Part 12 (2/2)
The object of the system of education in this Republic is to ensure in the first place the foundation of general knowledge. Law No. 8, 1892, provides this for the children of the original Boer population in their mother tongue, in which the necessary schoolbooks must be written, with this understanding, however, that in the 3rd standard three hours, and in the higher ones four hours, per week out of the 25 must be devoted to education in a foreign language.
With regard to the schools formed under the above-mentioned Resolution, teaching is carried on through the medium of a foreign language, but at least 5 hours per week must be devoted to the study of the official language of the country.
Of the 13 schools formed under Law 15 of 1896, the children of strangers are instructed in their own language, while the number of hours for instruction in and by means of Dutch is increased in each standard.
According to a Resolution of the First Volksraad, dated the 8th August, 1898, Article 731, a certain number of the School Board members required by Article I of Law 15 of 1896 have to be nominated and chosen by the Executive Council out of enfranchised persons (Article 2, Law 8, 1893) proposed by the fathers of the school children, on the understanding that the persons so chosen shall const.i.tute less than half of the whole School Board, and further, that the persons so proposed shall always be double the number of the people actually nominated. The above facts clearly prove, according to the opinion of this Government, that Her Majesty's Government has also been misled in respect to the matter of education. It is clear that one-fourth of the whole educational vote has been devoted to the gold fields, so that the children of Uitlander residents can make use of it; that proper provision is made for education in the mother tongue whatever it may be, while at the same time compulsory education of the language of the country is also provided for. That both by the Resolution of the 1st June, 1892, as well as by the Law 15 of 1896, more has actually been done for the Uitlanders than for the original inhabitants, and that more time is given to the mother tongue of the children in the schools on the gold fields of this Republic than in any country in the world, and that here again information of a misleading character must have been given to His Excellency and the British Government.
Law No. 15, 1896, and the schools thereby established have been defended by Englishmen in various newspapers. (See the _S.A. News_, 10th May, 1899; _The Star_, 22nd March, 1899; _Manchester Guardian_, etc.).
With reference to the Munic.i.p.ality of Johannesburg, this Government desires to remark that in accordance with the promise made in 1896, the grant of Munic.i.p.al Administration was made to the inhabitants of Johannesburg by which the control of that town and its suburbs was conferred upon them.
Her Majesty's Government seem to think that this Munic.i.p.ality does not answer its purpose, in the first place because half of the members must be naturalized burghers (not fully enfranchised burghers as the dispatch under reply erroneously contends), and in the second place because the financial powers of the town council are restricted.
With regard to the first objection, it is impossible that this should be a great grievance, because a residence of two years in the Republic is sufficient for naturalisation; as a matter of fact, more than the necessary half of the members are burghers; this shows conclusively that the requirement of burghers.h.i.+p is in no sense an obstacle. The objection as to the restriction of the financial powers of the council is not conclusive, because there is no Munic.i.p.ality in the world the financial powers of which are not restricted by the law under which they are created, and the restrictions in the case of the town council of Johannesburg are the usual ones in such cases.
The Advisory Board recommended by the Industrial Commission would have proved inefficient because the laws with the administration of which that body would have had to concern itself can be carried out in a better and more efficient way by an official like the State Attorney, who has almost unlimited power and means of doing so. This is exactly what has happened. All complaints with regard to gold thefts have actually disappeared; one no longer hears of complaints as to the operation of the pa.s.s law; while latterly, as Her Majesty's Government must be well aware, the Chamber of Mines and other bodies of the Wit.w.a.tersrand have repeatedly expressed their satisfaction with the stringent way in which the liquor law has been upheld. No local body, however well informed, would have been able to do what the State Attorney has done in this matter, and that is sufficient justification of the action of both Government and Volksraad in refusing to establish such an Advisory Board.
The Government now pa.s.ses on to the discussion of the administration of justice, of which so much is made in the dispatch under reply.
With regard to these allegations, this Government perceives that much importance is attached in the dispatch to the so-called Lombard incident, the so-called Edgar case, and the so-called Amphitheatre occurrence.
A brief consideration of the facts referring to these three matters will show how unfounded are the accusations of Her Majesty's Government.
With reference to the Lombard incident, this Government wishes to point out that no complaint was lodged with any official in this Republic for a full month after the illtreatment of Cape coloured people was alleged to have taken place, and that neither the Government nor the public was aware that anything had taken place. The whole case was so insignificant that some of the people who were alleged to have been illtreated declared under oath at a later period before a court of investigation that they would never have made any complaint on their own initiative.
What happened, however?
About a month after the occurrence the South African League came to hear of it; some of its officials sent round to collect evidence from the parties who were alleged to have been illtreated, and some sworn declarations were obtained by the help of Her Majesty's Vice-Consul at Johannesburg (between whom and this League a continual and conspicuous co-operation has existed). Even then no charge was lodged against the implicated officials with the judicial authorities of the country, but the case was put in the hands of the Acting British Agent at Pretoria.
When the allegations were brought under the notice of this Government, they at once appointed a commission of enquiry consisting of three members, namely, Landdrost Van der Berg, of Johannesburg, Mr Andries Stockenstrom, barrister-at-law of the Middle Temple, head of the Criminal Section of the State Attorney's Department, and Mr. Van der Merwe, mining commissioner, of Johannesburg; gentlemen against whose ability and impartiality the Uitlander population of the Republic have never harboured the slightest suspicion, and with whose appointment the Acting British Agent also expressed his entire satisfaction. The instructions given to these officials were to thoroughly investigate the whole case, and to report the result to the Government; and they fulfilled these instructions by sitting for days at a time, and carefully hearing and sifting the evidence of both sides. Every right-minded person readily acknowledges that far greater weight ought to be attached to the finding of this Commission than to the declarations of the complainants, who contradicted one another in nearly every particular, and who caused the whole enquiry to degenerate into a farce.
According to the report, nothing was proved as to the so-called illtreatment; the special instances of alleged illtreatment turned out to be purely imaginary; it was clearly proved and found that the complainants had acted contrary to Law, and the Commission only expressed disapproval of the fact that the arrests and the investigation had taken place at night, and without a proper warrant. It fills this Government with all the greater regret to observe that Her Majesty's Government bases its charges on _ex parte_, groundless, and in many respects false declarations of complainants who have been set in motion by political hatred, and that it silently ignores the report of the Commission.
The Amphitheatre occurrence is used by Her Majesty's Government to show how incapable the police of the Wit.w.a.tersrand are to fulfil their duties and to preserve order. The League meeting was held at the so-called Amphitheatre at Johannesburg, with the knowledge of the State Secretary and State Attorney, and the accusation is that in spite of that fact, the uproar which arose at that meeting was not quelled by the police.
The following are the true facts:--Mr. Wybergh and another, both in the service of the South African League, informed the State Secretary and the State Attorney that they intended to call this meeting in the Amphitheatre, and asked permission to do so; they were informed that no permission from the authorities was necessary, and that as long as the meeting did not give rise to irregularities or disturbances of the peace, they would be acting entirely within their rights. Their attention was then drawn to the fact that owing to the action and the propaganda of the South African League, this body had become extremely unpopular with a large section of the inhabitants of Johannesburg, and that in all probability a disturbance of the peace would take place if a sufficient body of the police were not present to preserve order. To this these gentlemen answered that the police were in very bad odour since the Edgar case, that the meeting would be a very quiet one, and that the presence of the police would contribute, or give rise to, disorder, and that they would on those grounds rather have no police at all. The State Secretary and State Attorney thereupon communicated with the head officials of the police at Johannesburg, with the result that the latter also thought that it would be better not to have any considerable number of police at the meeting. The Government accordingly, on the advice of these officials of the League as well as their own police officials, gave instructions that the police should remain away from the meeting; they did this in perfect good faith, and with the object of letting the League have its say without let or hindrance. The proposed meeting was however advertised far and wide. As the feeling amongst a section of the Wit.w.a.tersrand population was exceedingly bitter against the League, a considerable number of the opponents of that body also attended the meeting. The few police who were present were powerless to quell the disorder, and when the police came on the scene in force some few minutes after the commencement of the uproar, the meeting was already broken up. Taken by itself, this occurrence would not be of much importance, as it is an isolated instance as far as the gold fields of this Republic are concerned, and even in the best organised and best ordered communities irregularities like the above occasionally take place.
The gravity of the matter, however, lies in the unjust accusation of Her Majesty's Government--that the meeting was broken up by officials of this Republic, and that the Government had curtly refused to inst.i.tute an enquiry.
This Government would not have refused to investigate the matter if any complaints had been lodged with it, or at any of the local Courts, and this has been clearly stated in its reply to Her Majesty's request for an investigation.
The Government objects strongly to the systematic way in which the local authorities are ignored, and the continual complaints which are lodged with the Representatives of Her Majesty about matters which ought to be decided by the Courts of this Republic. Instead, however, of complaining to Her Majesty's Government after all other reasonable means of redress have been vainly invoked, they continually make themselves guilty of ignoring and treating with contempt the local Courts and authorities, by continually making all sorts of ridiculous and _ex parte_ complaints to Her Majesty's Government in the first instance; Her Majesty's Government is also thereby placed in the equivocal and undesirable position of intermeddling in the internal affairs of this Republic, which is in conflict with the London Convention. Had the complaints been lodged with this Government, or with the proper officials or Courts, the facts could have been very easily arrived at, and it would have been proved that the few officials who were present at the meeting as a section of the public had done their best to prevent the irregularities, and that some of them had been hurt in their endeavours to preserve order.
Instead of expressing their disapproval of such complaints, and referring the pet.i.tioners to the local Courts, Her Majesty's Government accepts those complaints, and gives them an official character by forwarding them for the information of this Government, and by publis.h.i.+ng them in blue books for the information of the world.
Her Majesty's Government will readily acknowledge that there is no State in the world with any sense of dignity, however weak and insignificant it may be, which can regard such matters with an indifferent eye; and when the relations of the two Governments are strained, then the mainspring must be looked for in this action of its subjects, which is not disapproved of by Her Majesty's Government, and not in imaginary or trumped-up grievances.
The Edgar case is referred to by your Government as ”the most striking recent instance of arbitrary action by officials, and of the support of such action by the Courts,” and this case is quoted as a conclusive test of the alleged judicial maladministration of this Republic; it will therefore be of interest to pause for a moment and consider it. What are the true facts?
A certain Foster, ”an Englishman,” was a.s.saulted and felled to the ground, without any lawful cause, by a man named Edgar during the night of the 18th December, 1898; he lay on the ground as if dead, and ultimately died in the hospital. Edgar escaped to his room, and some police came on the scene, attracted by the screams of the bystanders.
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