SHAVERY ON THE GOLD COAST.

Waikato Times, Volume VIII, Issue 449, 3 April 1875, Page 2

SHAVERY ON THE GOLD COAST.

The " Times n says it is only fair to suspend one's* judgment on the proceeds of- Governor Strahan irr relation to the suppression of slavery on the Gold Const, and, what is more, it is not yet possible to. make out what those proceedings have beVn. But from the petition and 1 memorial of the «hi- fs and other principal men . which has -beta presented one the subject, it appears that while the Governor was. promising to respect existing slavery, be -was dis- ' trilmting^ manumissions to all that came to- him with the merest expression of a wish to leave their master. The result, they say, is a rapid dissolution of a state of things which has grown up under two or three centuries of British encouragement, and which compares favorably with the general conditions of African society. There are peace, prosperity, cultivation, commerce, wealth, plenty, and as high a. degree of happiness as the negro* in capable of ; but slavery they admit to be the fonndation of it all, for in that climate nobody will work unless, he is obliged. The emancipated — all will be emancipated soon, they say — leave, their work, take to tim woods,, plunder travellers, or pillage hometteadsv If a tithe I of the complaint is true, her Majesty wil) soon have another troublesome task m &aatf. Further, wear* told that the proclamation m sa interpreted that every slave entering the Protectorate from the interior, in course of business, is emancipated. Nothing, it is said, will now be brought into ther Protectorate, because it can only be brought by slaves, and nobody will aend, his. slavts t^a market where they have only to- drop, the goods-sin their charge and run away. As to the justice or iojusticajl : of the matter, that is past question at hon*^ . Wt r are committed to complete- emancipation, whether instant or final. The memorialists plead for pit^- | because they have no beasts of burden, air we have j — no, -horses, oxen, carriages, or railroads. ; but they omit to add that thY beasts- of burden- they are obliged to use instead are, not men, but women ;• and that these women are alsa the wives- of their* owners and the producers of his future wealth , not only in the labour of their hands, but also in. being the mothers- of children bom to slavery.