Bisbee daily review., 1914-03-22
GERMAN GOVERNOR
 DEFENDS SLAVERY
 FOR THE COLONIES
EAST AFRICAN ADMINISTRATORS DECLARES THAT NEGRO DOES
 NOT FEEL LACK OF LIBERTY

WOnl1 leAU lO
 handed in by the Governor of Gerrian East Africa, pr. Schnee. In response to a resolution passed by the Reich- ,ag last year, calling for the termina' ton of household slavery by Jan lary i, 1920. pr. Schnee has reported that there are about 1S5,0OO slaves n the colony at present, many of ;hem cap tiyes in wars as late as 1905 aud 1906 while others are being imported even today from Portugese East Africa and British Cape Colony. But the nun Der is steadily growing less.
 A law passed few years, age lib. crates all children of household saves born after 1905; deaths are further reducing the number of slaves; many | are able .o buy their liberty f.Jm sums ranging from $2 to s15 aud in addition many owners are voluntarily | giving their slaves freedom.
 The governor predicts that slavery | practically will have ceased to exist without further restrictive measures by 1880 and pleads against setting eny ' fixed date for a general emancipation, which he declares would ruin many | plantation owners, provoke rebellion among the native farmers and cost he government at least S2,0OO,OOo to idemnify owners for the loss of their property.
 The governor uses arguments that | had a familiar ring in the United States sixty years ago. He says tha. the negro by no means feels the lack of personal liberty as a hardship. that the savery Is a decidedly patriarchal fcharacter. that the labor exacted is | light, that they are given certain days each week to cultivate their own little garden. By a general emancipation the aged slaves. who are now fed and sheltered by their owners when no .onges able to work. would be thrown destitute upon the word
 Tn discussion of the report in the Eudge. Committee Of the Reichstag. | the Soca ists and Clericals sharply criticized the attitude of the govern the self-interes. of the plantation own CTS, seeking a cheap supply of labor Advertise ments from colonial news
 papers. offering to sell or buy slaves
 were read by the Socialists who de-
 clared that the government was fav
 oling and even promoting ihe. slave
 trade. and a clerical leader alleged
 that German planters organize regular
 man hunts to get labor for their plan
 tations. Dr. Solf secretary of s-ate for the Colonies, admitted that the law has been interpreted Q justify
 compulsory recruiting of native labor
 Tor plantations and that grave in Judgements of the law had been com
 mir.ed by native soldiers with the knowledge and consent of their white officers
 The native population of Africa is at best steadily shrinking under con
 tact win the white man. It has been
 thought that under he influence of ) whie civilization, the cessation of the , continual -ribal wars and the intro ductlon of scientific medical methods of the negro population in Africa you'd grow rapidly. Diederich Wester- r mann. professor at the Oriental Sem mary of the Berlin University, de.
 cares on the contrary that the de-
 population Is steady and rapid. He s cites the report of a Ca -holic mission .. ary. Father Van der Burgt, who after 22 years work in German East Africa ! found that the native popula ion fin n Ia u frA ff nt a half Infant death ra-es of from ~ to so per cent and a surprisingly low firth rate are factors which mission aries observed in Togo, the Cameroons 5. and other African colonies as well as German East Africa.
 The Farmers league, whose annual D convention in Berlin just closed. de- 2 c ares that the exodus from rural dis 9. trict to city. has made 1t impossible
 for the land owners to find enough
 native farm laborers. TheyF have ,o C depend on the hordes of Russians. O Poles and other foreigners who ip' , wade Germany each spring and return
 to their homes in the autumn, taking
 out of the country the savings of their n six months work The problem has n. recently become grave in view of the
 announced intention of the Russian
 government to forbid its subjee-s from e. coming across the border. This would n- mean that the German farmers would
 have to look elsewhere for no lesi
 than 400,0 laborers. at a time wher
 army increases are abous to take { Dn further block of 1S0,000 able bodied m men away from productive pursuits.
 Prominent speakers of the Farmers :" Lsague asserted that laws limiting ne the right of domiciliary choice of per n- sons under egb.een years old shoul'
 le enacted. This would mean that thi
 peasants, whose right to choose thei { own domicile and to move. about free or ly was established by he imperia ,s constitution more than forty years age
 would return to serldom. 1t was als IL proposed that even aduf. inhabitant to of rural communities should not b
 permitted to move to cities withou
 frs. proving that they had secure