AFRICA $ l -a- y.4 grabbing policy which was, with many, as much in favour as the land- grabbing policy of the Bill. “ The natives of Bechuanaland,” he said, “ would make admirable servants for colonial farmers. Much was spoken about immigration. Why not draft those rebels down to the colony?”* “A sop to It is no secret that the expulsion of the Bechuana from the Angry lands “ inalienably ” reserved for them by the Annexation Act Bondmen.” G f 1895, as Mr. Chamberlain intended and supposed, had all along been desired by the section of the Cape population which had been most anxious for the annexation. That desire had been more than hinted in the petition of the Vryburg residents in May, 1895, when they stated that they “ viewed with envy the privileges enjoyed by the inhabitants of the Cape Colony in all matters pertaining to their welfare, and above all the liberal assistance extended to the farming community.” The “ rebellion,” if not wholly brought about with a view to providing the farmers with some of the land they coveted, proved a welcome means towards the wished-for end. The only disappointment was that the “rebellion” had shown itself in only some of the native reserves, and that Mr. Chamberlain had declined, without “ careful consideration,” to allow the “ loyals ” as well as the “ rebels ” to be turned out of their locations. Such as it was, however, the boon to the farming class was considerable, and its gratitude found timely expression in the political support gicen to Sir Gordon Spriggs Ministry by members of the Afrikander Bond whom the Jameson Raid had grievously offended. The situation was aptly and cynically explained by the Cape Times in a leading article on 1st June. “ We whites want the black man’s land,” it said, “just as we did when we first came to Africa. But we have the decency, in these conscience-ridden days, not to take it without a fair excuse. A native rising, especially when there are inaccessible caves for the rebels to retire to, is a very tiresome and expensive affair ; but it has its compensations, for it provides just the excuse wanted.” “ The Ministry is glad to be able to throw these unlucky rebels as a sop to angry Bondmen,” added the Cape Times, while admitting that “ the open exultation of the typical Afrikander Bondman on such occasions is a painful spectacle.” It might have been supposed that the betrayal of the Bechuana was complete. But there was more to follow ; and there may be more yet. Cape Times , 1st June, 1897. 35 VI.— “ SURRENDERED REBELS.” Of the 3,589 “ rebels ” with whom Colonel Dalgety reported At Kuruman, from the Langeberg that he was cumbered on 6th August, all who had strength to travel were as quickly as possible escorted to Kuruman, where about 3,000 of them were received and taken charge of by Mr. Stanford, the new Superintendent of Native Affairs. “ Many were in a miserable state of starvation,” Mr. Stanford reported. “ Dysentery was rife, children especially being the sufferers. All were without stock or grain of any description. They had marched in under great hardships.” There they were allowed to rest for a few days, all being fed, and the sick being provided with “ some degree of comfort and attention.”* On 14th August a meeting of all the men who could attend, wUh^he^Men a k° u t a third of the whole number, was held. “ I stated,” says Mr. Stanford, “ that the Government had decided not to prosecute any of them on the charge of sedition, with the exception of the leaders or those connected with the murders which had occurred, provided they consented to accept service in the colony upon such conditions and with such rates of wages as the Government might arrange for a term of five years. In addressing the people 1 dwelt upon the sufferings already endured by their women and children, the shortness of food even amongst those who had remained loyal to the Government, and the danger of further suffering if they and their families did not secure the employment offered them in the colony. I found that they were willing to go to work in the manner indicated, with the exception of some of the sons of the chiefs and leading men reserved for trial. These said they preferred to go to prison, and accompany their fathers to Kimberley, where it was stated the trials would take place. A few individuals complained that they had been wrongly included with the rebels. Such complaints were in due course inquired into, each being dealt with on its merits, with the result that some of the men were released.”-|- The Bargain -V day or Gvo Lter there was another gathering, this time of with the the women. “ It came to my knowledge,” says Mr. Stanford, women. «|-j ie WO men were freely discussing the labour scheme. They said the men had fought against the Government, and it was right tor them to go out to service, but as they, the women, had not taken up arms, and indeed had been opposed to the war, the Govern¬ ment could not expect them to accept employment at the Cape; they * Cape Parliamentary Papers, G. 4—’98, p. i> f Ibid, pp. 1,2. I) 2 36 would provide for themselves and their children otherwise. I then held a public meeting with the women. It was largely attended, and the whole matter was fully discussed. I acknowledged that the men alone were held responsible for the rebellion, but I asked the women to consider what was to happen to themselves and their children if they abandoned their husbands and sought such refuge and sub¬ sistence as they might obtain from their friends amongst the loyals, themselves very poorly supplied with milk and corn, or by seeking employment throughout the country on their own account. The spokeswomen put to me the cases of the families of the men reserved for trial, wives whose husbands were at service in the colony, widows and old women unable to travel. I answered that the families of the leaders reserved for trial would be allowed to join their relations in any of the reserves or go to service in such parts as they might choose for themselves. Wives whose husbands were already in employment could join them or, if they preferred to do so, remain in the reserves. Widows with their children were also free of the reserves, or they could take service if they wished to do so ; and I added that, on sufficient reason being shown for exceptional treatment, I would make special arrangements to provide work locally for men and their families, or in some other way meet their requirements. With these statements before them, the women generally were better satisfied. There were some, however, who left the encampment of their own accord—in fact, no force was used to detain any of them if they wished to go. Many of the widows elected to accompany relations or friends in the families pro¬ ceeding to Cape Town.”* Mr. Stanford further reports that he released all boys under i ] ffe * dl “^, out sixteen, all aged men and their families, and all the sick and the Worthless. ’ ° ’ .... blind whom he could find, although “ there was a disposition to hide both blind and sick from the medical officers as well as myself; I think detention for a lengthened period in the hospital was feared.” In these and other ways, the 3,589 prisoners taken by Colonel Dalgety, including the prisoners retained for trial and those who had died in the interval, were reduced to 2,039, that being the number sent off by Mr. Stanford in three batches, the last of which left Kuruman on 26th August.j- In the ten clays’ tramp from Kuruman to Vryburg about At Yryburg. five dozen disappeared. Only 1,978 were received there, “in a most deplorable condition and state of health,” by Chief Inspector Roberts, who, like Mr. Stanford at Kuruman, seems to have * Cape Parliamentary Papers, G. 4—’98, p. 2. f Ibid, pp. 2, 3. 37 done the cruel work assigned to him as kindly as possible. He saw to the natives being provided with food and blankets, with hospital accommodation for the sick, before sending such of them as were equal to the journey with some others to Cape Town. “ Seventy-three natives,” he says, “chiefly women with children, joined the camp and remained there until they were sent on with the rest to Cape Town.”* As only 1,896 or more reached the latter place, there was therefore a further disappearance of at least 155, presumably those who had died or were found to be dying in the interval. At The first batch, consisting of 131 men, reached Cape Town Cape Tv.wn otl 3 °^ August. Others followed in weekly instalments or so, till 12th November, when the aggregate of the arrivals was 1,896, according to Chief Inspector Kropf, the contracting officer who had to dispose of them under Mr. J. Rose Innes, the Special Commissioner appointed to look after them ; or 1,873, according to Mr. A. J. Burfoot, the retired Salvation Army official who undertook “ the management of the compound for Bechuana.” Of the latter total 584 were men, 424 were women, and 865 were children.f Before considering the treatment ultimately accorded to these people, a few points must be noted. The Fraud on In the first place, it was only to the men of the party, perhaps the Men a hundred more than the 584 accounted for at Cape Town, that Mr. Stanford had at Kuruman offered a choice between prosecution “ on a charge of sedition ” and “ service in the colony, upon such conditions and with such rates of wages as the Government might arrange, for a term of five years.” The Government, apparently, had not yet “arranged” the “conditions” and scale of wages. At any rate it may be taken lor granted that this alternative to prosecution was but vaguely stated to the men, and was yet more vaguely apprehended by them ; and it is clear that it was offered as a bait. They were prisoners, and starving. They were either guilty or not guilty of the sedition for which they were threatened with prosecution. If they were guilty, their guilt could only be proved in a court of law. The cases which, Mr. Stanford says, were “ in due course inquired into, each being dealt with on its merits, with the result that some of the men were released,” may have been amiably dealt with ; but the inquiry was not a magisterial or judicial one, and any consequences from it were unlawful. It was the duty of the Cape Government and its officials, having taken these men into custody as “ rebels,” to produce legal proof of their guilt, if it could, or promptly to release them all, as well as some of the few who “ complained that * Cape Parliamentary Papers, G. 4—’98, pp. 6, 7. f Ibid, pp. 7-10, 3 ^ they had been wrongly included with the rebels,” if it could not or would not convict them of the alleged offence. No plea of generosity towards the prisoners on the ground that they and their families might otherwise have starved (likely enough, if they were turned adrift without succour, seeing their lands had been taken from them, their kraals destroyed, their grain burnt and their cattle seized) justifies their further punishment if they were innocent in the eye of the law; and according to British rules of equity the innocence of all men is assumed until their guilt is proved. In proposing to the men that they should choose between being tried for sedition and put to work for their living, the Cape Government either offered to “ compound a felony ” or used a threat that invalidated any contract they were thereby induced to enter into. In either alternative, its treatment of the men was illegal. This was shown at the trial of Toto and others at Kimberley on 8th November, when two of the number who had been bold enough to plead “ not guilty ” were discharged after three months’ wrongful detention, because, as the judge pointed out, “ the evidence against them was very weak.”* It was made yet more manifest on 26th November, when, in what is known as “ Mr. Moffat’s test case,” two who had been taken down to Cape Town, and on their objecting to be indentured, were sent back to Vryburg for trial, “the Public Prosecutor declined to bring the case before a jury, and the prosecution was abandoned.”j- Even more illegal, if possible, was the treatment of the women The Fraud on ^ ^^ren. When at Kuruman some of them objected the Women. . , , . , ,, . r , . to being further punished for the alleged crimes of their husbands, or fathers, or sons, Mr. Stanford, as he frankly admits, partly threatened them with the starvation to which they might be exposed if they remained without their natural protectors in the desolated country, and partly bribed them with offers of “ special arrangements,” should there be “sufficient reason shown for exceptional treatment.” Ostensibly there was no compulsion proposed or used in their case, either at Kuruman or at Vryburg. They were offered and urged to accept work near Cape Town and near their exiled male relations, but there was no talk of enforced labour for a term of years, and “ no force was used to detain any of them if they wished to go.” They were treated, apparently, as free people, for whom the Government had none but the most generous intentions. Only when they reached Cape Town, seven or eight hundred miles from their own homes, was it made plain to them that, again styled “ surrendered rebels,” they were to share the slavery to which their husbands and fathers and sons had been doomed. Diamond Fields Advertiser , nth November, 1897. f Cape Parliamentary Papers, G. 4—’98, p. 6, 39 Mr. Stanford says that at Kuruman he ‘‘ released ” all boys the children lln( ^ er sixteen, and in other ways lessened as far as he could the encumbrances of his human consignments. But, “ in spite of my vigilance, some sick children were smuggled off, the women enveloping them in their karosses as they marched past, to escape observation.”* For all that, the children sent to Cape Town nearly equalled in number the adults of both sexes. It was necessary, of course, that the babies and all small children should accompany their parents, if their lives were to be saved ; but many died on the way, and the survivors will be perforce neglected by mothers condemned to drudgery while they ought to be tending their offspring. The fate of these very juvenile “surren¬ dered rebels” is hard. VII.—THE CAPE TOWN “SLAVE MART.” The While the first “ batch ” of prisoners was on its way to Cape indenturing Town, the following official advertisement was issued r Arrangement. “Notice.—Native Labourers. “ It is hereby notified, for the information of farmers and others, that a number of surrendered Bechuana rebels will be available as farm servants, &c., on and after the 28th instant. “ Applications should be sent to the Superintendent of Native Affairs, Cape Town, from whom all particulars can be obtained. “ The period of indenture is fixed for five years, and wages are at the rate of 10s. a month for able-bodied men, and 7s. 6d. for youths, in addition to food and housing. “ Some of these natives have experience in general farm work, while others are experienced wagon drivers, &c. Preference will be given to applications which will enable families to remain together, or on farms situated close together. “A party comprising able-bodied single men may be expected in Cape Town during the next ten days. “ J. Rose Innes, “ Acting Superintendent of Native Affairs. “ Native Affairs Office, Cape Town, 18th August, 1897.” f The rate of wages for boys was, on consideration, reduced to 5s. a month, girls being in the same category, and women were assessed at 7s. 6d. Perhaps it was not at first contemplated that females as well as males should be indentured for five years ; but the plan was too convenient for it not to be carried out. “ PTom the first,” says Mr. Rose Innes, who, with the assistance of Mr. Burfoot and others, received and disposed of the prisoners, “ I decided that families were Cape Parliamentary Papers, G. 4—’98, p. 2. f Cape Times , 19th August, 1897. 40 not on any account to be divided or split up, though in very many cases they included aged women too old to work, small children and babies, who for some years would not be able to render any service to their masters.” Therefore it was deemed proper that the “ masters,” being required to feed and house the feeble belongings of the sturdy folk, should have the power of making what use they could of those belongings by all alike being indentured to them. “ Upon application at the Statistical Department,” adds Mr. Rose Innes, “ I was informed that the average monthly wages for agricultural servants by farmers in the Western Province ranged from ios. to 20s., and it was decided that, under all the circumstances, ios. per month for men, 7s. 6d. for women, and 5s. for lads and girls capable of being employed in any way, would be adequate wages, food and proper lodging for the whole family being included.”* Both Mr. Rose Innes and Mr. Kropf, who saw to the Contracts'’’ “ contracting,” say that the utmost care was taken to explain to the “ rebels ” the nature of the arrangements proposed, and to obtain their free consent thereto. How this was done in the case of the babies we are not told ; in the other cases it must have been difficult. Neither of these officials could talk with the prisoners in their own language. “ Through one of their number who spoke and understood Dutch,” says Mr. Rose Innes, “ I was able to converse with them and hear their statements.”! “ Out of the first batch,” says Mr. Kropf, “ I selected a very decent Bechuana, able to speak Dutch and also a little English, for an interpreter. Myself and my men speaking the Dutch language, we were able with this man’s assistance to get along very satisfactorily indeed.Of “ the first batch,” received on 30th August, Mr. Kropf reports, “ After they were well T Account; 31 fed, ^ addressed them and fully explained to them the conditions of indenture, at which one and all appeared satisfied ” ; and “ the above-mentioned procedure was regularly repeated on arrival of every fresh batch.”§ Mr. Burfoot reports to the same effect. Of Mr. Kropf’s discourse to the first batch he says, “ These conditions were accepted by all without objection. They all expressed themselves as being quite satisfied and pleased to be away from the hardship of being in the Langeberg, saying, had they been left there, they, with their wives and children ”—the members of the first batch, be it noted, were all young unmarried men—“ would have been starved, as they had lost their cattle and had no food to eat.” Again, concerning the second batch, “ In speaking to the women about their being brought down to be indentured as servants, in no case was any disapproval * Cape Parliamentary Papers, G. 4—’98, p. 4. I Ibid, p. 4. | Ibid, p. 8. § Ibid, p. 7. 4i expressed by them ; they said they were glad to get food and money.” So with all the seven other batches, the only exceptions, as officially recorded, to universal gratitude and universal approval of the indenturing project being, among the third batch, the “ two boys who spoke to Mr. Moffat.”* According to these officials, who had to depend on Dutch-speaking prisoners, if there was more than one, for their knowledge of the prisoners’ thoughts and wishes, every one, from newly- born babies upwards, with the exception of two truculent young men, out of 1,896, intelligently sanctioned his or her deportation to Cape Town and indenturing for five years to a Western Province farmer. Mr. Moffat, Mrs. Hepburn, and others able to converse freely Account w ^h the natives in their own tongue, give a different account.^ “ I was present yesterday at the indenturing of the two lads, a silent and to them unknown spectator,” wrote Mr. Moffat immediately after the first batch arrived and was offered for indenturing. “ When the word of acquiescence was demanded of them and given, there was an expressive shrug of the shoulders, and a spasm of pain passed over their features. To say that these men enter into the apprenticeship of their own free will is to say what is not true. They may, with the cheerful resignation which is one of the characteristics ol their race, accept what seems to them inevitable ; but that is all.” And that, it may be safely said, reduces to its true proportions and places in its true light the alleged “ voluntariness ” of the contract on which the Cape Government depends for legal justification of the way in which, having treacherously and illegally brought its prisoners down to Cape Town, it treacherously, if not illegally, obtained their consent, or what it calls their consent, to the slavery it imposed on them. “ Our slave mart,” as the Cape Times terms it, was opened in ^avcry 3 a temporary prison outside Cape Town, on 31st August. Thither on that day the Western Province farmers began to crowd up in search of the cheap labour they had need of, and, after selecting “ lots ” to their liking, and signing the indenturing contracts, to which also formal assent was procured from the natives made parties to them, they carted off their bargains.* Although several cases of gross ill-treatment of some of the “ indentured rebels ” by their owners for five years have already occurred, and some have been severely dealt with by the magistrates, and although it is inevitable that there should be * Cape Parliamentary Papers, G. 4—’98, pp. 8, 9. t See numerous letters and statements in the Cape Times, Cape Argus, &c., of September, 1897, and following months ; also the Aborigines’ Friend for February, 1898. t A graphic and pathetic, as well as cynical, account of the traffic is given by Mr. Garrett in the Cape Times of 29th September, 1897. It is confirmed, with other and painful details, by Mrs. Ilepburn in the Aboiigines 5 Friend for February, 1898. 4 ? frequent, if not plentiful, cases of such cruelty, in spite of anything the Cape Goverment may promise or perform in the way of protecting the people it professes itself eager to befriend, it is not here necessary to discuss this part of the question. The essential point is that, whether it meant and means ill or well, whether or not it can find in the difficulties which it brought about in the earlier half of 1897, and for which it had to attempt some solution in the later half of the year, any excuses for its wrong¬ doing, the action of the Cape Government has been wrong in law as well as in ethics. The deportation of nearly 2,000 untried prisoners from Kuruman to Langeberg and to Cape Town was illegal. No less illegal has been the indenturing of those prisoners to Western Province farmers under conditions differing only in name from slavery. The cape The Cape Government attempts to excuse or palliate—among GoYernment’s its supporters in the colony, to glorify—its conduct on the Quibbles, grounds, among others, (1) that the male “ rebels ” were offered and accepted a milder form of punishment, in being taken south and put to work for wages, than trial on the charge of sedition would subject them to ; (2) that in treating women and children as “ rebels,” along with the men, and conveying them also to Cape Town, to be there disposed of on like conditions, it only dealt generously with them, as they were thus rescued from the starvation that would otherwise have befallen them ; (3) that there was nothing akin to slavery in the subsequent indenturing, seeing that all the “ rebels ” entered into “ voluntary ” contracts, that they—or the men, women, and older boys and girls among them—were to be paid wages for their services, and that the term of indentureship was limited to five years. The first apology involves manifest illegality. No British subject in Cape Colony or elsewhere can lawfully be punished for any offence, even if committed by him, of which he has not been convicted in a duly constituted court of law. The second apology is, on the face of it, to say the least, hypocritical. At a much less expense than the £2^0 or so per day which it squandered for half a year in keeping up a force of Geluk and other burghers to harass and murder “ rebels,” the Cape Government could have enabled the surviving women and children, if not also the men, who had been robbed of their lands, their cattle and their grain, to keep alive, until by growing and harvesting fresh crops, and in other honest and independent ways, they were able to exist without “ charity.” The third apology involves both illegality and hypocrisy. (1) The indenturing contracts with the grown-up men and women, to say nothing of the small children and the babies in arms, were in no sense 43 voluntary. Those who nodded assent to them did so in ignorance or under terror, or both. They were the result of deception and intimida¬ tion, and are therefore invalid in British law, and can only be upheld by a tyranny that refuses to recognise the force of law. (2) The payment of wages, even if honestly paid and at the market price, no more removes the recipient from the condition of a slave than does his housing and feeding, or any other so-called recompense, if meanwhile he is debarred from being his own master. (3) Nor does the five years’ limit lessen his degradation throughout the five years, if he lives and slaves so long : it rather aggravates it. If one man hold another as his slave for life, self-interest, if nothing else, prompts him to so treat the slave as to keep him alive and in working order as long as he can. If property in the slave is of short duration, the one effort of a hard master is to get as much as possible out of his slave while the mastery lasts. Slavery for five years maybe even more cruel for the time being, and is in great danger of being so, than slavery for life. At any rate it is slavery, and slavery within the British dominions was for ever forbidden by the Emancipation Act of 1833. It is not only, as Sir Gordon Sprigg suggests, a few fanatics in England who object to his policy. In proof of this statement many quotations might be made. Let one suffice. Mr. Rose At a meeting held in Cape Town on 28th October to protest innes, q.c„ on against the Cape Government’s policy—by no means the only the situation. one t i ie sor t- —]^ 0 se Innes, Q.C., formerly Attorney- General of Cape Colony, spoke eloquently in support of the following resolution :—“ That this meeting condemns the action of the Govern¬ ment in regard to the Bechuanaland prisoners as being contrary to justice and the principles of the Constitution, on the grounds (i)that the measure of guilt attaching to the leaders of the rebellion has still to be ascertained, and that their followers ought not, therefore, to be condemned without a hearing ; (2) that the prisoners have had no real choice between freedom and indenturing ; (3) that many of those indentured are persons who cannot possibly have taken any part in the rebellion.” In the course of his speech Mr. Rose Innes said, “It had been the boast of every Englishman, and it was their boast, that all men were equal before the law, and that no man could be punished without a fair trial, and that every man not convicted of a crime was a free man, and could go and sell his labour to whom he chose. Those things lay at the root of their freedom, and they must be very jealous of their principles if they wished to hand them down to their children. He contended that those principles had been absolutely violated by the policy which had been adopted. These criminals were punished without a trial, If 44 they were criminals, they should be put upon their trial. If they were not criminals, they should walk out free.The Government, through its officials, went and said to those men, ‘ You either stand your trial for high treason or else come down here and serve for five years with a Western farmer.’ Of course the prisoners chose the lesser of two evils, and the moment they had chosen it was said, ‘ Hurrah for freedom of contract! ’—a contract concluded under lock and key, and by men who were under the guard of the law! If that was freedom of contract, he would like some lawyer to tell him what was duress.” “If they did not take care,” he urged, after a full exposition of the legal and moral aspects of the question, “they would find that they had established a precedent, and further and further they would go until they had landed in a policy the bitter fruits of which would be reaped, not only by themselves, but by their children.”* VIII.—THE ISSUES AT STAKE. Appaais to O n 15th September, 1897, as soon as detailed information the colonial as to the Cape Government’s indenturing arrangements had Office. reached England, the Aborigines Protection Society addressed a letter to the Colonial Office, pointing out that those arrangements, “ if carried out, will be practically a revival of slavery in Cape Colony,” and urging that prompt action should be taken “ with a view to securing the adoption of just and humane conduct towards the unfortunate natives of Southern Bechuanaland, who have been ruined in a conflict forced upon them, and of whom Sir Gordon Sprigg stated in the House of Assembly that ‘ many of these people would much rather not have gone into rebellion, but they were compelled to follow their chiefs.’” In a second letter, dated 28th September, the Society repeated its appeal, on the ground “ that all forms of slavery have been rendered illegal by the Emancipation Act of 1833, an d that the enforced labour, without trial and without conviction, of British subjects, as these people are, by their own and their fathers’ request, is a form of slavery.” In reply to both letters the Society was informed on 2nd October that “ the Secretary of State assumes that the contracts between the natives in question are made in accordance with the provisions of the law of the colony, and that the treatment of the indentured natives will be governed by that law.” “ With regard to the legal aspect of the question,” it was added, “ the Secretary of State would observe that the courts of the Cape Colony are open to any one who desires to try * Cape Times, 29th October, 1897, 45 the question, and he notices that, according to newspaper reports, a test case is about to be brought at the instance of the Rev. J. S. Moffat.” On 4th October the Society, pointing out that the procedure in the trial of Mr. Moffat’s “ test case ” might be of long duration, “ involving much uncertainty and probable mischief in the interval,” submitted that it was the duty of Her Majesty’s Government, even in the case of the self-governing Cape Colony, to require in it observance of “ laws applicable to Great Britain and all British possessions.” Mr. Chamberlain was, moreover, asked to instruct the Governor of Cape Colony “ to make independent inquiries, and transmit as soon as possible his report with reference to the steps taken by the Cape Government in initiating and conducting the arrangements ” complained of. On 8th October Mr. Chamberlain replied that the Governor had been asked “ to furnish a report on the whole question,” but that the legal question “ is one which must be decided in the courts of law.” The Society having, on nth October, requested that it might be favoured with a copy of Sir Alfred Milner’s “report on the whole question,” when received, considered it proper to allow a reasonable time to elapse before making further appeal. The expected report from the Governor has not, so far as it is aware, arrived ; but three minutes of the Cape Government, dated 30th September, 12th October and 5th November, have been communicated to it. In them Sir Gordon Sprigg offers no defence of the action of his Ministry on the plea of legality, but asserts that “ the method adopted by them merits commendation on the score of leniency, rather than blame on the ground of severity.” In the first of these minutes Sir Gordon Sprigg avers that “ the course taken by the Government has been adopted in the interests of peace and humanity, which could not possibly have been secured by simply allowing the law to take its course,” and in the third he declares frankly that “ the policy of the Government with respect to disloyal, rebellious natives is and always has been to deprive them of their land, and to teach them that the course of wisdom lies in obeying the laws of the country instead of listening to the evil counsel of the chiefs.” The Cape Government’s minutes of 30th September and 12th October having been communicated to the Aborigines Protection Society on 6th December, it commented upon them at some length in a letter to Mr. Chamberlain, dated 9th December, disputing the Cape Government’s claim to humanity in its treatment of the “ surrendered rebels,” and pointing out that, apart from the illegality of its proceedings, they were arbitrary and cruel. To this Mr. Chamberlain replied, on 22nd December, that he “ does not feel it to be within his province to demand from a self-governing 46 colony a detailed answer to charges made by any private person or society on matters which, constitutionally speaking, are within the competence of that Government, and in which the Imperial Government has no title to interfere.” On the same day, 22nd December, the Society had addressed another letter to Mr. Chamberlain, consequent on information having been received that the Cape Government had, on the advice of its Public Prosecutor, abandoned the proceedings it had instituted against the two Bechuana concerned in Mr. Moffat’s “ test case,” and by so doing had admitted the illegality of its conduct in treating as “ rebels,” without trial, the natives whom it had deported from the Langeberg to Cape Town, to be there indentured for five years. In this letter it was urged that, “ the Cape Government having taken no steps to redress the wrong it has done, it is incumbent on Her Majesty’s Government to interfere,” and in a letter dated 24th December, replying to Mr. Chamberlain’s letter of 22nd December, he was reminded that the Society’s appeals were addressed “ not to the Government of Cape Colony, which has obtained the Crown’s consent to the legalising of measures avowedly designed for the injury of the Bechuana, but to the Imperial Government, which may be reasonably asked to assert the authority of the Crown, within constitutional limits, over even self-governing colonies, in upholding ‘ principles of civilisation and humanity.’ ” A concise restatement of the grounds of the appeals followed. The Failure re ply to both letters the Society was informed, on or the 24th January, 1898, that “Mr. Chamberlain does not find Appeals. j n these letters any fresh reason which would justify Her Majesty’s Government in interfering in a matter in respect of which the Cape Government are answerable to the Parliament of the Cape Colony.” ‘‘ The attitude taken up by the Aborigines Protection Society, in pro¬ posing the interference of Her Majesty’s Government,” it was added ? “ is based upon statements the accuracy of which is not established, and cannot be established, without an inquiry upon the spot, which it is not within the competence of Her Majesty’s Government to order.”* The Secretary of State for the Colonies having thus refused to take action, it is now necessary that appeal should be made from him to the public and to Parliament. With all the facts as to the dealings of the Cape Government with the Bechuana who “ rebelled ” last year, and who have since been punished for “rebellion,” we are not, it is true, as fully acquainted as we should wish to be, and “ an inquiry upon the spot,” if honest and thorough, could not fail to be very instructive. But it is still * The lengthy correspondence here summarised is given in full in recent numbers uf the Aborigints’ Friend. less within the competence of any private person or individual than within that of Her Majesty’s Government to order such an inquiry. Nor is it necessary to wait for it. The foregoing statements, it is submitted, are established by the Parliamentary papers and other official documents on which, as regards all essentials, they are almost exclusively based, and are quite sufficient for safe conclusions to be drawn from them. It is further submitted that the matter in question is one in respect of which Her Majesty’s Government is no less answerable to the Imperial Parliament than is the Cape Government answerable to the Parliament of Cape Colony. The case Certain pledges were entered into by the direct representatives against the of the Crown, in its name and on its behalf, with the people Governments. G f Bechuanaland. Some of these pledges have been broken, though the Imperial Government has rashly, and against the wishes of the native parties to the contract, transferred its responsibilities to the Cape Government. If the Imperial Government has thereby restricted and hampered its opportunities of protecting the natives from injury, it is all the more bound, in equity and honour, to do what it can, and, at the least, to insist that laws which are as authoritative and should be as operative in Bechuanaland and in Cape Colony as in Westminster shall be obeyed and enforced. If there is room for dispute as to the apparent culpability of the Cape Government in provoking, or allowing its subordinates to provoke, the so-called “ rebellion ” which showed itself in December, 1896, and in widening and prolonging that “rebellion” till August, 1897—and these are, presumably, the points upon which, in Mr. Chamberlain’s opinion, the accuracy of the Society’s statements is not established—it cannot be denied that the action of the Cape Government was illegal in arresting the natives who delivered themselves up to it after the surrender of the Langeberg, and in deporting nearly two thousand of them as “ rebels,” without trial and without conviction, to Cape Town. The Cape Government itself does not now deny the illegality of its proceedings. In the latest of his election speeches of which a detailed report has reached England, on 5th January last, Sir Gordon Sprigg, reiterating his professions of humanity and leniency, contradicted them, not for the first time, by propounding a new hypothesis—that the Bechuana, being “ rebels,” not “ prisoners of war,” had no right to such clemency as would be accorded to prisoners of war. “It is totally different,” he said, “ if subjects of the Queen rise against the authority of the Queen. They commit a crime against the laws of the country as well as against the moral laws.”* If there is any weight in Sir Gordon Sprigg’s remarkable * Cape Argus, 6th January, 1898. 48 Contention, it is all against his conduct and his policy. Surely, “subjects of the Queen,” if accused of any “ crime against the laws of the country,” have a right to fair trial for the alleged crime. A few of the Bechuana— Toto and others—were subjected to a form of trial, and those who had been induced to plead “guilty” were sentenced in the great majority of cases to two years’ imprisonment. Those who pleaded “ not guilty ” were discharged, because no sufficient evidence could be brought against them; and in Mr. Moffat’s “test case” the two who refused to be indentured had to be discharged because the Public Prosecutor declined to prosecute them. The Cape Government having acknowledged the illegality of its proceedings, has to fall back on its plea of clemency. That is not a plea which, if there were any reality in it, would justify illegality. Being manifestly hypocritical, resort to it is all the more dangerous. The further plea that, by consenting—if they did consent—to be indentured in Cape Town, the Bechuana who did so legalised the proceedings, is equally invalid. No British subject can enter into a “ free contract ” under duress. This point could not be more clearly put than it was put in the remarks of Mr. Rose Innes, Q.C., which have already been cited. In coercing its “ surrendered rebels ” into the indentureship for five years which was gone through between August and November last, the Cape Government broke the law, and condemned them to a bondage that, however much it may object to call it so, is in fact slavery. This lawlessness has been perpetrated by the Cape Government, applauded by the majority of the white population in Cape Colony, and tolerated by the Colonial Office, which has thus made itself a sharer in the wrong-doing. Appeal to the Cape Government or to the Cape Parliament would be futile. Appeal to Her Majesty’s Government has thus far been unavailing. Appeal is now made to the British public and the Imperial Parliament. \ eale, Chifleriel & Co. Ltd., 31-37 Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, London, E.C. •Vi’