Slowly, the chocolate entrepreneur, a self-made man tied to ticker tape and who lived and breathed the dry air of finance, found the father in himself; he found that long-neglected role at last in the company of these desperately deprived and needy children. It was a bittersweet role. He confided to a friend, “I would give everything I possess if I could call one of these boys my own.”
CHAPTER 14
That Monstrous Trade in Flesh and Blood
On September 26, 1908, the Standard revealed that Cadbury was profiting from slavery. The white hands of the Bournville chocolate makers, said the London paper, “are helped by other unseen hands some thousands of miles away, black and brown hands, toiling in plantations, or hauling loads through swamp and forest.” The slaves’ wretched lives formed a stark contrast to “the young ladies in the firm’s employ” at Bournville who “visit the swimming bath weekly and have prayers every morning.”
The Standard deplored the hypocrisy: “It is that monstrous trade in human flesh and blood against which the Quaker and Radical ancestors of Mr Cadbury thundered in the better days of England. . . . And the worst of all this slavery and slave driving and slave dealing is . . . to provide a sufficient number of hands to grow and pick the cocoa on . . . the very islands which feed the mills and presses of Bournville.”
At the next board meeting at Bournville, the mood was somber. William felt slandered; his years of effort to resolve the issue had been ignored and his planned visit to Angola mocked. Instead the article created the impression that the Cadburys had deliberately delayed resolving the issue of slavery to continue making a profit from São Tomé beans for as long as possible, all the while trumpeting their virtuous practices at home.
For those present at the meeting, this simply was not true. Considerable efforts had gone into resolving the issue. There were, however, questions to be answered. Why had it taken William so long to investigate conditions in São Tomé? Was he too trusting, especially of British politicians such as the foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, who appeared to have promised much and done nothing?
George Sr. stood by his nephew. He knew the Cadbury board had agreed they intended “to put a stop to the conditions of slavery—not merely to wash our own hands of any connection with them.” If they had stopped buying from São Tomé, they would have lost their leverage over the Portuguese to effect reform. Yet in the eyes of the paper and its readers, they looked hypocritical and as if they lacked integrity. As head of the firm, George Sr. was directly accused. His staunch Quaker principles and utopian creation appeared to rest on the backs of slaves. It was a shaming indictment for a man of God. The board decided to sue the Standard for libel.
In October 1908, William Cadbury embarked on a trip to West Africa with the firm’s expert, Joseph Burtt. They wanted to find out whether there had been any changes following the years of diplomacy with the Portuguese and British Foreign Office. But the Portuguese seemed to have learned of their visit in advance. They made sure there was nothing to be seen and promised their English visitors that signing up new servicais or slaves had been “suspended.”
Cadbury and Burtt were not convinced. Although they did not catch the Portuguese red-handed, they were suspicious that new slaves were being smuggled into São Tomé at night. They saw known slave traders with Portuguese officials when they visited Angola, and the ill-concealed antagonism they felt from the Portuguese governor general failed to reassure them that the colonial authorities were genuinely implementing reform. The underground slave trade, they concluded, was being hidden more skillfully than ever. William returned to England in March 1909 and discussed their findings with the management at Cadbury, Fry, and Rowntree. A week later, the British Quaker firms announced they were boycotting cocoa from São Tomé and Principe.
Several European companies followed their lead, but as George Sr. and William had feared, it was soon apparent that a boycott would not stop the slave trade. German and American brokers simply stepped in to purchase beans from São Tomé that were superior to those grown elsewhere in Africa. Working through the Anti-Slavery Society, Cadbury sent experts overseas to Germany and America to alert foreign cocoa companies to the problem.
William Cadbury and the other Quaker manufacturers were keen to investigate alternative cocoa plantations in Africa. The first cocoa seeds had reached the Gold Coast—now known as Ghana—as recently as 1879. Although the climate was suitable, the beans from this region were of poor quality. On his recent trip to Africa, William Cadbury bought a small site at Mangoase in the Gold Coast to research ways of improving production. He soon found that local dealers paid farmers the same low price for cocoa beans regardless of the quality. Bags could be filled with damaged or wet beans, which rotted during shipment and ruined the batch. Working with local producers, Cadbury and Fry representatives made it clear they were prepared to pay market price for quality cocoa. They taught local farmers how to carefully dry and ferment the cocoa, and production from the region soared.
Meanwhile, on November 29, 1909, the case of Cadbury Bros. Ltd. v. the Standard Newspaper Ltd. was heard. Crowds gathered in the imposing Victoria Law Courts in Birmingham. The courtroom was packed with press, family members, and curious members of the public. Lining up to represent the two sides were the most renowned lawyers of their day. Sir Edward Carson, a conservative MP and barrister for the Standard, was known for his theatrical style and flair for interrogation that had earned him a reputation as “the best cross questioner in England.” Magazines such as Vanity Fair had a field day printing cartoons of the tall, spare Carson, his chin thrust forward and bushy eyebrows arched in a constant contemptuous question. By contrast, Cadbury had hired the acclaimed liberal barrister Rufus Isaacs. Sober and exacting, he was among the very few who could take on the celebrated Carson.
The case had come to symbolize more than libel. For many it represented a titanic clash over the ethics of the Liberal and Conservative parties, the battle lines neatly described by Carson’s biographer, Edward Marjoriebanks: “The greatest Conservative leader of the day (Carson) was engaged for a Conservative organ (the Standard), against the most brilliant advocate in the Liberal Party (Isaacs) who was in turn attacking on behalf of the honour of a great Liberal family (the Cadburys) not unconnected with the most powerful Liberal organ (the Daily News).” The Tory Standard was edited by Howell Glynne, a keen supporter of Cecil Rhodes, Joseph Chamberlain, and the Boer War. Cadbury’s Liberal Daily News had not only passionately opposed the war but also exposed abuses of British power in South Africa, notably the cruel exploitation of Chinese coolie labor in the mines. This, said the Daily News, was British slavery by the back door. Yet now Cadbury’s paper and the Liberal establishment were under scrutiny for apparently turning a blind eye to slavery in the São Tomé cocoa plantations.
William Cadbury was the first to take the stand. During four days of questioning, the great barrister made him spell out to the court every detail of his investigation.
Edward Carson: Men, women, and children, freely bought and sold?
William Cadbury: I don’t believe, as far as I know, that there is anything that corresponded to the slave market of 50 years ago. It is now done by subtle trickery and arrangements of that kind. I don’t think it is fair to say that in Angola there is an open slave market.
Edward Carson: You don’t suggest that because it is done by subtle trickery that makes it better?
William Cadbury: I do not.
Edward Carson: But in some cases they are bought and sold?
William Cadbury: In some cases they are bought and sold.
When Rufus Isaacs took over the questioning, William had a chance to demonstrate the steps he had taken since he first became aware of the slavery problem in 1901. The Cadburys wanted to use their buying power to bring about real reform, he explained. They had appointed their own investigator, Joseph Burtt, to present the Portuguese authorities with definitive proof of slavery rather than unsubstantiated allegations that could b
e easily dismissed. William described the repeated trips to Lisbon to pressure the Portuguese authorities and the discussions that took place with the British foreign secretary. “We went on buying the cocoa,” William explained, “because we were absolutely advised by the highest authorities we could consult that it was the best thing we could do in the interest of reform of labour conditions in West Africa.”
Heads turned in the packed courtroom as the celebrated George Cadbury Sr. was called next to the witness stand. At seventy, he was still a tall man with a commanding physical presence but he walked more slowly. His wife, Elsie, watching anxiously from the gallery, knew he was feeling the pressure. It was hard for her, knowing her husband’s passionate commitment to just causes, to watch as he was subjected to a humiliating cross-examination.
George Cadbury’s protests that they were trying to bring about change echoed around the room and came back to haunt him. He seemed frail and did not speak with his nephew’s self-assurance. Carson pressed on. As the owner of the Daily News and “the great champion of the conditions of labour of South Africa and the Congo . . . why then did Cadburys—those perfect gentlemen . . . pay one million three hundred pounds . . . to the slave dealers in Portugal?” In the close atmosphere of the court, George Sr. failed to communicate his reasons effectively. He relied on honesty, which soon looked foolish or worse in the hands of the clever Carson. There were cries of “Shame!” in the courtroom, and the acclaimed philanthropist appeared reduced to a pitiable old man.
To everyone’s surprise, Carson did not call any witnesses to support the Standard’s accusations. Justice Pickford summed up the issues for the jury: They were “not there to decide whether Messrs Cadbury took the right course, or whether any better course could have been taken.” There was only one question the jury was charged with answering: “Were [the Cadburys] for the purpose of preventing an attack on their character as philanthropists, and at the same time to postpone any final decision as to not purchasing cocoa grown by slave labour, were they purporting to take steps which were of an ineffective nature in order to obtain a mitigation of the evils?” Was this, in effect, a dishonest plot to enable the chocolate firm to profit from slave-grown cocoa?
The jury returned within the hour.
The foreman rose. He announced that the jurors had found in favor of Cadbury. But when the jurors declared the damages against the Standard, the result was unexpected.
“One farthing!”
The award was enough for George Cadbury. “It has been a long ordeal,” he wrote later to his son Henry. “Mother was there most of the time and I think is thoroughly tired out. . . . How thankful we are for the result.” He felt relieved that the “slanders hurled against us had been cleared.” He was also spared legal fees since the Standard was ordered to pay the costs. For William Cadbury, it was not so easy to come to terms with the result. Although the jurors agreed that Cadbury had been libelled, their contemptuous damages implied they were not satisfied with Cadbury’s handling of the slavery issue, notably the long delay before boycotting São Tomé beans.
There was one benefit of the lawsuit, however, at least in the short term. News of the libel case reached America, where chocolate manufacturers joined the fight to urge the Portuguese to end slavery. Caught in the glare of international publicity, the Portuguese authorities finally halted the transport of slaves from Angola in 1909, and according to one account, 14,000 slave-workers were repatriated from the islands. In the longer term, however, the issue was far from resolved. The British Anti-Slavery Society continued to receive reports of labor abuses, and the Foreign Office faced repeated criticism for its failure to persuade the Portuguese to improve conditions for workers on the islands.
In time the new agricultural techniques introduced into the Gold Coast in Africa by Cadbury and Fry brought improvements in production. In 1910 the Gold Coast farmers harvested 26,000 tons of cocoa, more than the notorious islands of São Tomé and Principe. The following year this jumped to 40,000 tons—more than any other country in the world. The food of the gods from the New World was becoming established as an Old World crop. Theobroma cacao made its way west along the high grassland savannahs of the Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone, east into Nigeria and the Cameroons and south into the great Congo Basin, paving the way for Africa to become the world’s leading producer of cocoa.
With demand for chocolate soaring in the west, cocoa manufacturers were urgently seeking new sources of beans. Dutch colonialists had already taken seedlings to Java and Sumatra; the British were establishing plantations in Ceylon and India. The seeds of the ubiquitous cocoa tree, carried by eager missionaries and colonists, even graced the shady beaches of far-flung coral archipelagos of the Pacific such as Vanuatu and Samoa. The exotic plant, once a precious currency of ancient civilizations in Mesoamerica, was spreading around the world, following the shadowy blue fringes of the great equatorial rain forests.
George Cadbury Sr. had a stubborn streak. Although there were some in the family who believed that the Daily News investigations into labor abuses had goaded the Tory press into making libellous accusations, George regarded it as money well spent. He wanted to use his wealth not just to help his workers and the Bournville community but also to influence society at large—especially now. Since the launch in 1906 of HMS Dreadnought—the new terror weapon of the day—the naval arms race between Britain and Germany had accelerated. Military spending by the leading European powers had escalated rapidly. With Europe caught in the grip of a dangerous arms race, George saw it as his duty not just to champion liberal reform at home but also the cause of diplomacy and peace overseas.
Shortly after the court case, George Sr. learned that two Liberal papers, the Morning Leader and the Star, with a circulation of half a million, were for sale, and he did not want to see them fall into Conservative hands. He confided in his son Laurence, “It seemed a very serious matter to let them go into the hands of those who might seek to promote war with Germany and would oppose measures of social reform.” George approached the Rowntree family to discuss the possibility of the two Quaker families buying the papers together. Joseph Rowntree’s nephew, Arnold, who already had experience running the Northern Echo and the Nation for the Rowntree Social Services Trust, was keen to work with George Sr.
When they took over, however, they faced a serious dilemma. Both the Morning Leader and the Star published gambling news, which provoked condemnation from their Quaker friends. Joseph Storrs Fry’s brother and a successful barrister, Sir Edward Fry, led the Quaker charge of hypocrisy. The very men from the Cadbury and Rowntree families who supported the National Anti-Gambling League, declared Edward Fry, were encouraging gambling in their sporting press!
George Cadbury Sr., however, had already tried removing the betting news from the Daily News and the Echo. In both cases it had led to a catastrophic fall in circulation. There was a real possibility that if he removed the racing from penny and half-penny papers like the Morning Leader and the Star, the papers might go under. “It was evident that the Star with betting news and pleading for social reform and for peace,” he explained to Laurence, “was far better than the Star with betting and opposing social reform and stirring up strife with neighbouring nations.”
It was not long before the Tory press picked up news of the split in Quaker thinking. Journals such as the Spectator took up arms against the apparently ever-expanding “Cocoa Press.” Quaker virtue was once again on the line. George Sr. was “held up to execration as an odious example of the sleek hypocrite who profited by the degradation and vice of others.” George Cadbury was particularly troubled by the continued accusations of fellow Quakers such as Sir Edward Fry, who bluntly implied that he had taken “the devil into partnership to aid the Almighty.” It reached the point, declared the Manchester Guardian in an editorial, that the Cadburys and Rowntrees “are assailed with such severity” that anyone might suppose “that they had introduced a gambling newspaper for the first time into the white robed c
ompany of the London daily press!”
On November 14, 1911, with a view to streamlining the organization of the papers and retiring from active management himself, George Sr. set up the Daily News Trust. In transferring his ownership of the papers, he articulated how he hoped the trust would be run. The document is a testament to his desire to apply Quaker beliefs and Christian thinking to the world of business and journalism:I desire in forming the Daily News Trust that it may be of service in bringing the ethical teaching of Jesus Christ to bear on National questions, . . . for example that Arbitration should take the place of War and that the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount . . . should take the place of Imperialism and of the military spirit which is contrary to Christ’s teaching that Love is the badge by which a Christian should be known. The parable of the Good Samaritan teaches human brotherhood, and that God has made of one blood all nations of men. Disobedience to this teaching has brought condign punishment on nations; and though wars of aggression have brought honour and wealth to a few, they have always in the long run brought suffering upon the great majority.
For George Cadbury, the verses of the New Testament had a beauty and simplicity that he had used as a guiding principle throughout his life. For him it was simple: If everyone followed the teaching of Christ, people and nations could live in peace together. His faith anchored his thinking and unified all spheres of his life. It speaks volumes for the times that his editors endeavoured to support his view.
Ironically, the political will was already in place that would make such a close marriage of religion and business less urgent—for some, even redundant. That very year, a law was enacted that brought fundamental reform to at least one social issue that had troubled the Quaker conscience for generations: poverty. The impetus for change had come in part from the Quaker community itself, through influential writers such as Seebohm Rowntree.
Chocolate Wars Page 23