§ Sir GEORGE WHITEasked the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies (1) whether his attention had been drawn to the omission from the Report of the recent Committee of Inquiry into the Liquor Traffic of Southern Nigeria of all reference to the widespread practice of parents pawning their children for gin in the Colony of Southern Nigeria; what steps, if any, the Colonial Office have taken or are taking to put down the practice of pawning children for gin; and (2) whether unrebutted evidence was submitted to the recent Committee of Inquiry into the Liquor Traffic of Southern Nigeria, showing that thousands of children are pawned by their parents for gin, and kept in a condition of domestic slavery for many years; if so, what steps he proposes to stop such practices?
§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Colonel Seely)First as regards the wide-spread custom throughout West Africa of pledging or pawning persons—not necessarily children—as security for debt. I cannot do better than quote from the recent report of a Committee, composed entirely of native gentlemen, on the laws and customs of the Yoruba country:—
When a lender advances money to a borrower, he asks the latter to provide an acceptable surety who is responsible in default of payment by the borrower. The borrower is drawn into service for the lender one day in the week, the service representing interest for the money advanced; he lives in his own house. But if a child is provided as a substitute, he is to live with and work for the lender as his child; the consideration for the loan being that the borrower is deprived of and the lender enjoys the services of the borrower's child. But by this arrangement, the child does not become the slave of the lender. The child does not forfeit his rights and privileges as a free born. He can behave to the lender precisely in the same way as to his own father, indeed, he enjoys more freedom with the former, for he can at any time refuse to live with him. On the other hand, the lender is responsible to the public authorities for injury to the health of the child and for his death.1616 The custom, although not involving slavery, is discouraged as far as possible by the Government, and appears from the evidence of Father Coquard, a missionary of nineteen years' experience in the country, to be becoming less prevalent. Should cases occur in which the person pledged is put into a condition of servitude, the offenders are punishable under the law against slave dealing. Certain statements were made by witnesses before Sir Mackenzie Chalmers' Committee as to the pawning of children for gin, but no evidence whatever was put forward to show that the practice had more connection with debts for liquor than any other debts. Indeed, one of the native witnesses, Bishop Johnson, questioned on this point, replied —" People who drink certainly get into debt more than others, but the habit is general all over the country whether they drink or not. It is an institution in the country."
Sir GILBERT PARKERIf the Government are such friends of temperance as to be willing to sacrifice revenue in this country for temperance, will they not sacrifice revenue in Nigeria to save the subject race from moral and social degradation?
§ Colonel SEELYOh, yes; but, in so far as the hon. Gentleman seems to imply that we are not following the same course there as we do here, the argument is all the other way, because we have for a long time put a very high tax on liquor in West Africa, and, indeed, are only beginning to follow that example here under legislation recently imposed. Without raising any controversial point I may say at once that the Government wish to restrict the sale of liquor to natives in every possible way. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the difficulty is that there are other Powers all around, and if we proceed, as we do, in this method of putting very high taxation on liquor we must, in doing so, proceed with those other Powers. We lose no opportunity of discouraging the sale.
Sir GILBERT PARKERIs it not the case that the vast bulk of the revenue of Southern Nigeria is got from the tax on liquor, and that in proportion to taxation the revenue is far greater than is got from the taxation on liquor in this country?
§ Mr. SPEAKERThat must form the subject of a separate question.