§ SIR ROBERT FOWLER (London)asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether his attention has been called to an article in The Transvaal Advertiser, giving details of the cruel flogging of a Native woman by order of a Landdrost in the Transvaal, and stating that it was within her knowledge that six other women had been flogged with the cat-o'-nine-tails in the "tronk" at Pretoria; and, whether, as these barbarous acts are a violation of the agreement entered into with the Republic of South Africa, Her Majesty's Government will remonstrate with the authorities at Pretoria?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir HENRY HOLLAND) (Hampstead)I have not myself seen the account referred to by my right hon. Friend, which, if true, describes circumstances of great brutality; but Her Majesty's Government have no right to interfere. The 10 Article 18 of the Convention of Pretoria of 1881, under which it would have been the duty of the British Resident to call the attention of the Transvaal authorities to such cases of ill-treatment of Natives, was omitted from the Convention of London of 1884, and there has been, therefore, no violation of the agreement referred to.