Page:Morel-The Black Mans Burden.djvu/170

 iniquity of the methods by which that rubber was put on the market.

Nor is such moral responsibility confined to manufacturers. It is shared by Trade Unions, by Industrial Councils. It is shared to a lesser degree, but distinctly, by the consumer. We hear a great deal about "missionaries of Empire." A much-needed missionary work is that of interesting the labouring classes of Europe in the human associations connected with the raw material they handle. Those who might be disposed to deride the idea do not, in my humble opinion, know the working man—the British working man at any rate. The fact that the conditions he suffers from himself are often atrocious, would not deter him from becoming politically conscious, or politically active in the defence of the defenceless. I believe it is perfectly possible to arouse the interest and the sympathy of the British working man in the producers of the material he turns into candles, soap, rubber tyres, furniture, or clothing; or for that matter of what he eats and drinks in the guise of margarine, nut butter, tea, coffee, or cocoa—but there he is merely a consumer, not a unit in an organisation which can make itself politically felt. But as a fashioner of the raw material into the finished article, his professional intelligence should be easy to awaken, his sympathy would be certain to follow and, with its dawning, would come a great democratic drive for the honest, just, and humane treatment of the coloured races. Had I known then what I know now, I should not have limited myself during the decade of the Congo agitation to approaching the statesman, the administrator, the heads of the churches, and the man in the street. I should have gone direct to the leaders of the Labour movement. I received much unsolicited support from some of the latter, and from many an individual working man. But, unhappily, I was not in touch with the Labour movement in those days and neglected a powerful weapon in consequence.

While the cocoa firms were thus engaged, that preux chevalier of modern journalism, Henry W, Nevinson, was travelling in Angola, and visiting San Thomé and Principe on behalf of Harper's Monthly Magazine. His terrible book, "A Modern Slavery," appeared in the spring of