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tution, of customs and traditions, free from labouring in the fields for 14, 15 hours a day. In Black Africa you remain chained to the hoe and the wooden plow. A change must come.

Black soldiers of France, the workers and peasants governing themselves in Soviet Russia are forming an indissoluble bond of unity and struggle with the oppressed and exploited masses all over the world.

Black soldiers of France, it is against these workers and peasants that the imperialist overlords of France and England, your exploiters are preparing the new war. It is against these toilers who have demonstrated their friendship with the toiling masses of the world that you will be forced by your oppressors to fight. They want to destory the first Socialist Government of the World, because it is the symbol of freedom, because it is an inspiration to you and the toiling masses of other countries.

Already the Poincares and Briands have plotted to destroy the Soviet Union. But they have been caught. Every move by which they hoped to defeat the plans of the workers' Government has been revealed. But the danger is not passed. The imperialists and especially rulers of France will go ahead with their plans to attack the government of the workers and peasants. The campaign of lies go on against the Soviet Union.

The example of the Red Army of the Soviet Union is yours to follow. War against imperialist War. Long live the class War. Do not be used as tools of your oppressors to drown in blood the glorious victory of the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union. You must struggle for the establishment of independent Native Republics in your home Black Africa. The day of Black Africa's emancipation from the horrors of slavery and of forced labour, of poverty and famine, of disease and premature death will come only when you have gained victory over the class that would drive you to war against your brothers. Link arms in struggle with the revolutionary workers of France against the common enemy.

Black soldiers of France, in all the world the Negro masses are exploited and oppressed. The hour of their international struggle is at hand, against the imperialist rulers of the world.

Long live the International solidarity of the workers and toiling masses of the world!

SITUATION OF WORKERS AND PEASANTS IN GAMBIA, WEST AFRICA
By E. F. Small, secy. Gambia Labour Unions.

(Speech delivered at the First International Conference of Negro Workers.)

The general labour position in Gambia is a chapter of the old story of imperialism. The final stage of imperialism has almost reached completion; the State machine is being continually turned from "benevolent" and "philantropic" uses to serve exclusive capitalist interests; the Negro workers and peasants are the hopeless underdogs of the situation - the forsaken victims of capitalist and imperialist exploitation.

It is this fact that called the Gambia Labour Union into being one year ago. With the exception of administrative clerical workers, all workers and peasants are now represented by the Union. Of these an aggregate membership of 1,000 workers, and 2,500 peasants has been registered. Of course, they are all Negroes. As yet there is no European settlement. Europeans are employed in the administrative and mercantile departments as supervisors. They have no permanent interest in the land. Their periodical tours to the Coast are prompted by motives of self-betterment, and racial aggrandisement. Therefore, all the same the race-issue in its broadest possible sense, is no less real in the relations of the white bosses to their black subordinates; this imperialist regime is naturally opposed to equal rights and opportunity, and conducive to race discriminations and disabilities of a colour-bar.

Within few months of its inception the Gambia Labour Union was called upon to face its first industrial struggle; for the first in time the Colony's history, hundreds of operatives went on a general strike both for the right to organize in trade unions as well as for an increase of wages and better conditions of employment. I will emphasize only its salient features of the strike. Leading commercial firms in Gambia attempted to stifle the newly-formed organization at its very inception. They assailed the elementary right of the workers to organize in trade unions, giving the employees three days' notice to quit the Union or be dismissed. Strike notices issued by the Union were treated with sheet contempt.

Before during and after the strike the merchants had official support in their attempt to suppress the trade union rights of the workers. An official warning issued during the strike against alleged intimidation of workers had the practical effect of preventing picketing, and culminated in an armed Police raid on the 14th of November last, in which civilian passengers were wounded in the streets of Bathurst. So far standard minimum rates of wage have no been fixed jointly by the Union and the Bathurst Chamber of Commerce, but in spite of the agreement reached in settlement of the strike, workers are being victimized by lock-outs, dismissals without notice etc. It is even proposed to import cheap labour from abroad, Jamaica and other places. And it is hoped this Conference will have some effect in preventing the victimisation of Negro workers by their own comrades.

A striking instance of the victimisation of trade union workers may be seen at the Public Works Department in Bathurst. This you will find combined with a system of piece-work and contract, which constantly throws the men out of work, and is a typical example of State exploitation of cheap labour in the guise of public economy. To carry out this anti-trade union system of exploiting cheap labour non-trade union foremen are employed, while there has been a lock-out of hundreds of trade union workers at the P.W.D., since last November. This lock-out had been threatened by the Government during the strike, when serious objections to the system were raised by the Union. Though the general works of the Department have been stopped for so long the estimated expenditure for the year is allowed to run as if there had been no close down, so that in the end the talk of public economy, is a mere lip-service.

Employment for the worker and peasants in Gambia is seasonal. That is to say it is limited to the period of the trade season, which is now regulated to last from December of one year to April of the next. The recent regulation, as will be seen in the case of the peasants, is a striking episode of imperialism. There are no manufacturing industries. The classes of workers are those whose services are required to carry on the trade in groundnuts, of which an average of 70,000 tons are exported annually from the Gambia. Comparatively few of these are regularly