NEGROES IN BRITISH PORTS
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—If it is true that the conditions under which the rough work aboard our merchant ships is carried out are made so unattractive that only negroes can be induced to perform it, is that defect sufficient to make it right that merchant shippers should be free to bring these people to our shores and dump them in the ports with no atom of responsibility for the social and economic results of their action Should European hospitality really go to such a length as to bring with it such things as were described by Agatha Pemba, and others, which need not be mentioned, even although it be flavoured by self- interest ?
Are we not beginning to display a certain lack of race consciousness, and is this tendency not in our case fostered by money-grubbing selfishness taking advantage of insolent carelessness and innocent feminine curiosity ? That is the impression that one receives from what one occasionally encounters in the streets, and are not the variety halls, jazz bands, some books, and the cinemas with their sheikhs and dago heroes aiding and abetting the tendency Y-1 am, Sir,
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