FREEING SLAVES

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 305, 9 December 1936, Page 7

FREEING SLAVES

STEPS ITALY MUST TAKE. HIGH COST OF EMANCIPATION. Sir John Harris, secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, in a letter to the Times, says: ‘‘Every lover of human liberty’will welcome Hie proclamation made by Marshal Badoglio abolishing slavery throughout the Tigre, Arnhaia, and Gojjani Provinces of Abyssinia. It it unfortunate, however, that nothing has been published by the Italian Government upon the action to be taken to give practical effect to the decision. Slavery dies hard; it has never vet been abolished by proclamation alone. If this manifesto is to be anvthing other than a ‘dead letter,’ several things will need to be done. These include: ‘‘('a') Financial measures. The parallels are the British vote of £20,000.1100 to set free 700,000 slaves within four years: th recent emancipation of about 10,000 slaves in Burma, which cost the Indian Government R 5.5,167,568.8; the emancipation in Nepal in 1926, when 57,000 slaves were set free, for which the Prime Minister of Nepal obtained a vote of £500,000 to carry through emaneipawithin seven years. No information has yet been made available as to what sum has been set aside ly the Fascist Council to carry through a more extensive measure of emancipation than any of the foregoing. ‘‘(b) Slavery courts. —No arrangements have yet been announced for the creation of slavery courts for settling the many claims and disputes that must inevitably arise, nor do we know what consequential procedure is to be adopted for tlfs issue of thousands of manumission papers. ‘‘(e) Nothing has yet been published upon the creation and maintenance of freed slave homes, such as that established by Lord Cromer in Egypt.

‘‘When information is supplied upon there and similar questions, the public will know whether the proclamation is of a practical or of a propaganda value. ‘‘lf practical steps are taken to give effect to the proclamation, there will be no lack of British appreciation, even by those of us who find it so difficult to forgive and impossible to forget the indifference and even actual opposition shown through many years by Italy towards efforts to secure emancipation in Ethiopia—indifference and opposition which continued from 1925 until the invasion took place, including opposition to S’ir Austen Chamberlain’s proposals for stronger measures against the slave traders of Abyssinia.”