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P. A. Molteno, Harry Nuttall, Charles Roberts, Albert Spicer, George
Toulmin, Aneurin Williams, J. W. Wilson.

Gilbert Parker.

(EDITORS). Robert Donald, A. G. Gardiner, J. A. Spender, J. S. R. Phillips, J. St. Loe Strachey, A. Edmund Spender, Herbert Clarke.

REPLY.

DOWNING STREET,

August 27, 1918.

SIR,I am directed by Mr. Secretary Long to acknowledge the receipt of the letter of August 19, signed by the President and other officers of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society, advocating the abolition at an early date of the legal status of slavery in German East Africa.

2. Mr. Long feels it incumbent upon him to point out that the approximate number of slaves at the outbreak of war was between 70,000 and 80,000 and not 185,000 as stated in the letter under acknowledgment; and further that in the three years 1910-11 and 1912-13 the average number of slaves freed was 4,120, and not less than 3,000 as alleged.

3. His Majesty's Government have every sympathy with the natives of German East Africa and every desire to help and benefit them, but while the territory is merely in British occupation it is not practicable to take the steps advocated by the Society.

4. It is possibly known to the Society that under German law all slave children born after December 31, 1905, are free; that slave raiding and slave trading are, in the words of the present Administrator, things of the past, and that in consequence slavery, even if not legally abolished, would cease to exist within a few years.

I am, etc,

G. GRINDLE.

A further letter has been addressed to the Colonial Office, stating that the figure of 185,000 slaves was obtained from a report of Mr. Vice-Consul King, issued by the British Foreign Office in 1915, and the same estimate of the number was given in a German Government White Paper, summarized in The Times of March 14, 1914. As to the average number of slaves freed, Mr. King wrote that 4,234 certificates of freedom had been granted in 1912, an increase of 140 over the previous year. But of these 2,221 bought their liberty for cash; thus the total rate of emancipation without payment was much less than 3,000 per annum.

A

South African Matives.

DEPLORABLE impression is created by the gross injustice and colour prejudice displayed in the heavy sentences passed upon 152

native employees of the Johannesburg Municipality who recently struck for a higher rate of wages, following the example of a number of European workmen who, it is said, held up the whole lighting and motive power of the city until their demands (which were far greater than those of the natives) had been conceded by the Town Council. The natives, on the contrary, were sentenced to two months' hard labour, the magistrate telling them that they would be placed under a guard of Zulus with assegais and white men with guns, who would shoot them down if they tried to escape, adding that they would receive lashes if they refused to obey orders.

We are glad to learn that a strong public opinion has been excited, and that the sentences on the native strikers have since been suspended by order of the Supreme Court, the men being liberated on the authority of the Governor-General conditionally on their good behaviour. General Botha has been well advised to issue a manifesto to the natives on the subject. After expressing his confidence that the highly commendable conduct of the natives of South Africa during the four years of war, which reflected so much credit upon their leaders, would be wisely maintained, he referred to the suspension of the sentences and added that the Government, feeling that this action did not completely dispose of the matter, had decided to appoint a Commissioner, Mr. J. B. Moffat, Chief Magistrate of the Transkeian Territories, to investigate this and other matters and report. The inquiry would be opened within a few days and the terms of reference would be the same as those in the case of the recent European strike. The Government intended to see that, when the report was received, such action was taken as circumstances showed to be necessary.

In an excellent leader in the Cape Times the hope was expressed that the Government would pay something more than purely formal attention to the remonstrances addressed to it by various organizations in Cape Town and elsewhere against the unfortunate action of the Magistrate of Johannesburg in this case. Referring to resolutions adopted by the natives at a meeting of the Native Congress, the writer remarks that "they substantially endorse those passed by Cape Town organizations and by the Archbishop and Clergy," the substance of them being that

"the prosecution of and the sentence passed upon the native strikers were palpably in conflict with the principles of equal-handed justice, inasmuch as the white men, who must have been fully aware of the terms of the law and defied it, were allowed to defy it with impunity, and in fact gained a preposterous increase in their wages as a result of their breach of the law, while the natives, who in all probability had never heard of the existence of the Act, and who saw the success which had crowned the efforts of the white employees, were sentenced to two months' hard labour, and were addressed by the Magistrate in terms which were gravely in conflict with judicial prudence or political common sense. In both respects

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a glaring error was made. . . . In view of the failure to apply the law in the case of the white strikers it was clearly monstrous to apply it in the case of the native strikers, who had struck work in precisely similar circumstances. When natives in any part of the country are able to point their finger to a gross and palpable failure to apply the law in the case of the white man, followed a day or two later by a particularly truculent application of the same law against the native, we are getting in this country into dangerous waters."

General Botha recently met representatives of native workers belonging to tribes from all parts of South Africa, and heard their statement of grievances. He said that most of the matters which they had brought forward required legislation, and some were due to war conditions which affected the whole community, but he urged them to lay their case fully before the Commmissioner who had been appointed, promising to give it most sympathetic consideration. There were obstacles in the way of the Government carrying through the necessary legislative enactment reforms which seemed desirable, and the Premier reminded the natives that they themselves had recently prayed the Government to postpone broad legislation affecting their interests until after the war.

We learn from the South African cables that Mr. Commissioner Moffat's report has now been issued. The correspondent of The Times at Cape Town describes the report as "an important State document," which insists sharply on the inequity of the colour bar regulations, and "a courageous enunciation of principles seldom expressed in the Rand"; he considers that it amounts to a grave warning of the dangerous results of the colour bar to the Transvaal franchise in the Union Constitution,

The Commissioner advises the withdrawal of the colour bar provisions from the mining regulations, and says that there can be no real contentment in the country so long as the natives are denied citizen rights.

SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIETY.

WE are sorry to see that at the fourth annual meeting of the South African Society for Native Welfare, which was held at Cape Town in June last, the feeling in the country in regard to the natives and their treatment was referred to by several of the speakers as being far from satisfactory and in some respects retrograde. The Chairman, Mr. J. W. Mushet, in his review of the year, spoke of native feeling having reached a high pitch of tension over the Natives' Administration Bill. "Fortunately," he said, "at the last moment the Government gave way." The natives were more keenly alive than ever before to the possibilities of good and evil for themselves involved in legislation, and the position was serious. Unfortunately, since the Act of Union, the natives had got the opinion that the "powers that be " were unsympathetic towards them. The "colour bar " in the Act of Union was put down as the beginning of a new and repressive policy, and this was

borne out in the matter of administration.

Wherever the law was admin

istered it was not so sympathetically administered as it was in the days of the old Cape Parliament. The magistrates sent to the Native Territories in the old days were, he said, almost missionary in their objective. To-day, he was sorry to say, they had not got that type of man being sent there, and the result was that, generally speaking, the natives, taking the cue from the officials, considered that the present attitude of the white people of this country was not so sympathetic as it was before.

Mr. Mushet went on to protest vigorously against the heavy sentences passed on the native strikers, which could only make the natives feel that justice for blacks and for whites were two different things. Another speaker said that while he believed the Government and heads of departments to be sympathetic with natives, there was a widespread feeling of antagonism to them, which made the outlook black and threatening, while another assured the meeting that General Botha was a true friend of the natives, who would not suffer if they appealed to him.

The matter of the sentences on the Rand natives was referred to the Society's Executive Committee for immediate consideration.

We notice that Lord Buxton, the Governor General, in a ceremonial visit which he recently paid to natives in the Orange River Colony, when replying to a loyal address, also emphasized the fact that the Premier, as Minister for Native Affairs, was "the good friend of the natives."

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COLONEL LORD HENRY CAVENDISH-BENTINCK asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to the published evidence that King Mango Bell, of the Cameroons, was hanged as early as August 8, 1914; whether he has yet received any information as to what charge was made against King Bell; and if any opportunity was given to him to defend himself before being summarily executed?

Mr. HEWINS: I have no further information beyond that given by my predecessor on November 1, 1916, in reply to the hon. Member for Stafford. August 6.

RHODESIA.

Sir W. ESSEX asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in the event of any change taking place in the Government of Rhodesia, he will not permit any arrangement which will impose any financial liability upon the United Kingdom without having first laid proposals therefor before this House and obtained its sanction in the matter?

Mr. HEWINS: No change is at present contemplated.

Labour in Portuguese West Africa.

WE learn from the San Thomé official gazette that the Portuguese Colonial Minister gave instructions for the preparation of a census of labour in the islands, in accordance with which the Curator-General ordered all planters to send in returns, not later than February 20 last, of the number, sex and nationality of all the Serviçaes employed by them, children under eighteen being separately tabulated.

Unfortunately this seems, thus far, to have had no result, for the Official Gazette has published a complaint from the Curator-General that the planters and others have not stated the total population of their estates, adults and children, or the returns of deaths, thus making it impossible to calculate the rate of mortality, and causing much inconvenience to the Statistical Department.

We have another example of Portuguese torpor in the failure of the medical inquiry and report which was ordered to be made by Dr. Cid into the sanitary condition of the labourers on the plantations of the islands. Nothing has come of it, and it is believed that Dr. Cid was recalled.

International Control of the Colonies.

We welcome, as a Society, the discussion of the great problems connected with the colonies and the interests of their inhabitants which will confront us after the war, and we draw attention to two recent articles in particular which seem to throw valuable light on a difficult and complicated subject. Sir Sydney Olivier has written an admirable pamphlet1 dealing with the relations of Europeans with the weaker races, pointing out how eminently fitted these are to form the subject of international agreement in a League of Nations. He urges a policy much the same as that which this Society has brought before the Government, viz., that "the territories of primitive peoples, to whatever sovereignty they may be committed, must be given security that they shall be governed conformably to principles laid down in the light of the experience in African affairs that the world has gained during the last thirty-five years--a conformity to be enforced by the joint guarantee of the Powers associated in the settlement." Even if the war should end without the establishment of a League of Nations in a complete form, "it is clear that some settlement would have to be made with regard to the future of Germany's former colonies," and in this all the Allied and as many as possible of the neutral Colonial Powers should be associated.

Sir Sydney Olivier points out that tropical lands occupied by European peoples are of more importance than ever for the supply of raw materials required by the world. Freedom of access to these resources is generally

1 The League of Nations and Primitive Peoples (Oxford University Press, 3d. net.).

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