Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers (34 page)

But no amount of money could solve one very personal problem. After ten years of marriage, it was clear that Milton Hershey’s beautiful wife, thirty-eight-year-old Kitty, who had long suffered from ill health, was not able to have children. There would be no son, no heir for his wealth. Hershey felt the loss deeply. “It’s a sin for a man to die rich,” he told his friends. He found it hard to accept the doctor’s verdict that there was no cure for her nervous disorder. Kitty hid the growing signs of her weakness and paralysis to spare him pain, and all he could do was watch as his beautiful wife—decorated with any jewel she wished from Tiffany—deteriorated to the point that she needed a wheelchair.

She began to talk of a new venture, a venture that promised a future: a special orphanage for deprived children. Hershey seized on the idea; it was something they could create together. For both of them, it became a lifeline. They could give something real and useful to those in need. There would be children about the place with their innocence and their fresh way of seeing things. And the orphans would want for nothing that it was possible for Hershey to provide. They would have all the things he had not as a child. In November 1909, Kitty and Milton Hershey signed a deed of trust endowing their orphan school with 486 acres of farmland. According to a close relative, Joseph Snavely, they wanted to make themselves “literally parents to a family of orphan boys.”

It was a proud moment when the first ten boys enrolled at the Hershey Industrial School. The teaching was informal at first, with the boys gathered around one large table to learn crafts and skills, but they soon graduated to a converted barn. The children stayed at the local farms, but Milton Hershey made a point to visit every Sunday.

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.”

O
n 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.

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 be 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.