§ MR. CAYZER (Barrow-in-Furness)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to a report in The Glasgow Herald of a meeting of the Nolks' Vereeniging (or People's Union), a political organisation composed entirely of burghers of the Transvaal Republic, held in April last at Kragersdorp, at which speaker after speaker, all burghers of the Transvaal Republic, stated that the Republic was being extensively robbed; that there was scarcely a Government Office in the country in which pilfering did not go on; that the electoral laws were unjust; that the concessions granted to speculators by the Transvaal Government were becoming a burden on the State too heavy to be borne; that the "uitlanders" (a term which includes all British persons) in the Republic have for years complained bitterly of the intolerable burdens the Government have laid upon the mining industry; whether Her Majesty's Government have finally consented to the placing of Swaziland under the Transvaal Republic against the protests of the Queen Regent and the inhabitants of the country; and what is the present position of the Government in Swaziland?
§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. S. BUXTON,) Tower Hamlets, PoplarI have seen the paragraph in question, which was forwarded to me by the hon. Member, and I must be allowed to express my regret that vague allegations of this description against the probity of a friendly State should appear in the form of a question on the Order Book of this House. As regards the question of Swaziland, it is still occupying the serious attention of Her Majesty's Government.