French officials invoked League of Nations rules to legitimize forced labor as education.

Evidence

Carde pointed out that this august body, which expressed “the will of all civilized nations in pursuit of a more generous humanity,” had stipulated in 1926 that “the colonial power undertakes to prohibit forced or obligatory labor, except for public works and essential services and in return for an equitable remuneration.” This statement was the international recognition of the law of labor, which no country concerned with the future of the “retarded” peoples under its tutelage could ignore without danger. This law should, if necessary, be the point of departure for a salutary obligation to work; such an obligation, he added, was no different from all the other obligations that an educator must impose, or else fail at his mission. Moreover, conceived in the best interest of the African, this coercion could only enhance his life by making possible the completion of public projects from which he would be the first to benefit. To speak of compulsory labor or forced labor in this context was an exaggeration: “Too often it is forgotten that, in our civi- lized countries, the harsh necessities of life impose different constraints from those that a generally mild and generous nature imposes upon the native. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 804

Categorization

• DEFINE: Shows how the League of Nations’ 1926 exception clause for ‘public works and essential services’ was exploited as a legal loophole legitimizing colonial coercion.