CHAP. XVIII THE POSITION OF SLA VES 379 



are being abandoned owing to the impossibility of obtaining 

 sufficient labour. The Arabs see their property being ruined, 

 and are naturally hostile to British rule. Here and there one 

 of them has raised the standard of revolt, and expeditions, such 

 as that now in progress against Mbaruk bin Rashid, have 

 continually to be undertaken. Our power of punishing the 

 rebels is very limited. If we bombard the coast towns, we only 

 destroy the property of our peaceful subjects, the Hindu 

 banyans, who live there. If we storm the rebel stronghold, the 

 chief escapes and builds another on the next forest-covered 

 hill. If we ravage his plantations, we are really punishing the 

 Indian banker at Zanzibar to whom they are mortgaged. 



It is no doubt utterly distasteful to British sentiment to 

 tolerate slavery in one of our protectorates, even for a time, 

 with the knowledge that it is lessening. Our feelings are so 

 strong on this point that we may easily be hurried into a course 

 of action which will cause far more injustice and more suffering 

 to the innocent than will be saved. British opinion on this 

 question is a survival from the time when slavery was in force 

 in the Southern States of America, in Cuba, and Brazil. There 

 negroes were compelled to work under European masters, with 

 European regularity and rigour. Much cruelty was no doubt 

 used in these countries to force . the negroes into compliance 

 with methods of work for which they were constitutionally unfit. 

 But African slavery as it exists in the British protectorate is a 

 very different matter. The slaves cannot be bought or sold, 

 and can only be transferred by direct inheritance from father 

 to son. Their children are free. The slaves can hold private 

 property, and it is not at all rare for a man who is a slave to 

 own other slaves himself. They have two days a week on 

 which to work for themselves. The owners cannot force their 

 way unbidden into the slaves' houses, cannot flog them, and is 

 bound to provide them with food, clothes, and lodging. The 

 masters themselves are very indolent ; and as there is no attempt 

 to run plantations at high pressure, the slaves are not over- 

 worked. They have a much easier time than the freemen who 

 work for a monthly wage in a European caravan, and they 

 generally appear contented and happy. The system is certainly 

 not slavery if we accept Cicero's definition as true — " Slavery is 

 the obedience of a broken, abject spirit, deprived of free choice " 



