§ MR. ARNOLD FORSTERI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any information with respect to the projected Boer expedition into the territory of the Native Chief Magato; and, whether, in the event of the Boers attacking Magato, British subjects will be permitted to enter into the service of a foreign Government for the purpose of carrying on hostilities.
§ SIR ELLIS ASHMEAD-BARTLETT (Sheffield, Ecclesall)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether Her Majesty's Government have received information that the Boer Government are about to send a large command against the Basuto chief, Magato; whether this has been done because Magato has refused to submit longer to the exactions and taxes of the Boer officials; and, whether this is the same Magato who gave support to the British in the war of 1881.
§ *MR. SYDNEY BUXTONI have no official information as to the supposed rupture between the Government of the South African Republic and the Native Chief Magato. As at present advised, I do not see that Her Majesty's Government would have any reason or ground for interfering with British subjects who chose to take service under the Government of the South African Republic in an affair of police of this kind. I have little doubt but that Magato was one of the native chiefs who offered support in 1881, but I should remind the hon. Member that Sir Owen Lanyon at the time refused all such offers on the ground that to call in the natives would be a political blunder and a crime.
§ SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTasked whether the Magato territory was in the limit of the Transvaal as defined by the Convention of 1884?
§ *MR. SYDNEY BUXTONsaid, it was certainly within what was recognised as the Transvaal Republic