And closely connected with this function of controlling the arms trade is another great necessity of Africa under “tutelage,” and that is the necessity of a common collective agreement not to demoralize the native population.  That demoralization, physical and moral, has already gone far.  The whole negro population of Africa is now rotten with diseases introduced by Arabs and Europeans during the last century, and such African statesmen as Sir Harry Johnston are eloquent upon the necessity of saving the blacks—­and the baser whites—­from the effects of trade gin and similar alluring articles of commerce.  Moreover, from Africa there is always something new in the way of tropical diseases, and presently Africa, if we let it continue to fester as it festers now, may produce an epidemic that will stand exportation to a temperate climate.  A bacterium that may kill you or me in some novel and disgusting way may even now be developing in some Congo muck-heap.  So here is the need for another Commission to look after the Health of Africa.  That, too, should be of authority over all the area of “tutelage” Africa.  It is no good stamping out infectious disease in Nyasaland while it is being bred in Portuguese East Africa.  And if there is a Disarmament Commission already controlling the importation of arms, why should not that body also control at the same time the importation of trade gin and similar delicacies, and direct quarantine and such-like health regulations?

But there is another question in Africa upon which our “ignorant” Labour class is far better informed than our dear old eighteenth-century upper class which still squats so firmly in our Foreign and Colonial Offices, and that is the question of forced labour.  We cannot tolerate any possibilities of the enslavement of black Africa.  Long ago the United States found out the impossibility of having slave labour working in the same system with white.  To cure that anomaly cost the United States a long and bloody war.  The slave-owner, the exploiter of the black, becomes a threat and a nuisance to any white democracy.  He brings back his loot to corrupt Press and life at home.  What happened in America in the midst of the last century between Federals and Confederates must not happen again on a larger scale between white Europe and middle Africa.  Slavery in Africa, open or disguised, whether enforced by the lash or brought about by iniquitous land-stealing, strikes at the home and freedom of every European worker—­and Labour knows this.

But how are we to prevent the enslavement and economic exploitation of the blacks if we have no general watcher of African conditions?  We want a common law for Africa, a general Declaration of Rights, of certain elementary rights, and we want a common authority to which the black man and the native tribe may appeal for justice.  What is the good of trying to elevate the population of Uganda and to give it a free and hopeful life if some other population close at hand is competing against the Baganda worker under lash and tax?  So here is a third aspect of our international Commission, as a native protectorate and court of appeal!