> 
house’ and would generally be given land to cultivate for 
his own maintenance. At a later period, especially in the 
case of descendants of bought slaves, ‘ slaves of the house ’ 
as they were termed, their position was more secured; they 
not only had security of tenure of certain land, but it was 
recognised that so long as they satisfied their masters’ require- 
ments they were entitled to work for themselves as well, and 
to retain and keep the profits resulting from their labours. 
Cases are known where slaves have owned slaves themselves. 
These conditions were more conspicuous among the more 
advanced tribes. Among the better class Temnes, it was 
regarded as wrong to sell a slave of the house and to separate 
him or her from the land on which they had been born and 
brought up, and which they and their families had cultivated. 
Cases have occurred where a slave of the house has brought 
an action against his or her master for selling him without 
his will. Among Mandigoes it was a common practice for 
slaves to be required to work a stated number of days a week 
for the master and to be entitled to work for themselves the 
remaining days. Among Mendis there was no such well- 
defined rule, but even there the slave had certain rights to his 
own labour so long as he satisfied his master’s requirements 
first. 
** Chiefs in entirely different parts of the Protectorate have 
ruled that according to- native custom a master might claim 
the entire results of the labour of his domestics. Where a 
slave had acquired property while in his master's service, and 
then wished to redeem himself and leave the chiefdom with 
the property he acquired, it has been decided by these chiefs 
that the former slave was not entitled to take away any 
property or to dispose of any property which he had acquired 
while in the service of his masttr. This principle prevented 
them disposing in any way of land which had been given them 
bo cultivate while they were slaves; if they redeemed them- 
selves and wished for complete emancipation from their 
former master, they would of course require to restore to him 
the land he had given them to cultivate '’ 
Action taken since 19929 
I come now to my own action in regard to this important ques- 
tion. A few days after my assumption of the Government on the 
ith of May, 1922, Dr. Maxwell submitted to me his despatch of 
18th October, 1921, and Mr. Churchill’s reply of 24th November, 
1921 (see above), and though as recorded in this despatch 1 
purposely took no overt steps, as I was unwilling to run any risk 
of upsetting the chiefs at the outset of my administration, I 
availed myself of every opportunity of discussing the subiect with