registered the "serviçaes," or native contract labourers, had a direct
pecuniary interest in the matter, and were "thus exposed to the
temptation of not scrutinising too closely the genuineness of the
contracts themselves, or the extent to which they were understood and
accepted by savage or semi-savage contracting parties." In other words,
the Portuguese officials employed in registration, far from having any
inducements offered to them to protect the labourers, were strongly
tempted to engage in what, brushing aside official euphemism, may with
greater accuracy be termed the slave trade pure and simple. It seems
that this practice is now to be altered. The registration fees are no
longer to go into the pockets of the registering officials, but are to
be paid into the Provincial Treasury. The change is unquestionably for
the better. But it is impossible in this connection not to be struck by
the somewhat curious standard of official discipline and morality which
appears to exist in the Portuguese service. Colonel Freire d'Andrade
told Sir Arthur Hardinge that "he knew of one case where £1,000 had been
made over a single contract for 'serviçaes' in this way by a local
official who had winked, in this connection, at some dishonest or, at
least, highly doubtful transactions, and who had been censured and
obliged to refund the money." As in the case of the Europeans found
guilty of engaging in the slave trade, the punishment awarded appears to
be somewhat disproportionate to the gravity of the offence. One would
have thought that peculation of this description would have been visited
at least with dismissal, if not with a short sojourn in the Loanda gaol.
Colonel Freire d'Andrade further states that "the Lisbon Colonial
Office had sent out very stringent orders to the Governor-General of
Angola to put a stop once and for all to these slavery operations. New
military outposts had now been created near the northern and eastern
frontiers of the province." It is to be hoped that these orders will be
obeyed, and that they will prove effectual to attain the object in view.
On the whole, in spite of some features in the case which would appear
to justify friendly criticism, it would seem that the Portuguese
Government are really endeavouring to suppress the trade in slaves. All
that the British Government can do is to afford them whatever assistance
is possible in British territory, and to encourage them in bold and
strenuous action against the influential opposition whose enmity has
necessarily been evoked.
Turning now to the question of whether slavery--as distinct from the
slave trade--still exists in Portuguese West Africa, it is to be
observed that it is essential to inquire thoroughly into this question
for the reason already given, viz. that before considering what remedies
should be applied it is very necessary that the true nature of the evil
should be recognised. On this point there is a direct conflict of
opinion. The Anti-Slavery Society maintain that the present system of
contract labourers ('serviçaes') is merely another name for slavery,
and as one proof of the wide discrepancy between theory and practice
they point to the fact that whereas there can be no manner of doubt that
undisguised slavery existed until only recently, it was nominally
abolished by law so long ago as 1876. On the other hand, to quote the
words of Mr. Smallbones, the British Consul at Loanda, the Portuguese
Government, whose views on this matter appear to have been received with
a certain amount of qualified acceptance by the British Foreign Office,
"consistently deny" the existence of a state of slavery.
The whole controversy really hangs on what is meant by the word
"slavery." In this, as in so many cases, it is easier to say what the
thing is not than to embrace in one short sentence an accurate and
sufficiently wide explanation of what it is. _Definitio est negatio._ De
Brunetière said that, after fifty years of discussion, it was impossible
to define romanticism. Half a century or more ago, a talented German
writer (Hackländer) wrote a book entitled _European Slave-life_, in
which he attempted to show that, without knowing it, we were all slaves
one of another, and, in fact, that the artisan working in a cotton
factory or the sempstress employed in a milliner's shop was as truly in
a state of slavery as the negro who at that time was working in the
fields of Georgia or Carolina. In a sense, of course, it may be said
that every one who works for his living, from a Cabinet Minister to a
crossing-sweeper, is a slave, for he has to conform to certain rules,
and unless he works he will be deprived of many advantages which he
wishes to acquire, and may even be reduced to a state of starvation. But
speculations of this sort may be left to the philosopher and the
sociologist. They have little interest for the practical politician. Sir
Edward Grey endeavoured, for the purposes of the subject now under
discussion, to define slavery. "Voluntary engagement," he said, "is not
slavery, but forcible engagement is slavery." The definition is correct
as far as it goes, but it is incomplete, for it fails to answer the
question on which a great part of this Portuguese controversy hangs,
viz. what do the words "voluntary" and "forcible" mean? The truth is
that it is quite unnecessary, in dealing with this subject, to wander
off into a field strewn with dialectical subtleties. It may not be
possible to define slavery with the same mathematical precision which
Euclid gave to his definitions of a straight line or a point, but every
man of ordinary common sense knows the difference between slavery and
freedom in the usual acceptation of those terms. He knows well enough
that however much want or the force of circumstances may oblige an
Englishman, a Frenchman, or a German to accept hard conditions in
fixing the price at which he is prepared to sell his labour or his
services, none of these individuals is, in reality, a slave; and he has
only to inquire very cursorily into the subject to satisfy himself that
the relations between employer and employed in Portuguese West Africa
differ widely from those which exist in any European country, and are in
fact far more akin to what, in the general acceptance of the word, is
termed slavery.
Broadly speaking, it may be said that the contention that the present
system of contract labour is merely slavery in disguise rests on three
pleas, viz. (1) that even if, as was often the case, the contract
labourers now actually serving were not forcibly recruited, they were
very frequently wholly unaware of the true nature of the engagements
which they had taken, or of the conditions under which they would be
called upon to serve; (2) that not only are they unable to terminate
their contracts if they find they have been deceived, but that even on
the termination of those contracts they are not free to leave their
employers; and (3) that, even when nominal freedom is conceded, they
cannot take advantage of it, for the reason that the employers or their
Government have virtually by their own acts created a state of things
which only leaves the slaves to choose between the alternative of
continuing in a state of servitude or undergoing extreme suffering,
ending not improbably in death. It is submitted that, if these three
propositions can be proved, it is mere juggling with words to maintain
that no state of slavery exists.
As regards the first point, it is to be observed that when the superior
intelligence and education of the recruiting agents are contrasted with
the complete savagery and ignorance of the individuals recruited, there
is obviously a strong presumption that in numberless cases the latter
have been cozened into making contracts, the nature of which they did
not in the least understand, and this presumption may almost be said to
harden into certainty when the fact, to which allusion has already been
made, is remembered, that the Portuguese officials engaged in the
registration of contract labourers had until very recently a direct
pecuniary interest in augmenting the number of labourers. Further, Mr.
Smallbones, writing on September 26, 1912, alludes to a letter signed
"Carlos de Silva," which appeared in a local paper termed the
_Independente_. M. de Silva says that the "serviçaes" engaged in Novo
Redondo "all answered the interpreter's question whether they were
willing to go to San Thomé with a decided 'No,' which was translated by
the interpreter as signifying their utmost willingness to be embarked."
If this statement is correct, it is in itself almost sufficient to
satisfy the most severe condemnation of the whole system heretofore
adopted. It is, indeed, impossible to read the evidence adduced in the
White Paper without coming to the conclusion that, whatever may be the
case at present, the system of recruiting in the past has not differed
materially from the slave trade. If this be the case, it is clear that,
in spite of any legal technicalities to the contrary, the great majority
of labourers now serving under contract in the islands should, for all
purposes of repatriation and the acquisition of freedom, be placed on a
precisely similar footing to those whose contracts have expired. There
can be no moral justification whatever for taking advantage of the
engagements into which they may have entered to keep them in what is
practically a condition of servitude.
Recently, certain improvements appeared to have been made in the system
of recruiting. Mr. Smallbones states his "impression that the present
Governor-General will do all in his power to put the recruiting of
native labour on a sound footing." Moreover, that some change has taken
place, and that the labourers are alive to the fact that they have
certain rights, would appear evident from the fact that Vice-Consul
Fussell, writing from Lobito on September 15, 1912, reports that "the
authorities appear unable to oblige natives to contract themselves." It
is not, however, clear that all the changes are in the right direction.
Formerly, M. Carlos de Silva says, "There was at least a slight
guarantee that 'serviçaes' were not shipped against their wishes in the
fact that they had to contract in the presence of a curator in this
(_i.e._ the Angola) colony." Now this guarantee has been removed. The
contracts may be made in San Thomé before the local guardian, and Mr.
Smallbones, although he is, without doubt, quite right in thinking that
"the best guarantee against abuses will lie in the choice of the
recruiting officials, and the way in which their operations are
controlled," adds the somewhat ominous remark that the object of the
change has been to "override the refusal of a curator in Angola to
contract certain 'serviçaes' should the Governor-General consider that
refusal unreasonable or inexpedient." Sir Edward Grey very naturally
drew attention to this point. "It is obvious," he wrote to Sir Arthur
Hardinge, "that a labourer once in San Thomé can be much more easily
coerced into accepting his lot than if the contract is publicly made in
Angola before he leaves the mainland." It cannot be said that the answer
he received from M. Texeira Gomes was altogether complete or
satisfactory. All the latter would say was that Colonel Wyllie, who had
lately returned from San Thomé, had never heard of any case of a
labourer signing a contract after he had arrived in the island.
All, therefore, that can at present be said on this branch of the
question is that the evils of the recruiting system which has been so
far adopted are abundantly clear, that the Portuguese Government is
endeavouring to improve that system, but that it would as yet be
premature to pronounce any opinion on the results which are likely to be
obtained.
The next point to be considered is the position of the contract labourer
on the expiry of his contract. That position is very strikingly
illustrated by an incident which Mr. Smallbones relates in a despatch
dated September 23, 1912. It appears that towards the end of last August
the Governor-General visited an important plantation on which seven
hundred labourers are employed. The contracts of these men had expired.
They asked to be allowed to leave the plantation. They were not
permitted to do so. "Thirteen soldiers were sent from Loanda to
intimidate them, and they returned to work." They were then forced to
recontract. Mr. Smallbones very rightly pointed out to the
Governor-General the illegality of this proceeding. "His Excellency,"
he says, "admitted my contention, but remarked that in the present state
of the labour supply such scrupulous observance of the regulations would
entail the entire stoppage of a large plantation, for which he could not
be responsible." Mr. Smallbones adds the following comment: "I have
ventured to relate this incident, because it shows the difficulties of
the situation. The plantation on which it occurred is very well managed,
and the labourers are very well treated there. Yet it has failed to make
the conditions of labour attractive to the natives. And as long as the
Government are unable to force a supply of labour according to the
regulations, they will have to tolerate or even practise irregularities
in order to safeguard the property and interests of the employers."
There need be no hesitation in recognising "the difficulties of the
situation." They are unquestionably very real. But how does the incident
related by Mr. Smallbones bear on the contention of the Portuguese
Government that no state of slavery exists? In truth, it shatters to
fragments the whole of their argument. As has been already mentioned,
Sir Edward Grey defined "forcible engagement" as "slavery." Can it be
for one moment contended that the engagement of these seven hundred men
was voluntary and not forcible? Obviously not. Therefore slavery still
exists, or at all events existed so late as August 1912.
The third point to be considered is whether the liberated slave is
practically able to take advantage of the freedom which has been
conferred on him. Assuredly, he cannot do so. Consider what the position
of these men is. They, or their parents before them, have in numerous
instances been forcibly removed from their homes, which often lie at a
great distance from the spot where they are liberated. They are
apparently asked to contribute out of their wages to a repatriation
fund. Why should they do so? They were, in a great many, probably in a
majority of cases, expatriated either against their will or without
really understanding what they were doing. Why should they pay for
repatriation? The responsibility of the Portuguese does not end when the
men have been paid their wages and are set free. Neither can it be for
one moment admitted that that responsibility is limited, as the
Governor-General would appear to maintain in a Memorandum communicated
to Mr. Smallbones on October 25, 1912, merely to seeing that repatriated
slaves disembarked on the mainland "shall be protected against the
effects of the change of climate, and principally against themselves."
No one will expect the Portuguese Government to perform the impossible,
but it is clear that, unless the institution of slavery itself is
considered justifiable, the slaves have a right to be placed by the
Portuguese Government and nation in precisely the same position as they
would have occupied had they never been led into slavery. Apart from the
impossibility, it may, on several grounds, be undesirable to seek to
attain this ideal, but that is no reason why the validity of the moral
claim should not be recognised. In many cases it is abundantly clear
that to speak of a slave liberated at San Thomé being really a free man
in the sense in which that word is generally understood, is merely an
abuse of terms. The only freedom he possesses is that created for him by
his employers. It consists of being able to wander aimlessly about the
African mainland at the imminent risk of starvation, or of being robbed
of whatever miserable pittance may have been served out to him. For
these reasons it is maintained that the starting-point for any further
discussion on this question is that the plea that slavery no longer
exists in the West African dominions of Portugal is altogether
untenable. It still exists, though under another name. There remains the
question of how its existence can be terminated.
The writer of the present article would be the last to underrate the
enormous practical difficulties to be encountered in dealing
effectively with this question. His own experience in cognate matters
enables him in some degree to recognise the nature of those
difficulties. When the _corvée_ system was abolished in Egypt, the
question which really confronted the Government of that country was how
the whole of a very backward population, the vast majority of whom had
for centuries been in reality, though not nominally, slaves, could be
made to understand that, although they would not be flogged if they did
not clear out the mud from the canals on which the irrigation of their
fields depended, they would run an imminent risk of starvation unless
they voluntarily accepted payment for performing that service. The
difficulties were enhanced owing to the facts that the country was in a
state of quasi-bankruptcy, and the political situation was in the
highest degree complicated and bewildering. Nevertheless, after a period
of transition, which, it must be admitted, was somewhat agonising, the
problem was solved, but it was only thoroughly solved after a struggle
which lasted for some years. It is a vivid recollection of the arduous
nature of that struggle that induces the writer of the present article
so far to plead the cause of the Portuguese Government as to urge that,
if once it can be fully established that they are moving steadily but
strenuously in the right direction, no excessive amount of impatience
should be shown if the results obtained do not immediately answer all
the expectations of those who wish to witness the complete abolition of
the hateful system under which the cultivation of cocoa in the West
African Islands has hitherto been conducted. The financial interests
involved are important, and deserve a certain, albeit a limited, amount
of consideration. There need be no hesitation whatever in pressing for
the adoption of measures which may result in diminishing the profits of
the cocoa proprietors and possibly increasing the price paid by the
consumers of cocoa. Indeed, there would be nothing unreasonable in
arguing that the output of cocoa, worth £2,000,000 a year, had much
better be lost to the world altogether rather than that the life of the
present vicious system should be prolonged. But even if it were
desirable--which is probably not the case--it is certainly impossible to
take all the thirty thousand men now employed in the islands and
suddenly transport them elsewhere. It would be Utopian to expect that
the Portuguese Government, in the face of the vehement opposition which
they would certainly have to encounter, would consent to the adoption of
any such heroic measure. As practical men we must, whilst acknowledging
the highly regrettable nature of the facts, accept them as they stand.
Slight importance can, indeed, be attached to the argument put forward
by one of the British Consular authorities, that "the native lives under
far better conditions in San Thomé than in his own country." It is
somewhat too much akin to the plea advanced by ardent fox-hunters that
the fox enjoys the sport of being hunted. Neither, although it is
satisfactory to learn that the slaves are now generally well treated,
does this fact in itself constitute any justification for slavery. The
system must disappear, and the main question is to devise some other
less objectionable system to take its place.
There are two radical solutions of this problem. One is to abandon
cocoa-growing altogether, at all events in the island of Principe, a
part of which is infected with sleeping-sickness, and to start the
industry afresh elsewhere. The other is to substitute free for slave
labour in the islands themselves. Both plans are discussed in
Lieutenant-Colonel Wyllie's very able report addressed to the Foreign
Office on December 8, 1912. This report is, indeed, one of the most
valuable contributions to the literature on this subject which have yet
appeared. Colonel Wyllie has evidently gone thoroughly into the matter,
and, moreover, appears to realise the fact, which all experience
teaches, that slavery is as indefensible from an economic as it is from
a moral point of view. Free labour, when it can be obtained, is far
less expensive than slave labour.
Colonel Wyllie suggests that the Principe planters should abandon their
present plantations and receive "free grants of land in the fertile and
populous colony of Portuguese Guinea, the soil of which is reported by
all competent authorities to be better suited to cacao-growing than even
that of San Thomé itself, and certainly far superior to that of
Principe. Guinea has from time to time supplied labour to these islands,
so that the besetting trouble of the latter is nonexistent there." He
adds: "I am decidedly of opinion that some such scheme as this is the
only cure for the blight that has fallen on the island of Principe." It
would require greater local knowledge than any to which the writer of
the present article can pretend to discuss the merits of this proposal,
but at first sight it would certainly appear to deserve full and careful
consideration.
But as regards San Thomé, which is by far the larger and more important
of the two islands, it would appear that the importation of free labour
is not only the best, but, indeed, the only really possible solution of
the whole problem. It may be suggested that, without by any means
neglecting other points, such as the repatriation of men now serving,
the efforts both of the Portuguese Government and of all others
interested in the question should be mainly centred on this issue.
Something has been already done in this direction, Mr. Harris, writing
in the _Contemporary Review_ of May 1912, said: "Mozambique labour was
tried in 1908, and this experiment is proving, for the time, so
successful, that many planters look to the East rather than West Africa
for their future supply. All available evidence appears to prove that
Cabinda, Cape Verde, and Mozambique labour is, so far as contract labour
goes, fairly recruited and honestly treated as 'free labour.'" It is an
encouraging sign that a Portuguese Company has been formed whose object
is "to recruit free, paid labourers, natives of the provinces of Angola,
Mozambique, Cape Verde, and Guinea." Moreover, the following passage
from Colonel Wyllie's report deserves very special attention:
"Several San Thomé planters," he says, "realising the advantage of
having a more intelligent and industrious labourer than the
Angolan, have signed contracts with an English Company trading in
Liberia for the supply of labour from Cape Palmas and its
hinterland, on terms to which no exception can be taken from any
point of view. Two, if not by now three, batches of Liberians have
arrived at San Thomé and have been placed on estates for work. The
Company has posted an English agent there to act as curador to the
men, banking their money, arranging their home remittances, and
mediating in any disputes arising between them and their
employers. The system works wonderfully well, giving satisfaction
both to the masters and to the men, the latter being as pleased
with their treatment as the former are with their physique and
intelligence. There is every prospect of the arrangement being
developed to the extent of enabling Angolan labour to be
permanently dispensed with, and possibly superseding Mozambique
importations as well."