SLAVERY IN WEST AFRICA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9144, 21 July 1908, Page 3

SLAVERY IN WEST AFRICA.

The "Throne," whose editor was , mentioned by General Joubert I Pienaar as having been prominently j connected with the plan for forcibly abolishing slavery in Portuguese West Africa, has a special article on the subject. "While," say the "Throne," "the reports referred to were misleading in many respects, they have been the means of directing public attention towards one of the greatest scandals which exist at the present moment on the facejof the universe. "Undir the aegis of a so-called civilised Power a trade in flesh and blood is being conducted under conditions which, for savagery and coldblooded brutality, have never been exceeded in the world's history of legalised murder. "Little children are being done to death for the most trifling offences. Ihreawere murdered tne other day for not bringing in sufficient timber •to the slave-owner, a Portuguese Woman. Slaves are imported for sale. They are sometimes bought in the interior, and not infrequently cap- , tured in bands. They are driven tiuough the country devoid of food, and scores die by tne way. If they actempt to escape they are hunted litco wild beasts. •'For protesting against this state oftthings General Joubeyt Pienaar was driven out of Angola. He placed iiia case before the Foreign Office. "Diplomacy," continues the "Throne," "dragged its usual dreary lengtn along: The probability is that ,tne Marquis De Several, the Portu--1 .guose Minister, a personal friend of dis , Majesty, dismissed the whole tning in a flippant epigram. 'General Joubert Pienaar consulted several public men, and a plan for armed intervention was conceived, which, had not the' Foreign Office intervened, would have taken concrete shape, and have met with success. "Hundreds of volunteers were ready to join the Transvaal Boers, ■an J would probably have trekked to a fresh country. Some of the bravest the day would have led the expedition, and every Britisher in Angola would have risen, with the result that the Portuguese slave-owners and trie decadent force which supported t:iem there might have been swept into the sea."