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A proposal to merge the James Darcy Lever article into Lever Brothers article was put forward in July 2011. James Darcy Lever was the younger brother and co-founder of Lever Brothers. Another editor states James Darcy Lever is not notable and for the same reason he feels the name James Darcy Lever should not appear in any wikipedia articles, removing the younger brother from all history on wikipedia would need to be addressed under another header. The question is - Should the article about James Darcy Lever be merged into the article about Lever Brothers? -- Pennine rambler ( talk) 20:20, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Below I invite discussion regarding removing James Darcy Lever from wikipeida, both in his article and in all other articles on the grounds of notability, as per proposed deletion.-- Pennine rambler ( talk) 20:20, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
It appears that the Lever headquarters in the U.S. was in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the 1930s and into the 1940s, based on press reports of the time. The company operated a major soap factory on Broadway in East Cambridge, where Technology Square is now located. (See Sanborn maps of the period for details, although there's no indication that the headquarters was located there.) The U.S. operations are now branded "Unilever United States", but the legal identity, unless it has changed recently, is Conopco, Inc. 18.26.0.5 ( talk) 02:17, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
Weird that the Lever's Jewishness has been left out of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.5.80.25 ( talk) 10:45, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
Portions of the section now titled "Use of forced labor in the Congo" have been deleted, seemingly (to me, at least) at random.
For example, the current version mentions the 40 crates per month quota, but fails to mention explain the harshness of this quota even from the perspective of Pierre Ryckmans, a man not opposed to the idea of forced recruitment in principle. (On page 137, there is a passage in which Ryckmans explains that he is not against forced recruitment in principle, but he did have some objections to the way it was being carried out in actual practice.) "Ryckmans recommended that the quotas should vary throughout the year to correlate to the rate at which clusters ripened" fails to get the point of this. From the perspective of someone who has not read the book by Jules Marchal, does this mean that Ryckmans thought the quota was fine for off-season months but should be increased during the months that more clusters ripened? Or the opposite, that the quota was fine for months of peak production but should be decreased during off-season months? Somewhere in between? A couple quotes included in the previous version of the article makes the matter more clear. "A more or less constant output can only be achieved ... by imposing an effort upon the natives that is in inverse proportion to the natural production of the palm groves. Hence ... the grievances of state officials "harassed by complaints, to borrow a phrase used by one of them, invariably during the rainy season, hence the excessive pressure put upon the cutters by some company agents, who fear being in the company's bad books if production should fall; hence, finally, the bitterness and disgust for the occupation of the cutter felt by the workers, who are accused of laziness and of ill will, and who are sometimes even prosecuted." And also, "What is an agent to do upon receiving such directives, except abide by them? He will harass the natives, pester them, set capitas and sentries on their heels, punish them for having failed to harvest non-existent fruit, while waiting until such a time that, through the above-mentioned labour contract, he may have recourse to the state to apply still more effective sanctions to the "recalcitrant" ... Is it any wonder that the occupation [of fruit cutter] has a bad reputation?" Without this context to clarify the matter, it is pointless to even mention the 40 crates per month quota or Ryckmans' recommendation for changing it.
There was also a sentence about how the HCB sought a monopoly on the right to buy palm fruit. This sentence ought to have been expanded into at least a paragraph, given that Jules Marchal devotes and entire chapter to the subject, but instead it has been deleted entirely.
The paragraph on the Lejeune report has been shortened. It still mentions disease and mortality, but fails to include some of the contributing factors to that disease and mortality: the lack of food, adequate shelter, and blankets. A casual reader, unfamiliar with the book by Jules Marchal, might conclude that the Africans were simply dying of natural causes. Additionally, asserting that slaves ought to be graetful that they at least have a job, food, and a bed is a common tactic used by those who seek to minimize the issue of slavery and claim that we should instead be more worried about unemployment. While people must decide for themselves whether slavery or unemployment is a more important issue, it is important to emphasize that slaves often do not receive adequate food or shelter, and would in many cases have more food and better shelter if left to their own devices. Reports like the one by Lejeune help to emphasize that. Additionally, while the Lejeune report contains minimal mention of the actual coercion used by the Belgian government and the HCB, it does provide ample evidence that the HCB was not providing conditions which would entice workers to come of their own free will, and the current version of this article does not make that clear. Oddly, while the summary Lejeune's original statements regarding food and blankets were deleted, the responses to those statements from Edkins and Engels are not. The responses now seem to lack context. The responses from Alphonse Rhodain, a chief medical officer, were also removed, and again I am not sure why.
The previous version of the paragraph on the use of prison sentences to combat absenteeism showed collusion between the Lever Brothers and the state by showing how they were simply arguing over the appropriate length of said prison sentences. Without the summary of Commissioner general Alphonse Engels' response, I don't believe the current version gets the point across.
This is not a complete listing of all the things which have been deleted, for no apparent reason to me, but it does go over some of the omissions I found most glaring at first look. Ashy Waves ( talk) 14:45, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
Ohnoitsjamie, it's hypocritical for you to keep linking a webpage you clearly do not believe in. The webpage you link states, "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." So far as I can tell, it does not say anything about the actions of a company somehow becoming less important just because they do some legal paperwork to create a subsidiary. Some of the less detailed references do not even mention that a subsidiary was used and instead simply attribute the forced labour to Lever Brothers or Unilever. Given that you have previously stated that, "The number of references you list here has no bearing on the discussion", it is hypocritical for you to continue linking that webpage. I suppose, now that I have said this, you are about to block me, or arrange for me to be blocked, as you have already threatened. Ashy Waves ( talk) 16:00, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
I am not sure about the appropriate procedure for a request for comment, but I expect to be blocked at any time for disagreeing with another editor and so I am in a hurry to request comments from people who actually care about references and don't merely link to webpages that talk about references while ignoring references themselves. I am simply in a hurry to do this while I am still able, before being blocked, and hope I can be forgiven if there is something procedurally wrong. Ashy Waves ( talk) 16:13, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
The dispute is related to including information about the use of forced labour in the Belgian Congo by Lever Brothers. Here is some references that I have reviewed personally. I consider the first on the list to be the highest quality, most comprehensive of them, but the others help establish that there are other authors besides Jules Marchal who have concluded that Lever Brothers did indeed use forced labour in the Belgian Congo. I would like to add that Lord Leverhulme's Ghosts quotes large passages of primary source material, so other sources are indirectly included within it, making it, in a sense, multiple sources within a single source.
Marchal, Jules (2008). Lord Leverhulme's Ghosts: Colonial Exploitation in the Congo. Translated by Martin Thom. Introduced by Adam Hochschild. London: Verso. ISBN 978-1-84467-239-4. First published as Travail forcé pour l'huile de palme de Lord Leverhulme: L'histoire du Congo 1910-1945, tome 3 by Editions Paula Bellings in 2001.
Rich, Jeremy (Spring 2009). "Lord Leverhulme's Ghost: Colonial Exploitation in the Congo (review)". Project Muse. Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History. Retrieved 17 March 2018.
Buell, Raymond Leslie (1928). The native problem in Africa, Volume II. New York: The Macmillan Company. pp. 540–544.
Lewis, Brian (2008). "Sunlight for Savages". So Clean: Lord Leverhulme, Soap and Civilisation. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. 188–190.
Edmondson, Brad (2014). "10: The Sale Agreements". Ice Cream Social: The Struggle for the Soul of Ben & Jerry's. San Francisco, California: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Makelele, Albert. This is a Good Country: Welcome to the Congo. pp. 43–44.
De Witte, Ludo (January 9, 2016). "Congolese oorlogstranen: Deportatie en dwangarbeid voor de geallieerde oorlogsindustrie (1940-1945)". DeWereldMorgen.be. Retrieved 17 March 2018.
"Lord Leverhulme". History. Retrieved 17 March 2018.
Mitchell, Donald (2014). The Politics of Dissent: A Biography of E D Morel. SilverWood Books.
"Un autre regard sur l'Histoire Congolaise: Guide alternatif de l'exposition de Tervuren" (PDF). p. 14. Retrieved 17 March 2018.
Here are some sources that I have not personally reviewed, but perhaps there might be someone else out there who is able to find them. They are listed by Jules Marchal as sources that he used. However, many are in French, located at the African Archives in Brussels, or otherwise difficult to find.
Chalux, Un an au Congo Belge, Brussels, 1925
Denis Leopold, Les Jesuites Belges au Kwango, Brussels 1943
A. Lycops, O. Louwers and G. Touchard, eds, Etat independant du Congo. Recuil usuel de la legislation, 7 bols, Brussels, 1902-1913
Henri Nicolai, Le Kwilu, Edition Cemubac (Centre scientifique et medical de l'ULB en Afrique Centrale), LXIX-1963
W.A.G. Ormsby-Gore, Report by the Hon. W. A. G. Ormsby-Gore M.P. (parliamentiary under-secretary of state for the Colonies) on his visit to West Africa during the year 1926, London, September 1926, command paper 2744.
Jacques Vanderlinden, Pierre Ryckmans, Brussels 1994
Charles Wilson, The History of Unilever, 3 vols, London 1954
The following deposits from the African archives that are stored in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brussels: AI: Affaires indigenes AIMO: Affaires indigenes et main-d'oevre du gouvernement general FP: Force publique GG Leo: achircives due gouvernement general a Leopoldville H: Hygiene MOI: Main-d'oeuvre indigene SPA: Sevice due personnel d'Afrique T: archives de la 3e direction generale, tome A 47, dossiers T (terres)
Also semi-official publications from the AMC (Annuaires due Ministere des Colonies), BA (Bulletin administatif et commercial du Congo Belge), BCB (Biographie Coloniale Belge), and BO (Bulletin officiel)
Ashy Waves ( talk) 17:18, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
Ohnoitsjamie, you claim the list of sources is irrelevant, but then the three pages you link all talk about the importance of references. "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources", "but we can't ride the crest of the wave because we can only report that which is verifiable from reliable and secondary sources", "you'll have to wait until it's been reported in mainstream media or published in books from reputable publishing houses", "All article topics must be verifiable with independent, third-party sources, so articles about very small "garage" or local companies are typically unacceptable." To link pages that talk about the importance of the references in the same sentence that you insist the sources are irrelevant is an example of hypocrisy.
The prejudice you and others have against including information about slavery and forced labour is an example of systemic bias.
Because there are very few slaves, former slaves, and forced labour victims who have internet access and are able to edit Wikipedia, topics of interest to them are systematically deleted or never included to begin with. Ashy Waves ( talk) 18:28, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
Watson comes from Low Bolton and lived his entire life in Sellafield and Braystones.
https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/William_Henry_Watson
It is a pity that the chemist behind vegetable soap only gets minor mention.
185.219.109.145 ( talk) 12:04, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
An IP keeps inserting "New York" as the headquarters of this company. Lever Brothers did have headquarters in various countries but its global HQ was in the UK, not the US. See here. Dormskirk ( talk) 16:15, 31 August 2021 (UTC)