34 
Here then we have the clearest possible recognition of a slave who 
is owned much as a chattel can be owned, and it must logically 
result that there is a right to follow and regain by use of any 
lawful means the rights of ownership in and possession of the 
property of which he has been deprived by the absconding of his 
slave. Fortunately the learned Circuit Judge has found that no 
more force than was reasonable was used in the re-taking of the 
person here concerned, so that much of the difficulty which I 
should otherwise have felt in construing the word ‘‘ unlawfully 
(as found in section 8 sub-section (8) of Cap. 167) disappears—ior, 
ag I have indicated above, it follows that if slavery in the Pro- 
tectorate is recognised then the use of reasonable force in the 
re-taking of a run-away slave must also be recognised. 
So that the only difficulty, as it appears to me, is whether this 
sub-section (8) which makes it an offence to use any form of coercion 
or restraint in unlawfully compelling the service of any person 
directly and specifically destroys that logical consequence of the 
right to own a slave, i.e., the right to use a reasonable amount of 
force in re-taking him after he has run away. 
A portion of my learned brother Aitken’s very lucid judgment 
gets over this difficulty and for my part I will only add that the use 
of that term ‘‘ unlawfully >’ cannot mean that the employment of 
any form of coercion in the re-taking is forbidden by the law for 
the simple reason indicated, viz.. that it would reduce the former 
provision of the Ordinance to a manifest absurdity. There ob- 
viously must be coercion of a kind used. It must be as absurd to 
deny an owner of a slave his rights to re-take a run-away slave as to 
deny a husband certain rights which follow on a lawfully contracted 
marriage. 
So that we must give the word ‘* unlawfully *’ some other mean- 
ing, and I think Mr. Wright's view is correct when he savs, after 
pointing out significantly that the word ‘‘ unlawfully *’ appears 
only in this the last sub-section of section 8, that only those persons 
can be held under that sub-section to compel unlawfully who use 
coercion or restraint in defiance of other provisions of the Ordinance, 
e.g., where a person to whom a slave has been unlawfully transferred 
compels that slave to serve him. Until the Legislature makes it 
perfectly clear that no such right to re-take is to be recognised, 1 
cannot find that the law as it stands at present denies that right 
to the slave owner in the Protectorate. 
I am of the opinion therefore that the re-taking in this instance 
was lawful and no assault was committed, from which it follows of 
course that there has been no conspiracy and both convictions must 
be quashed. 
S. BawrEY-COoOKSON, J., 
President, 
1. VII. 27.