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!

There is still a fourth aspect of the African question in which every
mother's son in Europe is closely interested, and that is the trade
question. Africa is the great source of many of the most necessary raw
materials upon which our modern comforts and conveniences depend; more
particularly is it the source of cheap fat in the form of palm oil. One
of the most powerful levers in the hands of the Allied democracies at
the present time in their struggle against the imperial brigands of
Potsdam is the complete control we have now obtained over these
essential supplies. We can, if we choose, cut off Germany altogether
from these vital economic necessities, if she does not consent to
abandon militant imperialism for some more civilized form of government.
We hope that this war will end in that renunciation, and that Germany
will re-enter the community of nations. But whether that is so or not,
whether Germany is or is not to be one of the interested parties in the
African solution, the fact remains that it is impossible to contemplate
a continuing struggle for the African raw material supply between the
interested Powers. Sooner or later that means a renewal of war.
International trade rivalry is, indeed, only war--_smouldering_. We
need, and Labour demands, a fair, frank treatment of African trade, and
that can only be done by some overriding regulative power, a Commission
which, so far as I can see, might also be the same Commission as that we
have already hypothesized as being necessary to control the Customs in
order to prevent gun-running and the gin trade. That Commission might
very conveniently hav