples to fulfil safely
and satisfactorily its obvious destiny as the Ruler of a great
confederation of White and Black Sates between the Kunene
and Zambezi on the north and the Indiean Ocean on the
south. The ignorance of the Africa that liesbeyond the
Orange River and the Limpopo (and still more, north of the
Zambezi) on the part of White South Africa is to me
amazing. It reminds me of the ignorance of Central and
South America and the West Indies, of the Spanish and
Portuguese languages with prior to the rule of President
Roosevelt used to prevail in the United States but which has
now been turned from a negative into a very positive
character knowledge. White South Africa has of late
been drawn into Tropical Africa by the events of the recent
War, and the naivete of the remarks of even quite learned
people concerning the tribes and languages, fauna and flora
of Trans-Zambezian Africa, the discoveries they think they 
have made of things and theories which have been known in
Britain, France and Germany for twenty or fifty years would
be amusing if it did not render one impatient of South

THE AFRICA OF THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE 181

African isolation from the rest of Africa. The native races
and languages of Trans-Zambezian AFrica, all the climatic,
faunal, and floral problems of South Africa are intimately
related to the races, languages, history and natural history
of Africa between the tropics; even of the Africa of the
northern deserts, even to the North Africa of Palæolithic
times.

There were signs a few years ago that this reproach was
to be lifted from White South Africa ; there was to be established
at Cape Town a great White-South Africa cannot
yet tolerate the idea of a University open to coloured men
and women - a great White University ; and in this
IUniversity there were to be chairs for African science. Noteworty
among these was to have been a Chair, a Professorate
of the Bantu Languagues. This idea was received warmly
on this side, we welcomed it heartily as evidence that White
South Africa was at last going to take an interest in the
Africa of the Negro and the Negroid. But the Union
Government has for the present dropped the project.

Now I only lay stress on this because there await for
solution in Africa south of the Zambezi and the Kunene very
great and grave problems for solution ; especially that of the
rights, the position in the community of the coloured races,
the indigenes of that sub-Continent, over six millions in
number. The African Society might not voice the views of
sentimentalists who do not know Africa, but it would at any
rate plead that a solution of the Race question should be
furthered in this nascent nation of South Africa which did
not differ in fairness and fitness from that achieved - at last -
in the United States.

Neither in South Africa nor in Tropical Africa can the
White man dispense with the partnership of the Black, nor the
Black man make much progress without the proximity, the
example, the captial, science, and persistence of the
White. To what extent the Yellow and the Brown men
should be admitted to co-operation in African developments
must be a matter of grave consideration. They have vast
regions of Asia to colonise and exploit where they have little
or no competition with the White man. They have not the

182
JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY
White Man's claims to consideration in African enrichment 
based on his immense sacrifices of life, money, time and 
effort. They have not the claims of a native except where 
they have been long settled already, in North and North-east 
Africa. A few reckless theorists are disposed to hand over 
all German East Africa and much of British East Africa 
and Portuguese East Africa to India to colonise; forgetful 
of the fact that these African territories have already a fairly 
abundant, a tolerably intelligent, a certainly war-like population 
of their own: Negroes and Negroids. Yet, no doubt, 
even when the claims of White man and Black man are fully 
met there will be room in Africa for the Asiatic who can find 
no contentment in Asia.

But all the questions to which I have made allusion can 
only be settled equitably and conclusively by a thorough 
knowledge of Africa; and it was to effect this purpose that the 
African Society was founded. It has been in existence since 
1902; and its membership is now only six or seven hundred 
out of a British Empire in which some sixty millions are 
directly and vitally interested in Africa. Our statesmen in 
Britain and in South Africa still continue to make grievous 
mistakes in African politics and policy, our merchants still 
content themselves with a petty African business which, 
based on a better knowledge of Africa, might turn over 
millions of paper pounds; our public schools still placidly 
contemplate Africa as the chief field of employment for the 
more adventurous of their pupils, yet still teach them nothing 
about Africa; and those engaged in serious and disinterested 
African research work still remain the most respectable 
among our paupers.
H. H. JOHNSTON.

THE AFRICAN SOCIETY.
Telephone,
3814 Victoria.

64 Victoria Street, London, S.W.  I .

Past Presidents:
THE LATE RT. HON. LORD AVEBURY, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S.
THE RT. HON. SIR GEORGE T. GOLDIE, K.C.M.G., F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D.
THE LATE SIR CLEMENT HILL, K.C.B., K.C.M.G
THE RT. HON. LORD ISLINGTON, G.C.M.G., D.S.O
SIR HARRY H. JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., D.Sc.
THE LATE RT. HON. ALFRED LYTTELTON, K.C., M.P.
HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH, K.G.
LT. -COL. THE RT. HON. SIR MATTHEW NATHAN, G.C.M.G., R.E.
THE LATE RT. HON. THE EARL OF ONSLOW, G.C.M.G.
THE LATE MOST HON. THE MARQUIS OF RIPON, K.G.
J. CATHCART WASON, ESQ., M.P.

President:
SIR HARRY JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., D.Sc.

Vice-Presidents:
THE RT. HON. VISCOUNT BUXTON, G.C.M.G.
SIR HUGH CLIFFORD, K.C.M.G.
THE RT. HON. SIR GEORGE T. GOLDIE, K.C.M.G., F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D.
THE RT. HON. LORD ISLINGTON, G.C.M.G., D.S.O
MAJ.-GEN. SIR EDWARD NORTHEY, K.C.M.G., C.B.
THE RT. HON. SIR J. WEST RIDGEWAY, G.C.B., G.C.M.G.
THE EARL OF SCARBOROUGH, C.B.
THE RT. HON. W.P. SCHREINER, K.C., C.M.G.
SIR ALFRED SHARPE, K.C.M.G., C.B.
J. CATHCART WASON, ESQ., M.P.
HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF WESTMINSTER, D.S.O.
LIEUT.-GEN. SIR REGINALD WINGATE, G.C.V.O.

Members of Council:
J.W. Allen, ESQ.
PROF. HENRY BALFOUR, M.A.
SIR T.F. VICTOR BUXTON, BART.
SIR GEORGE DENTON, K.C.M.G.
SIR WALTER EGERTON, K.C.M.G.
SIR WILLIAM GARSTIN, G.C.M.G.
MAJOR SYDNEY GOLDMAN, M.P.
SIR W BRANDFORD GRIFFITH.
D.O. MALCOLM, ESQ.
G.W. NEVILLE, ESQ.
SIR OWEN PHILIPPS, G.C.M.G., M.P.
COL. H.E. RAWSON, C.B., R.E.
SIR J. HAYES SADLER, K.C.M.G., C.B.
CAPT. FREDERIC SHELFORD, B.SC.,
 M.INST.C.E.
SIR HERBERT C. SLOLEY, K.C.M.G.
F. SWANZY, ESQ.
HENRY S. WELLCOME, ESQ.
SIR HARRY WILSON, K.C.M.G.

Honorary Treasurer:
ARTHUR H. LORING, ESQ.

Honorary Auditors:
Messrs. DELOITTE, PLENDER, GRIFFITHS & Co.

Secretary and Offices:
H. D'Egville, 64 Victoria Street, London, S.W. I.

Bankers:
LONDON COUNTY WESTMINSTER & PARR'S BANK LTD.



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