Slavery : The Uncompleted Task O NE hundred years ago next
July Fowell Buxton was able to convey to his dying colleague, William Wilberforce, the welcome assurance that victory was about to crown their efforts—and on July 29th Wilber- force passed away, content in the knowledge that Britain was about to purge her dominions of the greatest stain in their history, and abolish slavery, under the British Flag for ever. Wilberforce himself had carried the resolution against slave trading in 1807, with the help of Pitt, Fox and others, and it was not till later that he came round to Buxton's view that the evil could only be stamped out by the emancipation of the slaves and the abolition of the status of slavery.
One hundred and ten years ago next Monday a historic event was enacted in the House of Commons, for on May 15th, 1823, Thomas Fowell"Buxton, the- Member for Weymouth, handed to Mr. Speaker his challenging resolution-: '
"That the state of Slavery is repugnant to the principles of the British Constitution and the Christian religion.. . ."
Buxton and his little band launched their resolution as an act of faith in a House of Commons overwhelmingly hostile to emancipation, and it was only ten years later, in 1833, that victory rewarded their faith and courage. The forces arrayed against them were tremendous. First there was the extent of the traffic in Europe, Africa, Asia, America, and the West Indies. During a period of 250 years "the Trade" had established machinery and vested interests in every European and American State. The highest personages in more than one country were involved. Crowned heads and royal princes drew large revenues from the traffic. Planters, merchants, even clergy and missionaries, had together invested millions of capital in it. If we accept the figure of an annual average of shipments of 40,000 slaves during the 250 years of intensive shipping, the total shipments from Africa alone must have exceeded 9,000,000 slaves, and their value at say £40 a head would amount to over £350,000,000 (at present day values something like £1,500,000,000). Different shipping lines had built hundreds of craft only fit for the purpose of carrying slaves thus the shippers were resolute opponents of Emancipation.-. Revenues for which Governments saw no alternative were derived from the system, and the Christian Church seemed, with a -few exceptions, to acquiesce in, where it did not actually support, this gigantic evil, Parliament itself-was inextricably involved, for it had created laws which permitted planters to flog their slaves to a maximum number of lashes, sufficient in thousands of cases to involve violent death, to brand with hot irons, -to split noses, to lop off limbs ; and, although planters committed hideous crimes (including murder) -against the slaves, they were able to evade the Jaws of the Colony.. Occasionally, a planter was sentenced for some appalling murder, but he wotdd.be released on petition, and given a public function to celebrate his release, It-was- against this deeply entrenched twofold crime of slave trading and slave owning, that the little band of less than a dozen hurled themselves. They included at first Granville Sharp, the Duke of Waington (who supported abolition but opposed emancipation) and the Duke of Gloucester, Pitt and Fox, Wilberforce and Buxton, Sturge and Clarkson, and the missionaries Knibb and Smith. They changed the atmosphere of the House of Commons, they converted the nation, they saved the soul of England. In their moral stride they carried with them progressively large sections of the churches, and helped greatly to sustain an ever-growing spiritual revival. In August, 1833, the decrees were signed which set free 700,000 slaves on August 1st, 1884—and Parlia- ment voted a sum equal to nearly half the ordinary national revenue for the purpose—E20,000,000 out of its then total of just over £50,000,000.
. But the end the Abolitionists and Emancipators had in view was much more than mere British emancipation. They worked and hoped—more particularly Wilberforce and Castlereagh—for an international movement against slavery of every kind. They did not live to see these large hopes fulfilled. It is left to those who follow them today to carry to victory the world-wide effort to free all nations from the crime of owning and trading in human life as property. The task is/ no light one. Eight years after the British emancipation of 700,000 slaves, the leading Christian nations still owned 6,397,000 —apart altogether from the unknown numbers in Mahommedan and certain other States. Today it is computed that there are hardly less than 5,000,000 persons held under various systems of ownership, and saleable as property. The same cruelties are still inflicted—with whips, branding-irons, shackles, chains and yokes. The same well-authenticated accounts are available of flogging, torture, amputation and murder. The same concomitants still obtain : slave raids, the slave gang, the overseas traffic, breeding for the market, open as well as private markets, for the sale of slaves. The scale is small by comparison with the conditions prevailing a century ago. But the system still survives. It is only a few months ago that one of the worst raids took place in British territory. It was a double raid, and covered a large area in the Sudan. There were probably 100 victims of this raid, including 50 children, who doubtless have long ago been disposed of in the markets.
The appeal of these still enslaved millions—enslaved in the sense of being saleable like property and robbed of all control over their destinies—cannot find civilization deaf. It is necessary to declare once more that slave- owning, slave-trading and slave-raiding is a violation of every law human and divine and that wherever men and women are still in bondage they shall be set free. That declaration has in fact been made and that resolve taken, for the nations of the world have in fact pledged themselves to bring about "the total suppression of slavery in all its forms" everywhere, Under the leader- ship of Great Britain a slavery convention was framed nine years ago, and has now been signed by over forty nations, including the United States, who have thereby committed themselves to the active prosecution of the tasks of abolition and emancipation. That is something, but it is recognized that more is needed. Conventions do not execute themselves, and lagging signatories need to be kept up to their professions. The League of Nations Council is accordingly about to appoint seven persons with expert knowledge to watch the working of the Convention and advise the League on all matters connected with it. That again is something, but that still is not enough. It was the awakening of the national conscience in this country that made the abolition of slavery on British soil possible a century ago. What is needed today is an international- conscience. It is, indeed, explicitly declared in League documents that Hi,• international convention and all the international machinery created in connexion with it will fail to make emancipation a reality unless an international conscience can generate a force stronger than the tradition and the financial interests which keep slavery in being. That is the immediate—and still - uncompleted—task.
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