SLAVES ON THE GOLD COAST.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 290, 17 May 1875, Page 3

SLAVES ON THE GOLD COAST.

It appears that slaves on the Gold Coast, like slaves in India, prefer to be free. Consequently, when told by Governor Ftrahan, with the consent of the native chiefs, that they were free to go, a good many of them went. The chiefs thought this very inconvenient, and have accordingly, in a petition to the Queen, obviously manufactured by Europeans, requested that slaves shall be free only when cruelty can be proved against their masters. They say that consent to Governor Strahan's plan was wrung from them, that their plantations are being deserted,'and that the slaves will all turn highwaymen. In fact, the regular slave-owner’s arguments are all, reproduced, and we only wonder that the chiefs did not add that the negro race is visibly, and by the law of nature, unfitted for freedom, and offer to go into slavery themselves. It is quite impossible, of course, for the Government to recede in any way whatever from a policy whole success proves how necessary it was, and how false was the old argument that slaves on the Gold Coast cordially approved the institution. The chiefs must put up with freedom, and congratulate themselves that they are not carrying Ashantee litters, as but for the British Government would have been the case. As to disturbancesarising from emancipation, they are most improbable, but if they occur Governor Strahau has only to make emancipation absolute, on condition of each freed man doing soldier's service for six months if called upon,