Readers of Africa cannot fail to be interested in the reason for the proposal by the recent Committee of Experts on Slavery, which was accepted by the League Assembly last autumn, that a small permanent Slavery Commission and Bureau should be created, the more so that the subject is likely to be prominent next year when we celebrate the Centenary of the Abolition of Slavery throughout all British possessions. That great achievement was the crowning triumph of long years of untiring effort by Wilberforce, Clarkson, Fowell-Buxton, and the group of Abolitionists whom they led; the story is admirably told by Professor Coupland in his Life of Wilberforce.

In every continent in which it has taken root, the co-operative movement has assumed new forms and adopted fresh methods. In Europe, its original home, the consumers' stores of England and the credit and agricultural societies of Germany grew up almost independently of one another. When transplanted to America and Australia, it acquired peculiar strength in the field of large-scale marketing. In Asia the principal development has been that of credit for the peasantry, though with less emphasis on economic and more on moral elements than in Europe. In each of these continents the people, especially the poorer classes, have derived great benefits from their societies, the European in his domestic purchases, the American in the orderly disposal of his produce, the Asiatic in relief from the yoke of usury and in training of character by self-control and mutual control. The majority of Asiatic countries learned the lesson from India, whence the co-operative idea spread first to Ceylon, British Malaya, and Siam, then to the Philippine Islands and China. Japan is an exception, her national leaders after travel and observation having imitated in many respects the German system; Palestine and the Dutch East Indies, the latest recruits, also draw inspiration from both European and Asiatic sources. The general position now is that, save in a few regions where government is still unsteady, Co-operation is universal outside Africa.

A well-known native in Tanganyika Territory was asked one day what would be left of European civilization in Africa if the Europeans left the country to-morrow. He replied unhesitatingly, ‘Football’. His reply was probably onlyintended to mean that this element of European culture made a very special appeal to him. Nevertheless, considering his comment as a suggestive, though unconscious criticism, there is perhaps sufficient truth in the remark to merit careful thought. Such thought and a cursory survey of the conditions under which vast numbers of natives live to-day, compared with those under which they lived prior to the advent of the European, is not very encouraging. It is true that the country is governed in peace, which was not so in the past, and abuse of power by the chiefs has been reduced to a negligible quantity. It is true that railways have been built, opening up the country. It is true that under the recently developed native self-administration, political self-realization and reawakened pride of tribe are becoming increasingly evident. Especially are all these things true of the advanced tribes of Nyasaland, Uganda, Bukoba, and Moshi. For these tribes and a scattered number of regularly employed natives, such as clerks and teachers, there has been progress towards economic standards. The people are comparatively wealthy, well provided with blankets, lamps, soap, and similar ‘luxuries’, and live healthier, more comfortable lives than their forefathers. On the other hand, the subjects of many of the other tribes, and in some instances even the chiefs themselves, still live in huts which would often be better described as hovels.

La langue mandé ou mandingue est une des plus importantes de l'Afrique Occidentale Française. Les estimations faites il y a dix ans permettent de penser qu'elle était alors parlée comme idiome maternel par environ trois millions de Soudanais, tandis que deux millions d'autres s'en servaient comme de seconde langue. II est probable qu'une révision sérieuse de ces chiffres accuserait une augmentation assez forte des Nègres qui en usent, car elle a une tendance marquée à s'imposer, sous l'influence de la circulation commerciale, dans des régions qui étaient encore fermées au trafic il y a peu d'années, comme par exemple le pays des Bobo au Soudan Français et en Haute Volta, celui des Agni ou des Bété à la Côte d'lvoire.

Until comparatively recently the problem of the use of an objective methodology in field research did not sufficiently exercise the minds of research men in the social sciences. The field man usually gathered what he thought he observed, and generalized his collected facts into preconceived categories. Many of the recorded data we depend upon at the present time are of this quality. To-day the exercise of a technique is too frequently an implicit and uncritical part of the theoretical concepts of the researcher. Obviously a methodology must have an ideological context which motivates it, but it is highly necessary to separate the theoretical concepts from it, if we are to obtain the objectivity of the natural sciences.

In his recent writings on the subject of marriage and kinship, Malinowski has repeatedly emphasized what he terms the ‘principle legitimacy’. By this he means the rule, found in all human societies, that a woman has to be married before she is allowed legitimately to conceive. ‘Roughly speaking, an unmarried mother is under a ban, a fatherless child is a bastard. This is by no means only a European or Christian prejudice; it is the attitude found amongst most barbarous and savage peoples as well.’ Where prenuptial intercourse is regarded as illicit and immoral, marriage is obviously the essential prelude to the birth of legitimate children, i.e. children having full social status in the community. But even where prenuptial intercourse is tolerated, this tolerance does not extend to liberty of conception. The unmarried boys and girls may indulge freely in sex, but there must be no issue. An unmarried mother will be subjected to punishment and become the object of scorn, her child possibly killed or aborted, while often the putative father is also penalized unless he marries the girl. Almost universally, a child born out of wedlock has a different status from the legitimate offspring, usually very much to his disadvantage. Facts such as these show that the group of mother and child is considered incomplete in the eyes of the community, and that the sociological position of husband and father is everywhere felt to be indispensable.

La petite tribu des Batchopi (phon: Bat∫opi) occupe le territoire de l'Afrique orientale portugaise compris entre le 34e et le 35e degrés de longitude est (Greenwich) et le 24e et 25e degrés de latitude sud. Autrefois beaucoup plus nombreuse, établie sur un beaucoup plus vaste pays, cette tribu a été décimée par les guerres d'extermination que les potentats Bangoni, Mouzila et Goungounyana entreprirent contre elle. En outre, les Batchopi se sont peu à peu différenciés des Vatonga (sans ‘h’) d'Inhambane ou Vakoka, leurs frères par le sang et la langue. La proche parenté de ces deux groupes, on peut même dire leur commune origine, est facile à prouver: en effet, ils possèdent maintenant encore un grand nombre de noms de famille communs (Nyamu∫we, Nyaphosi, Nkome, Nkumbe, etc.), et le vocabulaire des deux langages respectifs montre un fond commun considérable (je ne note ici qu'un fait particulier: le mot ‘pierre’ se trouve être le même, en tchopi t∫iwindi, en gitonga giwindi, et ce mot est tout à fait différent de celui que l'on rencontre dans les autres langues bantoues).