those provisions shall not be of any effect within that district or part of a district."

And whereas the Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom consider that on the grounds of public safety the provisions of the said sub-section should not be applicable with respect to the pilotage districts or parts of pilotage districts hereinafter mentioned.

Now, therefore, the said Commissioners hereby order that the provisions of sub-section (2) of section 24 of "The Pilotage Act, 1913," shall not be applicable with respect to the following pilotage districts or parts of pilotage districts; that is to say, the London pilotage district, the Harwich pilotage district, and so much of the Humber pilotage district as lies to the north of Grimsby.

Given under our hands this 25th day of March, 1913.
J. R. JELLICOE.
A. G. H. W. MOORE.

CIRCULAR DESPATCH to British Consular Officers respecting the Employment of Native Labour.-London, December 15, 1913.*

SIR,

Foreign Office, December 15, 1913. I TRANSMIT to you herewith, by direction of Secretary Sir E. Grey, the enclosed copy of the report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Putumayo atrocities, with the history of which you are no doubt generally familiar.

1. I am particularly to draw your attention to paragraphs 36 to 41 of Part II of the report, in which the Committee give it as their opinion that the collection and transmission to this Office by consular officers of information about labour conditions in their districts would assist in the discovery of any cases of misconduct by British subjects which might arise in countries where coloured labour, British or otherwise, is employed, and suggest that the law of extra-territorial crime should be consolidated and extended in order to bring such misconduct, discovered by this or other means, within its scope.

2. The Committee indicate in paragraph 39 of the report that they regard the information furnished by consular officers as the best guarantee for the removal of oppressive labour conditions, and they call attention to the specific directions (on p. 200 of the "Consular Instructions") in accordance with which all matters of interest in connection with slavery and the slave trade are to be reported to the Secretary of State. It is

*Parliamentary Paper, "Miscellaneous No. 10 (1913).”
+ House of Commons Report No. 148 of June 5, 1913.
+ See Appendix.

certainly desirable that sufficient information on labour conditions should be supplied to this Department to enable His Majesty's Government to take what action is necessary and possible to expose or prosecute British employers responsible for oppressive or inhuman labour conditions, and though, if abuses in the employment of native labour exist, these abuses do not in all probability come within the meaning of the word slavery, as used in the "Consular Instructions" and in the Slave Laws, it is desirable that consuls should carry out the spirit of the "Consular Instructions" in that connection, and report the existence of labour conditions amounting to virtual slavery or entailing the ill-treatment of coloured labourers which usually accompanies that abuse.

3. With this object in view, Sir E. Grey is in communication with the Board of Trade with a view to your being furnished with such relevant information as they possess about companies and firms operating in your district which are British or which are wholly or partly controlled by British subjects. You should make yourself familiar with the working of such companies, with any labour difficulties that may exist, with the rate of mortality among labourers, with the local labour laws and so forth, and while it is not generally intended that you should communicate to this Department all the information which you may thus collect for your own guidance, you should embody in an annual report any details which may appear to you to indicate that labour conditions for which British subjects are responsible in any part of your district are unsatisfactory, and which would enable Sir E. Grey to call for more particular reports or to convey a warning to the companies concerned.

4. You are not at present required to undertake special journeys in order to inspect the labour conditions of companies and firms operating in your district except in so far as this is feasible in the ordinary course of your duties, but cases of serious ill-treatment of labourers, where British subjects are in any way responsible, should at once be reported to this Office, where the advisability of further investigating the matter will be considered.

I am, &c.

W. LANGLEY.

APPENDIX.

Extract from Report from the Select Committee on the Putumayo Atrocities.

Extra-Territorial Crimes.

36. Where, on the other hand, the ill-treatment is inflicted in foreign countries on persons other than British subjects, we are face to face with the problem of extra-territorial crime. It

has been already noticed that in certain limited classes of crime the English criminal law is operative on British subjects outside the limits of British territory. The most important of these classes of crime are offences committed at sea, treason, murder and manslaughter, slave trade offences, offences against the Explosive Substances Act, 1883, bigamy, offences against the Foreign Enlistment Act, 1870, and offences such as forgery and perjury committed abroad with reference to proceedings in some British Court. In this respect the English law is less farreaching than that of several continental States. Heffter,† claiming for the State the right of punishing extra-territorial crime, summarises the practice of some of the chief nations as follows:

(Translation.)

The exercise of this right differs according to the State. The United States do not, in any way, punish the offences committed by their citizens abroad. England punishes the crimes of high treason, homicide, bigamy, and offences committed in uncivilized States, and on board ship in foreign waters; but in other cases she also hands over her subjects to the State where the offence has been committed. Belgium and Holland also inflict punishment in certain cases; Italy punishes crimes and indicts offences only on condition of reciprocity. In Germany, prosecution may be instituted for crimes against the State and for actions described as crimes or offences by the German Code, if the action is punishable by the legislation of the country where it has been committed. In France, the terms of Articles 5 to 7 of the Code of Criminal Instruction have been extended by the law of the 27th June and of the 3rd July, 1866. Any Frenchman who may have rendered himself guilty abroad of a crime punishable by French law may be prosecuted and judged in France; and the same in case of an action described as an offence by the French law, if the action is punishable by the legislation of the country where it has been committed, except it be the case of a crime or an offence where the offender produces proof that he has been definitely judged in the foreign State in question."

Consolidation and Extension of the Law.

37. The principle, then, of punishing extra-territorial crime is already recognized, though cautiously, by the English criminal law. This fact is not, however, generally known. Most persons, other than lawyers who have given attention to the point, do not

* For a treatment of this subject, see Sir Courtenay Ilbert's "Government of India," chapter V, pages 343-352, and Mr. Guy Stephenson's Memorandum, Appendix 5 to the Report and Special Report from the Select Committee on Putumayo.

Heffter, "Le Droit International de l'Europe," 4th French edition, page 86, note G. Translated from the French edition.

realise that there is any liability resting on British subjects under British law for acts done outside British territory, except in special cases like the Capitulations in Egypt.

Two points in this connection suggest themselves to the Committee. First, the existing law as to slave-dealing and using persons as slaves in foreign countries needs to be restated, consolidated, and made clear. It is entangled with the law as to slave-trading on the sea. The language is not free from obscurity, and we have already referred above to what the Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions regards as a misleading omission in the revised statutes of the section of the Act of 1843, which forbids peonage.

Secondly, the Committee are of opinion that the existing provisions of the law might be somewhat extended so as to cover the gravest offences against the person and any practices of forced labour which are akin to slavery. If British subjects made themselves parties by overt act to offences of these kinds in foreign countries, they should be triable in British Courts of law.

It does not appear that foreign nations could fairly take offence. The criminal law of most States goes already much beyond what is here proposed, and we should merely be following a short distance in their footsteps. The difficulty of getting evidence in this class of case is not overlooked. It exists already where an extra-territorial murder or act of slave-trading has to be dealt with. Indeed, when the Act of 1843, which prohibited slave-dealing by British subjects in foreign countries, was being passed in the House of Commons, an opponent dwelt prophetically on this objection: "What authority," he asked, "would the Court have to go to the heart of the Andes to obtain evidence for and against the charge?" * But there could be no greater difficulty, if the law were extended, than exists at present in the cases of murder and slave-trading. Nor, of course, would it be requisite, any more than at present, to insist on trying every extra-territorial case in British Courts; generally the matter could be left to the Courts of the locality where the crime was committed. But the liability to British Courts would be in existence, and would undoubtedly conduce to the suppression of the practices referred to.

Method of Securing Publicity.

38. This, it may be said, at best facilitates the punishment of crime after it has been detected. What is wanted most is a means of preventing it and of bringing it to light. It is hard to believe that a board of Englishmen would knowingly aid and abet the introduction of forced labour or the commission of the kind of crimes that are the subject of this inquiry. But an honest and conscientious director cannot always be sure of the

Hansard," Vol. 71, page 934.

way in which managers or foremen may be, unknown to him, treating the coloured labour of the company thousands of miles away. A well-organized company will no doubt have its own methods of securing supervision by periodic visits of inspection, or by the requirement of returns at due intervals. But, as we have seen, directors may be careless, ignorant, or misinformed. What is wanted is a channel through which disinterested and independent information as to the conditions in uncivilized countries may reach home. Publicity, with an additional legal liability in the background, is the best weapon to use.

The Value of the Consular Service.

39. Both Sir Harry Johnston and Mr. Morel, the secretary of the Congo Reform Association, in their evidence agreed that it was the reports of the British consular service, backed by public opinion, which were the true levers of reform in the Congo. In connection with the Putumayo, however, prior to the year 1909, there was less evidence of diplomatic and consular activity. It is to the consular service, acting possibly through a statutory procedure, that we must look for guarantees. There is already a specific instruction to consuls (in the book of general consular instructions, under the head of "Slave Trade") to keep the Secretary of State and the diplomatic representative fully informed on all matters of interest in connection with slavery and the slave trade. This instruction presumably dates from the days of the anti-slavery campaign of the nineteenth century. No doubt the consular service already has its hands full. Some strengthening may be required in districts where English companies are using coloured labour and any doubt is felt as to the conditions that prevail. There may be extra cost involved, and in such districts, in place of trading consuls with small honorariums, fully-paid consuls ("consuls de carrière") may be required. But such a strengthening of the consular service would be well worth while.

Sir Harry Johnston's Scheme.

40. Sir Harry Johnston, in some highly interesting evidence, proposed a considered plan of treatment for certain portions of Africa and South America. He suggested that special districts should be scheduled as areas of special precaution. British companies operating in these regions and employing coloured. labour should only be eligible for registration if they complied with prescribed requirements. They should furnish the Foreign Office with detailed information as to rates of payment and conditions of labour employed by them, and contribute by a special tax to the cost of travelling consuls appointed for the purpose of watching and reporting on the condition of labour in the district.

It may be noted as a historical parallel that when Lord