Forced Laromp

German Practices in Pre-1914 felonies

THE statement that a system of forced labour, closely resembling slavery, was practised in the former German colonies, has been proved by the repre sentations of those who knew the actual conditions governing the supply of labour for plantations, and public works.

Labour was supplied by native chiefs, when asked for, and upon terms dictated by the Germans. There was no such thing as an open market, where wages were adjusted to the laws of supply and demand. The wages paid were fixed by an official, and a planter could not pay more than the prescribed rate.

In Africa, the hut tax was designed primarily to force the natives to work.

German opinion was that, in return for the so-called benefits of European civili sation, the natives should render an equivalent service to the State. This opinion was gathered from the views of three representative and well-known Germans, Lt.-Colonel von Morgen, Major von Wissman and Karl Peters.

Lt.-Col. von Morgen, who was a leader of an exploring expedition to the Cameroons, stated: “The only real tax, which is also of cultural value, is com pulsory labour.”

“We can do nothing in the tropics without native workmen,” he added: “and especially we cannot make progress in the Cameroons, whose future depends on plantations. As we in Germany have compulsory schooling, so there must be compulsory work in the colonies. . . .

As to how this labour is to be supplied, and for how long, the District Judge must decide.”

Similar views were expressed by Major von Wissman and Karl Peters. “A very good recipe,” stated Karl Peters, “is the demand of a hut tax from every nigger over the age of sixteen —and one of not less than five pounds: so that they are forced to work. ... To me, the advan

tageous system seems to be one in which the negro is forced, following the example laid down by Prussian military law, to devote some twelve years of his life to working for the Government. During this time, he should receive food and shelter and a small wage, say about two shillings a month, like a Prussian soldier.”

PRIOR to the outbreak of the war in 1914, the practice in German East Africa and the Cameroons, was described.

Labour was divided into day (casual) labour and contract (recruited) labour.

The day labourers were not bound to any master, and worked on plantations near their own homes. They were usually given piece-work, and paid for it on the same day.

Contract labourers were recruited up country, and were signed on for 180 or 240 working days. In East Africa, thousands of men were recruited from back country districts for the plantations in the coastal belt. Manv of these were “raw”, who had had little idea how far they were going, what work they were to do. and under what conditions they were to live.

The recruiting agents paid the chiefs and headmen one rupee or more for each black man recruited, and naturally the headmen coerced as many followers as nossible, in order to swell their receipts.

In some cases, the recruiter got into touch with the Government official of the district, and the latter simply announced to the people that so many labourers were required, and his native underlings pro ceeded to muster the necessary men through the native chiefs and headmen, who were first intimidated.

Not long before the outbreak of war in 1914, a new labour ordinance was made in which it was stated that labour was a compulsory contribution to the welfare of the State, and allowance was made for the first time for their return into the interior. Formerly, men got back again—if they ever did—as best they could.

THE labour thus requisitioned in Ger man East Africa was obtained most freauently by force: and what oc curred there went on also in the Cam eroons. where the conditions seemed to have been still worse.

In the Cameroons, there was constant friction between planters, merchants and the Government. One merchant com plained that “the desire of the planters, whose wishes the Cameroon Government was only too ready to meet, was com nletely to improverish and expropriate the natives living on their domains, in order to force them to work at low wages on the nlantations. Old men, children, and weaklings were forced to work by Commissioners of the Government and the planters, who shrank from no tricks for this purpose.”

On one plantation, the Prince Albert, the death rate in 1913 amounted to 26.8 per cent.; on others the rate was 10.24, and as much as 20. ...

It was generally known in one district in East Africa that a native who once had taken a worker’s ticket with a planter could hardly ever get free from his labour relationship to that particular employer.

The employer did not give the natives their discharge certificates and wages un til the men had taken another work ticket.

IN South-west Africa, the conditions were deplorable. Not only were the natives deprived of their lands, as a punishment for the Herero Rebellion but a degree was issued placing most of the inhabitants under forced labour.

A farmer in the district stated that “every native capable of working” was

registered and wore a brass label with a number and the name of the town where he lived. “When we require labourers”, he said, “we simply ask the police to send them, and the natives have to come, whether they want to or not.”

Compare these methods with those em ployed in the British colonies, as described by Lord Lugard when discussing the problems of native labour in a report on the amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria.

Under the heading “Warning to Em ployers of Labour” he wrote: “It is well that employers of labour, whether on the mine-fields or elsewhere, should realise two important facts in regard to labour.

First, that the Government policy, being radically opposed to coercion in any form, even for works of such urgency and im portance to the country as railways and roads, will not employ coercion in order to procure labour for private undertakings.

“Employers must, therefore, make con ditions of service sufficiently attractive to secure the labourers they need. To effect this, high wages are not necessary, and they are to be deprecated. An employer who pays more than the standard wage, does an injury to the development of the country. Labour will be secured only by kind and fair treatment, decent hut ments, the entire absence of blows and rough usage, and the facilities already described.”

The effect on the natives in the Ger man colonies of the exploiting reign of capitalism was appalling. The Bishop of the Cameroons stated in 1914: “Cam eroon is suffering depopulation in a truly terrible degree; the land has only miserable remains of population where twenty years ago there were flourishing villages”.