• SLAVES UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Snt,—I would like to add a postscript to the article by Sir John Harris on Slavery in Bechuanaland and to thank you and him for -again directing attention to this question.
The Tagart Report was a revealing and humiliating docu- ment and I hope the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs will not be complaisant in respect of the progress made. Mr. MacDonald said in reply to a question I asked him several years ago that in 1933 all magistrates in the territory had been instructed to repeat and emphasise to the native authorities the policy of the Government which was based on the • Tagart recommendations, though a proclamation regulating the employment of native labourers by natives of the territory had been delayed pending the formulation of a provisional scheme for the settlement of any Masarwa who may be dismissed by- their employers as a result of any new legislation..
A week Or so ago I raised the matter in the House with Loid Stanley. He said that substantial progress had been made in carrying -out the report. The situation had again been before the League Of Nations Advisory Cominittee of Experts 'art Slavery, and 'the acting chief of the -Bamangwato tribe- had -agreed to implethent 'the- policy of incorporating the Masarwa as ordinary tribesthen in the body politic of the Barriangwato, giving them the traditional rights and making them subject to the traditional obligations of the tribesmen. Lord Stanley added that it was now realised by the two peoples that compulsory service is a thing of the past, and the League Committee had stated that it seemed possible to say that the status of the Masarwa was not one of slavery.
Progress has undoubtedly been made, and I hope it is substantially as stated by the Dominions Secretary. There must be no relaxation until this blemish is banished from the Colonial Empire.—I am, yours faitlffully,
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