Slavery and Morality.

Manawatu Herald, 2 April 1903, Page 2

Slavery and Morality.

EXPERIENCES AT ZAMZIBAR. In a Parliamentary paper sad revelations are made as to the results of the decree for the abolition of slavery in Zanzibar and Pemba, In the past five years 13,264 slaves have received their freedom, but there was a marked falling off in the applications last year. Mr Basil S Cave reports to Lord Lansdowne that if the conditions were abnormal in the event, for instance, of a partial or total failure of the clove crop, the courts would probably be kept busily employed, but in the absence of any such adventitious circumstances the process of emancipation will continue to be a gradual one, and domestic slavery will only be abolished with the end of the present generation. It will however, die a peaceful as-'well as a lingering and its last hours will not be attended by the fiscal and economic disturbances which would inevitably have followed the adoption of more drastic and more inconsiderate measures.

Commenting on the figures as to crime and vagrancy, Mr Cave states that the reduction in the number of vagrancy cases in Pemba shows that every effort is being made to provide respectable employment for the freed slaves, but, under, the existing conditions, it is impossible to prevent then from embarking, if they are so minded, on a career of: idleness and vice, “ They can- be punished for their self-indulgence, but prevention is better than cure, and I venture to think that to make the grant of freedom conditional on the possession by the applicant of an honest intention to be a respectable member of society would, whilst in no. wise affecting the successful operation of the decree, exercise a beneficial influence on the morality of those individuals in whose interests that measure was adopted. And especially is this the case with the women.” In a "telegram' which Mr Cave addressed to Lord Laasdowne on

19th April; 1901, he made the “ astounding statement,” as it had been described, that nearly every unmarried native woman in Pemba had become a prostitute since the abolition, of the legal status of slavery. He now adds that the statement receives very strong, corroboration from Mr Farler in hia report on slavery in the past year, and he fears that it is literally true.

“ Amongst the lower class Africans,” he adds, “ voluntary morality isa virtue almost unknown ; in the old days, before the abolition of the legal status of slavery, any laxity In this respect on the part . of the female slaves of the houses or harem was severely punished, and chastity was, to a certain degree, compulsory j but now, when every Arab master or mistress is well aware that any severity or restraxnment will be met by an immediate application to the courts, domestic slaves are as free as their emancipated sisters to follow their own inclinations.”