National to International Effort page 2

The Convention contains twelve articles under which Slavery and the Slave Trade are both defined. Article 5, which deals with certain forms of forced labour, is new in international treaties and places a responsibility upon the parties to restrict and ultimately to abolish several forms of forced labour; in particular it prohibits the imposition of forced labour for private profit. The remaining articles set forth the steps to be taken by the Powers signatory to the Convention to bring to an end slavery in its different forms.

Sir Austen Chamberlain and Lord Cecil made a considerable effort to secure in this connection more definite obligations with regard to the trading in slaves, more particularly with a view to treating the Slave Trade as piracy. The British attitude upon this feature of the Slave Trade is set forth in one of the most courageous documents ever issued by the Foreign Office. Sir Austen Chamberlain's despatch to Sir Eric Drummond was sent in May, 1926, in the hope that the proposal would be adopted in the following September.

Sir Austen Chamberlain suggested an addition to the Convention in order to deal with slave-trading as piracy. The addition which he suggested was that Article 3 of the Convention should be amended by the insertion of the words: The act of conveying slaves on the high seas shall be deemed as between the high contracting parties to be the equivalent of an act of piracy and the public ships of the signatory-States shall have the same rights in relation to vessels and persons engaged in such act as in relation to vessels and persons engaged in piracy.

Sir Austen Chamberlain in making this suggestion set forth very clearly the historic British position - namely, that certain crimes are regarded as being crimes against the human race and that the British Government considered that there was a general consensus of opinion in all civilised States that the Slave Trade constituted a crime of this nature. Sir Austen proceeded to declare that the British Government did not believe that at this date any civilised country would wish to challenge that opinion. It followed therefore, from the British point of view, that the slave trade by sea should be regarded as falling within the same category of crime as piracy.

There was no hesitation on the part of Sir Austen Chamberlain in making clear exactly what this would mean, and in a despatch to Sir Eric Drummond he pointed out that according to Oppenheim a pirate was considered an outlaw who would lose the protection of his home State and thereby his national character and would be considered an enemy of every State, exposed to the machinery of justice anywhere in the world. This has always meant that the pirate could be promptly hanged or drowned and his cargo confiscated.

Lord Cecil was unable to carry this proposal, owing very largely to the combined opposition of France, Italy and Portugal. All that he could do was to get incorporated in the Convention an obligation to consider the matter at a later date.

The Convention has been signed and ratified by some forty States. But it is one thing to draft, sign and ratify a Convention and it is quite another thing to get its provisions loyally carried out. The Convention had one grave defect in that no machinery was provided to watch over its practical application; moreover, as the Expert Commission pointed out, even the provision that documents relating to slavery should be forwarded to the League had never been carried out by many of the signatories - notably those in whose territories slavery in one or another of its many forms still exists over wide areas.

It was again left to Great Britain to make proposals to deal with this defect.

Lord Cecil when a member of the British Delegation at Geneva was instructed to propose that a Permanent Anti-Slavery Commission should be appointed. In the result the best that could be done was to get the matter adjourned for a year. The same thing happened in 1930. Again that great hindrance to all international progress, the spirit of nationalism, succeeded in putting off the British suggestion. However, Lord Lytton, who was the British Government's representative in 1931, succeeded in getting the Assembly to agree to the temporary re-appointment of the former Commission to enquire what progress was being made, and the British Government was able to secure the insertion of an instruction to report what changes in the machinery of the League were desirable to assist in abolishing slavery. Accordingly, the Temporary Commission resumed its sittings, and thanks to the efforts of M. Gohr and Lord Lugard, produced a most interesting report on the general question and particularly recommended the creation of a Permanent Anti-Slavery Commission of the League.

After ten years of enquiry and discussion by the League of Nations the British proposals have now been adopted. The League, by its resolution in the Assembly of 1932, formally committed itself to the creation of machinery to bring about the 'suppressior of slavery in all its forms' throughout the world.

The actual work is to be undertaken by the Secretariat of the League. The first step will be the appointment of seven expert advisers to assist the Council of the League. These are to be permanent appointments in the sense that the members will be appointed for an indefinite period, and will meet every second year. The Commission will 'cease to exist as soon as the results anticipated in the campaign against slavery had been, or were on the point of being, attained.'

The reference under which the Slavery Commission and Secretariat will work is as wide as the most ardent abolitionist could wish it to be. At the Conference of Versailles the Berlin and Brussels Acts were merged into the Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, and in this instrument the signatory Powers committed themselves to the 'suppression of slavery in all its forms.' Following upon the Steel-Maitland resolution of 1922, the League Council set up the Temporary Slavery Commission, part of whose duty it was to give a practical interpretation to the term 'slavery in all its forms.'

The interpretation then formulated has provided the basis of all League work since 1926. The Temporary Slavery Commission appointed in 1931 accepted the same interpretation of the reference as had been adopted by the former Slavery Commission. This interpretation has been divided into seven main categories - legal status of slaves, slave-raiding and similar acts, slave-trading, slave-dealing (including exchange, sale, gift, inheritance), practices restrictive of the liberty of the person, domestic or predial slavery, and transition from servile labour to free wage labour.

The task to which the League of Nations and, in this instance, the United States, have committed themselves is far more complex and in many ways more difficult than that which confronted Great Britain a hundred years ago. It took first Wilberforce and then Buxton forty-six years in all to bring the British Parliament to a decision, but that decision once taken (by the Act of 1833) Emancipation came into force only one year later. It has taken only ten years to bring the League of Nations to agree to attempt world abolition and emancipation, but he would be a bold man who would predict how many years it will take to carry through the programme envisaged by the League of Nations.

Sir John Simon has recently said of the League decision: To-day a new and greater Parliament of the world is trying to make the new international spirit the effective motive force for world reform. Can it do on the greater stage of the world something which corresponds to what was done in our own national life by Wilberforce and his friends? It will be an immense achievement and the most significant indication of the reality of this new international world order. It is in the nature of things an infinitely more difficult task than our national task ever was, because what was done 100 years ago was done after a crusade of a generation. It had the law behind it and therefore there was a considerable prospect of making it effective. The difficulty at Geneva is that general resolutions and aspirations, which I will not call pious, are so much more difficult to make effective. One of the great tests of the usefulness of Geneva will be whether the nations will or will not be able to see something real done in the next few years for the abolition of slavery from the world.

This was no idle warning by Sir John Simon. Whether or not the League will respond effectively to his challenge will depend upon two factors: public opinion in all countries and moral leadership at Geneva.

The League is a great institution, the one good thing which has emerged from the miseries of the Great War. But if there had been no Nansen, no Gohr, and above all, no Cecil, it is more than doubtful whether the League would have set itself the task of abolishing slavery throughout the world.

After a struggle lasting over a hundred years the nations of the world now possess an international treaty and an international instrument equipped for the great task of securing the total abolition of slavery in all its forms. But the machine can only function at its full capacity if it is sustained by an international conscience, vocal in every country attached to the League of Nations. Lady Simon spoke no truer word than when she proclaimed: The fight calls for all our energies, and there is but one weapon to hand. That weapon is Public Opinion - at once the weakest and the strongest weapon in the cause of human progress: weak when dormant, but invincible when once roused to the pitch of zealous indignation.

The official organ of the League of Nations - i.e. the Expert Committee on Slavery - is also emphatic as to the essential services of public opinion, for in recommending the creation of permanent machinery their Report states that ' the mere existence of such a Commission would enlighten world public opinion as to the position in regard to slavery in the world, and would foster the growth of a movement of opinion which must be expected to produce favourable results for the disappearance of slavery in all its forms.'

In the section covering 'suggestions' for the abolition of slavery the League Committee again places in the forefront the value of public opinion: it is certain that, if public opinion in all countries paid constant attention to the slavery question, the Abyssinian people would realise that no country can be regarded as fully civilized while it continues to tolerate slavery.

Hundreds of thousands of freed slaves alive and happy at this very moment owe their liberty to present-day public opinion. It is often overlooked that nearly 500,000 slaves have been set free within the last twenty years - and set free by public opinion.

The Maharajah of Nepal, in his great Emancipation Speech of 1924 at Khatmandu, supported his eloquent plea for the liberation of slaves by a powerful array of figures, incidents and arguments, and amongst the latter he used that of public opinion. 'The enlightened opinion of the civilized world with whom we are coming into more intimate contact now, is pressing on us with all its moral force' - and 58,000 slaves were set free.

In the Sierra Leone Protectorate there had existed in slavery more than 200,000 slaves for generations; the lack of public opinion was responsible for its continuance, for without it the Governor could not secure abolition. Sir Ransford Slater, always anxious to abolish slavery, said in one of his reports: 'there is a total absence of any "public opinion" in Sierra Leone adverse to the system. Churches and Missions abound in Sierra Leone, but I have received no word from them on the subject, nor can I find any record of any representation from them to any of my predecessors.' (Sessional Paper No. 5 of 1926.)

The startling incident which shook public opinion out of its lethargy arose from an Appeal Case in Sierra Leone. Two slaves in the Protectorate had run away, had been pursued and retaken by their masters, who in turn were prosecuted for assault and defended themselves on the ground that they had merely exercised a reasonable degree of force to recover their property, and that since slavery was legal in the Protectorate of Sierra Leone they were justified in recapturing their property.

The Judges of the Supreme Court were Mr. Justice Petrides, Mr. Justice Sawrey-Cookson and Mr. Justice Aitken, who by a majority of two to one upheld the case of the masters. The essential passages in the long judgment pronounced by Mr. Justice Sawrey-Cookson are: 'Here then we have the clearest possible recognition of a slave who is owned much as a chattel can be owned, and it must logically result that there is a right to follow and regain by use of any lawful means the rights of ownership in and possession of the property of which he has been deprived by the absconding of his slave... until the Legislature makes it perfectly clear that no such right to retake is to be recognised, I cannot find that the law as it stands at present denied that right to the slave-owner in the Protectorate.'

The arrival in England of the full text of the judgment created consternation in the Press and in the legal world. Sir John Simon drew public attention to the judgment in a letter to The Times, and The Times, the Manchester Guardian and most of the daily papers of the United Kingdom published the judgment almost in full. Whilst successive Secretaries of State had for years known of the situation in the Protectorate and had made some feeble attempts to reform it, nothing effectual was done until the Press had created the impelling force of public opinion.

To Mr. Amery belongs the credit for having at once taken vigorous action. He informed the Governor that it was impossible for him as Colonial Secretary to defend the position in Sierra Leone, and a few days later advised the Governor to call a special session of the Legislature in order that legislation might be passed rapidly through the local council - and 214,000 slaves were set free in Sierra Leone Protectorate on January 1, 1924.

Sir Harcourt Butler was the Emancipator of the slaves in Burma, but again it was only possible for him to carry through the work because public opinion was behind him.