The League of Nations

Geneva and Forced Labour

{Nearly a month ago the subject of Forced Labour was discussed at a conference arranged by the League of Nations Union. The " Spec- tator is fortunate in securing this contribution from Sir Selwyn Fryman*, who has long been concerned with Labour questions, and wrote the official article on "Forced Labour in India ' in the report submitted to the international Labour Office.—En. Spectator.] &slow: recent publications of the International Labour Office, one of the most interesting is the Report on. Forced Labour. This

document has been prepared for presentation to the Conference which meets next May to frame an International Convention. As stated in the Introduction to the Report, forced labour occurs for the most part in areas where administration has not reached the point of efficiency attained in more developed countries and about which exact information is either non- existent or not easily obtainable. And since, under these circumstances, the International Labour Office felt the necessity of surrounding itself with all possible safeguards, a Committee of Experts on Native Labour was created to assist the Office in compiling the report. The members of the Com- mittee were certainly well qualified to advise. Several of them had as governors of African or Asiatic dependencies actual experience of dealing with the special question of forced labour, while the others in one capacity or another had had considerable acquaintance with native labour in general. Some of the members had further qualified by work on the Temporary Slavery Commission of the League or on the Per- manent Mandates Commission, which, in considering the annual reports on each mandated territory submitted by the Mandatory Powers, has paid particular attention to the conditions under which labour for public works and plantations is recruited and does its work. Among these Lord Lugard, the British member of the Mandates Commission, was entitled to speak with special authority on the Committee. As on many other committees of the League and the International Labour Office, the United States were represented—by Professor J. Chamberlain of Columbia University. South Africa,

India and Japan also had their representatives. PREVIOUS STUDY OF THE QUESTION.

The subject of forced labour had been already touched upon in the Slavery Convention which was adopted by the Assembly of the League in 1926, and has been ratified by all the great colonial powers with the exception of France. Article 5 of that Convention provides that forced labour may only be exacted for public purposes and, where it still survives for other than public purposes, it should be adequately paid. Another clause lays down that it be abolished as soon as possible. And since this provision was obviously insufficient, the Council of the League, acting on a proposal of the Assembly, adopted a resolution moved by Sir Austen Chamberlain whereby the I.L.O. was informed of the importance attached by the League to the study of the question of forced labour which the I.L.O. were undertaking.

Tay. INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE REPORT.

The Report recently issued is thus the joint work of the I.L.O. and of the Committee. Its major portion is taken up with a description of compulsory labour as it actually exists in various parts of Africa and Asia, the purposes for which it is exacted, and the laws which govern it. This is an essential

preliminary in all attempts at international regulation. First 'the facts must be accurately known, and secondly the law and

Practice obtaining in diffeient countries must be carefully studied in order that the best practice prevailing should be recommended for universal application, and so no nation -Should have the advantage over another in the nation's

competition for trade.

Tut SITUATION IN BRITISH COLONIES.

That forced labour still exists even in British colonies is clear from the review of the position contributed by Mr. Ormsby Gore to the Native Labour Conference recently organized by the League of Nations Union (March 6th and 7th). The fact is that in territories where the social system is organized on a tribal basis the chief has always been entitled to call on his tribesmen for labour both for his own private Purposes and for public works. The former privilege has been

in many parts commuted for a tax, the proceeds of which are paid to the chief for his maintenance, while as each country advances voluntary labour is gradually taking the place of forced labour for public works. Porterage, too, the only means of transport in primitive tracts, is giving way to motor roads and railways, and the recommendation in the report that forced labour for any purpose should be given the full wages prevailing in the locality should, if adopted, have an excellent effect in removing the temptation to continue the use of forced labour any longer than is absolutely necessary. In British colonies, at least, the only remnant of it left will soon be the liability of the whole population to be called out for the clearance of land to combat the advance of the tsetse fly, or for some similar purpose which is of direct and obvious advantage to the community.

But if direct compulsion to labour is, at least in British colonies, likely to come to a speedy end, there are indirect means of compelling the native to work against which it is necessary to guard. Forced labour for the benefit of private persons or companies such as led to great abuses in the Belgian Congo and in Portuguese Africa has now been very definitely ruled out, and Administrations are warned against •per- mitting their officials to put any constraint on the populations under their charge to work for any particular employer.

But there are insidious ways by which much the same result may be obtained. Taxation, for instance, is in some cases imposed with the express intention of driving natives into private employment. Strict vagrancy laws in some countries have the same effect. So also deprivation of land and restrictions on cultivation and cattle owning. All such measures when adopted with the object of forcing men to engage themselves in the service of others are condemned in the report. And this raises the large question of the land policy to be adopted in East and Central Africa. In the tropical climate of West Africa and of Uganda, where Euro- peans cannot permanently settle, the economic system is based on the agriculture of the natives themselves. They are being taught to abandon the wasteful system of shifting cultivation and to grow, besides their food supplies, economic crops such as cotton and ground-nuts. But in East and South Africa, where land has been taken up by white settlers de- pendent on native labour for work on their farms and planta- tions, there is still a tendency on the one hand to restrict the land and cattle in the possession of the tribes, and on the other hand to impose upon them taxes which they can only pay by engaging themselves for a substantial portion of the year in the service of the white settlers. It is difficult in such cases to determine whether the restrictions and taxation imposed are or are not legitimate.

THE MANDATE PRINCIPLE IN AFRICA.

For the principle popularized by Lord Lugard in his great book, The Dual Mandate, that Colonial Powers have a double responsibility—first, trusteeship for the welfare of the native and secondly, trusteeship for the development of backward areas for the benefit of the world at large—is now generally accepted. And undoubtedly, without the object-lesson and stimulus of European agriculture, the conversion of nomadic tribes into permanent agriculturists could only come about very gradually and the development of the country would be indefinitely delayed.

As Lord Lugard said in the recent Howe of Lords debate: " In the past this country had shown itself pre-eminently capable of dealing with subject races in a state of tutelage but had not shown equal ability to take count of the educational and economic forces it had set in motion." For the first time, perhaps, the problem is now being boldly faced. The interest aroused by the Hilton Young Commission's Report and the undertaking given by the Government that no action will be taken on it until there has been full opportunity both for con- sultation with the communities interested and for full discussion in this country of the important principles involved, encourage the hope that a solution may be found which will be equitable