necessity in the case. Failing in this they selected Mr. Joseph Burtt, who spent several months in Portugal studying the language and fitting himself for the task, a delicate one, rendered even more difficult than it would otherwise have been by the close diplomatic relations existing between the British and Portuguese Governments. Mr. Burtt set out on his mission in June, 1905. As the result of his disclosures the firms mentioned boycotted San Thomé cocoa and ceased entirely to purchase it.
I have placed these facts on record here in some detail because they appear to me to have a direct bearing upon one aspect of the whole comprehensive problem with which this volume is concerned: the problem of white responsibility towards the African races. The attitude adopted by Cadbury Brothers, and, subsequently, in co-operation with other firms engaged in the cocoa and chocolate manufacturing industry, typifies what ought to be the attitude of public opinion generally on these questions. Although merely purchasers of raw material on the open market, when they found reason to believe that a portion of that raw material represented the output of forced or slave labour, these firms felt their moral responsibility involved. The firms who did not join them took the view that it was not the business of the manufacturer to worry himself about the origin of the stuff he handled. Now the moral responsibility of all these firms was involved. But no more and no less than in the case of rubber manufacturers, soap or margarine manufacturers, or cotton spinners under like circumstances—in short, manufacturers of any article whatsoever of which the raw material is produced by coloured labour. But this is the only case I have ever heard of in which manufacturers in Europe have recognised that it would be wrong of them not to investigate reports as to the ill-treatment of the distant coloured peoples producing the raw material which they turned into the finished article; and not only to spend considerable sums in investigation, but to take action and refuse to buy the raw material so long as the conditions under which it was produced remained substantially unaltered. No such action was taken by rubber manufacturers in regard to Congo rubber, although the whole world rang with the
