§ MR. CROPPERasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether his attention has been called to a printed official Report of the Transvaal Volksraad, dated November 7, 1881, in which it is stated that in 1878, by order of the British authorities in the Transvaal, about 800 Kaffirs, men, women, and children, were distributed as apprentices among the farmers, the adults being placed under contract for three years, while the children were consigned to servitude until the boys had reached their eighteenth, and the girls their seventeenth, year; and, whether the statements made in that Report, especially with reference to the alleged separation of children from their parents, are true?
§ MR. COURTNEYSir, the Report in question has not been officially transmitted to the Colonial Office; but on the appearance of a newspaper paragraph referring to it a despatch was sent to Sir Hercules Robinson, and on the receipt of a second newspaper, con- 785 taming what purported to be a reprint of the Report, a second despatch was sent to the High Commissioner to obtain and forward full explanations of the matter. These despatches were sent last month, and there has not yet been time for replies to arrive.