§ MR. T. DAVIES (Fulham)I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, if his attention has been drawn to the recent disturbances in British East Africa, which led to the imprisonment of Captain Grogan and Mr. Bowker, at Nairobi; whether he can say if the two gentlemen were placed in the same prison as the natives; and whether he can give any information as to the particular crime for which they were convicted.
§ MR. CARLILEAt the same time may I ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether Captain Grogan, Messrs. Bowker, Gray, and others have been committed to prison at Nairobi, British East Africa, for chastising natives alleged to have insulted white women; and, if so, whether these Englishmen are now incarcerated in a common prison at Nairobi with native felons; and whether the Colonial Secretary will give the necessary instructions for their immediate release.
§ MR. CHURCHILLWith regard to the second part of both Questions I do 356 not know whether these men are confined at Nairobi or Mombasa. In neither ease is there a special prison for Europeans, but, although Europeans and natives are imprisoned in the same building, they are, of course, kept in different parts of it. Provision has been made in this year's Estimates for the construction of a prison for Europeans at Nairobi. With regard to the remaining part of the Questions, I think it will be convenient if I read the written Answer which I gave yesterday to the hon. Member for Kingston. "According to the Secretary of State's present information, these men were charged with holding an unlawful meeting and resisting the police. The officer administering the Government reports that the insult was apparently not of a serious nature, and at most did not amount to more than rudeness and disobedience. He further reports that after collecting upwards of 100 Europeans, of whom many were armed, Captain Grogan and the persons acting with him flogged the three natives concerned in a most brutal manner, in front of the Court house at Nairobi, in spite of the attempted intervention of the magistrate and a police officer. The natives were not handed over to the police. As at present informed, the Secretary of State sees no reason for revising the sentence of the Magistrate's Court upon Captain Grogan, and he proposes to defer the question of laying Papers on the Table of the House until he has received full details by mail."
§ *MR. CAVE (Surrey, Kingston)asked how it was that, if these Englishmen were guilty of the brutal assault the hon. Gentleman described, they were charged not with the assault, but with the somewhat technical offence of un lawful assembly; and whether it was the fact that the natives said to have been assaulted by Captain Grogan applied to Captain Grogan the same evening to be reinstated in his service.
§ MR. CHURCHILLsaid he had given the House the information which the Secretary of State had received officially from the officer of the Government of the East African Protectorate.
§ *MR. CAVEThe right hon. Gentleman has promised to lay Papers when the mail arrives. Will not the sentences have 357 been practically served by that time? Will the hon. Gentleman lay the telegram he has received?
§ MR. CHURCHILLI have given the House practically the substance of the operative telegram.
§ MR. ASHLEY (Lancashire, Blackpool)asked whether the hon. Gentleman, in view of the state of the prison accommodation at Mombasa and Nairobi, would take steps to see that these men were not treated in the same way in prison as an Englishman was treated last year.
§ MR. CHURCHILLGreat improvements have been made in the accommodation of the gaols at Nairobi and Mombasa, and further improvements are in contemplation. No doubt everything will be done to make the conditions of the imprisonment of Europeans conditions which are not detrimental to their health and not derogatory to the proper standards of humanity. Of course the country is still in a very primitive condition of development, and persons who misconduct themselves in countries in that condition of development are liable to suffer.
§ MR. CARLILEasked whether the hon. Gentleman was aware that the prison at Nairobi consisted of a single courtyard, with buildings round it occupied in common by whites and blacks, and that in such a prison in the tropics it was impossible for the prisoners to remain within the buildings, and therefore whites and blacks were in joint occupation.
§ *MR. SPEAKERNotice should be given of that Question.
*CAPTAIN FABER (Hampshire, Andover)Are the warders who look after European prisoners, natives or Europeans?
§ *MR. SPEAKERNotice should be given of that Question.
§ *MR. CAVEasked whether the hon. Gentleman had been informed that Captain Grogan's health was such that imprisonment of the character described might have very serious results.
§ MR. CHURCHILLInformation has been brought to my notice personally, and also to that of the Secretary of State to that effect. I have no means of testing that information, but a telegram has been sent to the officer administering the Government of the East African Protectorate to take careful note of the fact and investigate it, in order that no serious detriment may occur.
In reply to a further Question by Mr. T. L. CORBETT (Down, N.),
§ MR. CHURCHILLadded that the whole question of imprisonment or release was in the discretion of the officer administering the Government, whom the Government were supporting in the action he had taken.