CLASS II.

HC Deb 06 May 1898 vol 57 cc538-652

Motion made, and Question proposed— That a sum, not exceeding £29,250, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1899, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies, including a Grant in Aid of certain Expenses connected with Emigration.

MR. JOHN E. ELLIS (Nottingham, Rushcliffe)

I rise to call attention to the state of affairs in the territories controlled by the British South Africa Company, and to the suggestions and proposals of the Colonial Secretary for the better government of those territories. As a Member of the British South Africa Committee of last year, out of whose Report this matter, in a certain sense arises, I desire to take my full share of responsibility for all the action and every step which was taken in order to come to a decision and report in regard to the armed incursion upon the Transvaal territory. I adopt almost entirely the words which fell from the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the 26th July, 1897, as to this, and particularly those from my right honourable Friend the Leader of the Opposition, on the subject— In my opinion," said the right honourable Gentleman, "it was of infinite consequence both abroad, at the Cape, and in this country, that the Committee should come to definite conclusions on the subject of the raid, and should come to them this Session. That was of consummate importance; that was in the mind of the Committee, and nothing else. I lay emphatic stress on the last two words. The second observation I wish to make, as regards the Report is, that I concur absolutely in the sixth paragraph of the Summary, which runs in these terms— Neither the Secretary of State for the Colonies, nor any of the officials of the Colonial Office, received any information which made them, or should have made them, or any of them, aware of the plot during its development. Turning to the second part of the reference to the Committee, which I have always esteemed to be the most important—namely, the future government of the territories, we have in our hands a most valuable Report from the officer whom the Secretary for the Colonies sent out to South Africa, as his eyes and ears, so to speak. I think too much praise can scarcely be given to Sir Richard Martin for the way in which he performed, under very great difficulties, the duties assigned to him. He received his instructions, and went out in April, 1896, and made a Report in January, 1897, and I desire to thank the right honourable Gentleman frankly for having sent such a man out to South Africa. I believe that it is at all times absolutely essential on the part of the Colonial Office to have a person on whom they can thoroughly rely, who is entirely dissociated from local controversies taking place, and who yet knows well what is happening around him. Had the course of sending out such a man been taken in 1894, after the first so-called Matabele war, we should have been saved much serious difficulty. What does Sir Richard Martin say in his Report? He comes to several most definite conclusions. He says— In my opinion, the causes of the rising are the following—(1) the fact that the Matabele had never been thoroughly subdued, (2) the labour regulations; (3) the cattle regulations; and (4) rinderpest and the slaughter of cattle. I wish to emphasise the first. It is undoubtedly a fact that the Matabele have never been thoroughly subdued, and indeed they must be looked upon, at the present time, as a high-spirited and, in many districts, unconquered nation, needing, in consequence, particular care in their treatment. As to the cattle regulations, Sir Richard Martin says— My opinion is that the fatal mistake made by the company in claiming all cattle as the property of the King, immediately after the war, and the uncertainty that must have existed in the Native mind regarding the proprietorship of the cattle previous to the distribution, together with the irritation caused by the frequent drafts made by the Native police, and finally the unsatisfactory division, could not fail to produce widespread discontent and distrust. No one who has looked into this matter can fail to know how vital a part this cattle question forms. Nothing evinces the want of real investigation of it on the part of Lord Grey, as Administrator of the British South Africa Company, more than the erroneous terms in which he speaks of it. But the most serious part of Sir Richard Martin's Report is that in which he deals with the labour question. Sir Richard Martin says— The principal conclusions I have arrived at from the various reports are—(1) That compulsory labour did exist in Matabeleland, if not in Mashonaland; (2) that labour was procured by the various native Commissioners for the various requirements of the Government, mining companies, and private persons; (3) that the native Commissioners, in the first instance, endeavoured to obtain labour through the indunas, but, failing in this, they procured it by force. There can be no doubt about this, because eight of the 15 native Commissioners at once admitted the fact. This was done with the sanction and by the agents of a company acting under a Royal Charter. They have reported to the officer sent out by the Colonial Office that under our flag compulsory forced labour existed to ensure profit to private traders. I have recently been in Egypt, and as an Englishman I am proud of the fact that we have practically abolished the corvée, but surely we are not going to take credit for that and yet introduce a worse system of forced labour in these territories in South Africa because it was set on foot not for public works but private gain. Sir R. Martin's Report stands unquestioned and unquestionable. Of course, Sir R. Martin's Report does not cover the whole field of administration. There is also great reason to complain of the commercial action of the company. Some persons who have gone out to Rhodesia as adventurers complain that they have been treated with a want of justice as regards their enterprises. Article 20 of the Charter of the company has, Sir R. Martin reports, in one case, been distinctly violated. I am not going to dwell upon the darker side of the question—the offences of the police; the hangings, without careful trial, in Bulawayo; the terrible offences against women and girls, most of all of which have gone on under the eyes of the company's administration. A certain "Loot Company," which was formed under the auspices of officials of the company, have boasted that their dividend per head was £42, as against the £2 per head of a similar association in the Transvaal. In the National Review of March, 1897, a Mr. Fairbridge, who now is, on the nomination of the British South Africa Company, Mayor of Salisbury, wrote an article on the administration of the country, of which he was one of the earliest residents. I saw him, and found he had no sympathy with British notions of how native people should be treated, so that his views are not tainted, as some people might think, by mere "philanthropy.' His summary in that article as regards maladministration is (1) the want of qualified and disinterested heads of departments (2) the want of sufficient and efficient distriot police; (3) the attempt to administer too large a territory with too little working capital and administrative caution. I saw the writer of that article, and, having conversed with him, I am convinced of the truth of his statements. There is overwhelming testimony that the word administration cannot in any real sense be applied to the state of things in Rhodesia up to a short time ago. I feel the responsibility of making these statements, but I make them after seeing many persons who have opportunities of judging matters for themselves, and also after taking every kind of step open to me to arrive at the truth of the matter. There is, after all, considerable misconception as to the real magnitude of the problem. The "booming" of everything connected with the affairs of the British South Africa Company during the last few years has raised in the public mind ideas which have no foundation in fact. The physical area of that country has been made to do duty for the real features in which prosperity and wealth consist. The public has got an idea that it is a very large enterprise. It is nothing of the kind. I am not going to prophesy whether there is gold; but everybody knows that the whole things rests upon gold. The present Prime Minister of Cape Colony has truly said that "unless gold in paying quantities is speedily found a most grave financial position will occur." Unless there is gold the country will not be peopled and will not be developed. Then as to agriculture. The statements that are made by the South African Company are extraordinary; there is one in the 1896 report that 1,070 farms have been taken up, each of 6,000 acres in area, that is to say, that six million acres of land have been "pegged out," but the words follow that of these only 150 have been occupied, and of these only 900 acres are under cultivation. Why, there are among the constituents of many of us here men who are individually farming a larger area than is being farmed in the whole of Rhodesia. Coming to the population, I am amazed to find what are the facts. There never have been ten thousand white people in Rhodesia. So far as I can make out from the Company's Report the number was 5,708 at the last census. In the last Report it is stated that— in the war there were 390 killed, apart from the military, and 150 wounded, a total of 540, or 10 per cent. of the population. When we come to Salisbury, one of the capitals, with a mayor and town council, the last Report says there were 780 whites, and even in Bulawayo the figure was not 1,500, so that the whole thing shrinks into a very small affair. Apart from the Native problem, the Colonial Secretary might conduct the whole administration with two or three Colonial Office clerks and a handful of the Royal Irish Constabulary. But I am willing to discuss the matter on the supposition of a settled country and a large population. The object of the proposals of the Secretary of State is, no doubt, that every subject of the Queen, of whatever race and colour, shall have justice and good government. The principle underlying it, I suppose, is that the British public shall take no responsibility for the finances of the Company—that, in fact, commerce and politics shall be absolutely divided. The proposals fall under two heads: (1) the Board; (2) South Africa. What was the undertaking given by the petitioners for a Charter when the Company was formed? Lord Knutsford, who at that time had to deal with the matter, required a certain undertaking, and I will read what was stated at the time by those who petitioned for the Charter, Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Beit— By this amalgamation of all interests under one common control, this Association as a Chartered Company, with a representative board of directors of the highest standing in London, with a local Board in South Africa of the most influential character, having the support of Her Majesty's Government, and of public opinion at home, and the confidence and sympathy of the inhabitants of South Africa, will be able peacefully, and with the consent of the native races, to open up, develop and colonise the territories to the north of British Bechuanaland, with the best results, both for British trade and commerce, and for the interests of the native races. These are high-sounding assurances. I will not dwell upon the collapse as regards the directors in London. The Board may be of the highest possible standing, but it practically consisted of one man. I need only give the words of the Duke of Abercorn, the President of the Board, who told the Committee last year— Mr. Rhodes had received a power of attorney, giving him the fullest power to do precisely what he likes, without consultation with the Board, and the whole of the administration, and everything connected with the administration of Rhodesia, was carried on by Mr. Rhodes, he simply notifying to the Board what was done. The "local Board" in South Africa was certainly of the most "influential character," but consisted of one man. The salient fact we have now to deal with is the return of Mr. Rhodes to the Board on the election of the shareholders. I notice that Mr. Rhodes, in his speech to the shareholders, says— Her Majesty's Government has stated that as we have become a commercial company it has no objection to the course you have adopted." (That of his election.) I wish to ask the Colonial Secretary in what way Her Majesty's Government have stated that to the British South Africa Company.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,) Birmingham, W.

No correspondence has passed on the subject. The question was put to me in the House, and I stated that the only communication of any kind that I had had was one from Lord Grey, to which I have given a reply; but I did not know whether that was sent on account of the company or personally on his own behalf.

MR. J. E. ELLIS

Then I may take it that it was something in the nature of an obiter dictum. But it is a very important question as to whether Mr. Rhodes was returned as a director on the demand by the Government that the Company should be reduced to a commercial concern. I need not remind the Committee that the condemnation passed unanimously by the Committee of this House upon the proceedings of Mr. Rhodes in connection with the company was of a most unmitigated character. On this subject the Colonial Secretary said— The Committee have, in the strongest language, condemned the raid, and condemned Mr. Rhodes. Now I do not want to qualify that as far as I am concerned. But as to one thing I am perfectly convinced—that while the fault of Mr. Rhodes is about as great as a politician or statesman can commit, there has been nothing to prove, and in my opinion there exists nothing, which affects Mr. Rhodes' personal position as a man of honour. Now, Mr. Lowther, I listened to those words with amazement. Mr. Rhodes came over to this country on the 6th of February, 1896, immediately after the raid, attended a Board meeting of the company, and ordered a most remarkable letter to be drafted to the Colonial Office, not giving one hint of his own share in the transaction. He saw the Colonial Secretary on the 7th February, and permitted him to make a remarkable statement in the House on the 13th February, exculpating him (Mr. Rhodes) in specific terms. Then he allowed Dr. Jameson and his fellow-officers to be placed on their trial, to lose their commissions in the Army, and to have their interests blasted. I think this was conduct that touches a man's personal honour. Unless the right honourable Gentleman used those words unadvisedly, I do not understand and cannot understand the appreciation of personal honour conveyed in them. I should not have mentioned this matter, if Mr. Rhodes was now back in Rhodesia tilling his land, but he is back on the Board of the Chartered Company, and will undoubtedly take a leading part in the administration of that great territory. I have never read a meaner thing done by any public man than to see men put upon their trial, go into gaol, and lose their commission. There are people who say that Mr. Rhodes did not authorise the raid. What nonsense! The Lord Chief Justice said at the trial at Bar of Dr. Jameson and the others— It is not necessary to constitute the offence that it shall proceed, or that it shall have proceeded, the cardinal point is the intention, and the offence is complete, if the preparation or assisting in the preparation, or aiding or abetting in the preparation with that intention, is established. I need not dwell on the proposals of the Secretary of State as to the Board in this country. They consist mainly in arrangements as to obtaining information from the Board, but the salient fact is as I have said—that Mr. Rhodes is back, and is the Board. I now pass to the Secretary of State's proposals as to the machinery of government in Rhodesia. By paragraph 19, there are to be four elected councillors on the council. When we know, however, that the whole state of things is vitiated and poisoned from top to bottom by the commercial partnership of the company with the Gold Mines Adventurers, I attach little value to the addition of these four elected members. They will be practically so many more nominees of the company. There are other paragraphs dealing with legislation by the council on which I will not dwell. Paragraph 26 raises what is, after all, the most important matter—namely, the settlement of the natives. I regret that the right honourable Gentleman has been unable to lay before the House the regulations for the settlement of the natives, because that is the crux of the matter. How are we going to deal with the enormous population of native blood? Africa is in this respect entirely different from what has happened in America or Australia. There, as the saying is, the first thing to do is to clear the country of wild animals, and the first animal to be cleared out is the native man. That cannot be done in South Africa; therefore, some amicable arrangement will have to be made with these natives, and I earnestly hope that the regulations of the right honourable Gentleman in that respect will be so drastic and effective as to secure for the natives something better than they have enjoyed in the past, or serious trouble must and will arise. The right honourable Gentleman has made some alteration in regard to the appointment of native commissioners, by placing them on the same footing as that of magistrates. I think he ought to go farther, and take the whole paraphernalia of justice entirely out of the hands of the company. It is too high and important a matter to be carried out by any but men absolutely free from any connection with a commercial company. I hope he will make some drastic alteration in that respect. I come finally to the Resident Commissioner. I think his powers are insufficient. Too much importance cannot be attached to the position and status of the Resident Commissioner, for upon the man and the proper discharge of his functions a great part of the success of the new scheme will depend. I hope the right honourable Gentleman has in his mind who is to be selected for that high office, because the success of these new proceedings depends, after all, on the man. My general verdict as to what I may venture to call, without any disrespect, the paper constitution of the right honourable Gentleman, is, that it is good, so far as it goes, but that it does not go nearly far enough. The whole thing turns, not upon these paper regulations, but upon the personality of those who are to be appointed. That was my reason for obtaining the Return of the Staff for which I obtained the Order of the House. I am very glad to see that some of the most undesirable persons have disappeared from the Staff, persons against whom I had some very black marks, but there are still some undesirable persons on the list. I hope the right honourable Gentleman will keep his ears and eyes open with regard to the staff of the company, and take such steps as are within his power to see that it is of high character, and beyond reproach. The Mr. Fairbridge whom I quoted before said— The distrust was quite as much in the Chartered Company's personnel as in the form of government. The situation is rendered somewhat more difficult by what took place at the annual meeting of shareholders at the Cannon Street Hotel. So far as the speech of Mr. Rhodes to the shareholders dealt with commerce, I, speaking as a business man, regard it as most unsound. An English chairman of a great railway company, who talked in the same way would soon be put out of office. So far as the speech was addressed to politics, as a good deal of it was, it was a most dangerous speech. I entirely agree with those manly words of the Duke of Fife, when he resigned, for reasons best known to himself, his position on the Board. He said— No doubt our Colonial Empire owed much in the past to chartered companies, but speak- ing from his actual experience, he was convinced that in these days such companies were an anomaly. There are, in conclusion, three points I desire to impress upon the right honourable Gentleman. In the first place, the whole sphere of administration of justice ought to be taken out of the hands of the company. In the next place, the power of the Resident Commissioner ought to be enlarged; and, above all, the personnel of the staff ought to be watched and carefully weeded in respect of anything that bears any taint. I have spoken frankly, and I have spoken strongly this afternoon. But I am clear I speak the sentiments of multitudes outside this House. I am sure that, laying aside in this great matter all that is petty, personal, or fleeting, a great majority in all parts of the Committee desire that such steps should be taken as will ensure that the future government of these territories shall be securely based upon the principles of morality and justice.

SIR ROBERT REID (Dumfries Burghs)

I do not intend to say more than I am absolutely obliged with regard to what took place last year. I wish rather to regard the present conditions of things in Rhodesia as disclosed in the report of Sir Richard Martin, by the correspondence which has been placed before the House, and by the proceedings of the Chartered Company as shown in their report. I cannot help thinking that the state of affairs is very grave. In the first place, we have the report of Sir Richard Martin, to which my honourable Friend the Member for Rushcliffe has referred. Sir Richard Martin's report, I imagine, is going to be accepted as a true report. It is the report of an officer appointed by Her Majesty's Government, and we have not had any information to lead us to believe that that report is untrustworthy in any particular. What it contains is sufficiently grave in regard to the gross maladministration of Rhodesia, and its gross maltreatment of the natives, to call for the earnest attention of the House, for we cannot shuffle off our responsibility on to any chartered company; it is sufficiently grave to deserve a little notice on every occasion that we have the opportunity of discussing it. Sir Richard Martin's Report establishes that compulsory labour unquestionably existed in Matabeleland; that it was procured by the native commissioners, who are the officials of the Chartered Company; that it was not procured merely for Government, but for the mining companies and other private persons, primarily, if possible, through the Indunas; and that if it could not be procured by them, then by means of force. Sir Richard Martin shows that the agency employed was the Native police, and that there was little, if any, restraint placed upon them as to the means by which they obtained the labour. Then he proceeds to say— It is universally admitted that the Native police were guilty of many acts of cruelty and extortion, and I cannot but think that the Native commissioners must have been aware of the conduct of their men. And he added further— It is perfectly certain that the labour regulations and the manner in which they were carried out could not have the effect of causing discontent, and ultimately revolt. I will not press the accusation against the administration of Rhodesia beyond Sir Richard Martin's Report, though statements have been made—I believe from most influential sources—which give a greater darkness to the picture drawn by Sir Richard Martin; but I would refer to the attempts that have been made to discredit and belittle that Report. Lord Grey has passed a criticism upon the Report which appears in the Blue Book, and if Lord Grey, who is a man of honour, had stated that he had made the very best inquiries he could, and that he disbelieved the statements in Sir Richard Martin's Report, I should have accepted the noble Lord's testimony, at all events of the result of his researches. But Lord Grey says nothing of the kind; on the contrary, he does not displace the statements of Sir Richard Martin at all, but, in fact, himself confirms those statements. It is true that Lord Grey argues about the meaning of Sir Richard Martin's Report, which seems to me sufficiently clear, and he tries to find fault with this or that passage, and complains of the spirit which animates the Report—a complaint with which, having read the Report impar- tially, I cannot at all sympathise. But the noble Lord never really denies the statements of this Report at all; and, indeed, one of the speeches which Lord Grey himself made, coupled with the explanation of that speech, which appears in his Report, is to my mind more damaging, because it shows more meanness and baseness in the administration, or in part, at all events, of the administration of this territory, than is contained in Sir Richard Martin's Report itself. Lord Grey states that he made a speech the effect of which was that some—I am glad to think not many—of the whites who employed these wretched natives were mean enough, after getting their work, to evade by one excuse or another paying them their paltry wages. That such a thing should be possible and should not be followed by the strongest reprobation, and I may say the strongest punishment, on the part of any English gentlemen who were responsible for the management of affairs in the country, is, to my mind, a very strong testimony of the lawlessness which it seems prevails in that territory. On page 42 of the Report, Lord Grey says there were no "Labour Regulations" that he had been able to discover, either in the offices of Bulawayo or Salisbury, and he quotes a Native commissioner, who states that natives were punished for deserting their masters before they had completed the term of service for which they had contracted. I should like to know what kind of punishment was inflicted on the natives. But the whole business of employing natives, of forcing them into contract, and of punishing them, was grossly illegal, and a complete violation of the laws to which they were subjected. There is a clause in the Matabeleland Order in Council which states that the company shall not impose upon natives any condition, disability, or restriction which do not equally apply to persons of European descent. If natives have been treated in the manner described, and made to enter into contracts for work, and punished for breaking it, that was a violation of the law, and no honourable Member, knowing the law, will contradict that statement. All this must have been known to the company, and it is a very significant fact that the Mashonas—the tribe on whose behalf Mr. Rhodes and his company justified the Matabele war on the ground that it was to relieve them from oppression—were themselves, two or three years ago, found rising in rebellion; and, indeed, were the foremost in rebellion against the Chartered Company. Whatever may have been the changes of opinion—and I am afraid that the opinions that have been held of late have not been in accordance always with the best traditions of this country in regard to slavery—whatever may be the present feeling in regard to slavery, I am certain that brutality, forced labour, and ill-usage, such as I have described, cannot commend themselves to any section of the House of Commons, or to those who sent honourable Members to the House. I am not one of those who push these doctrines to the extreme. It may be necessary to insist upon industry and upon industrial habits being acquired by natives, like the Matabele, after they have been subdued, but it ought to be done under a strict law and the most careful supervision, and it ought not to be dons for the benefit of private persons. The remedy for this state of affairs is, first, to lay down just laws; and, secondly, to see that these laws are properly administered. As regards the regulations, we have not a copy of them; they are not before the House. I am not going to make a speech of accusation. That would be unreasonable: and the right honourable Gentleman the Colonial Secretary may give us some reason for the delay. But the delay has been very considerable. I find that on June 16th, 1897, according to the report of the company, the draft regulations were sent to the Colonial Secretary by the company in London. Ten and a half months have elapsed since then, and we have not seen the completed regulations, or, indeed, the draft regulations. As I have already said, there may be some good reason for the delay, but it is unfortunate that we should be discussing a subject of such great importance, and that we are not acquainted with the regulations which are intended to apply in regard to the natives of Rhodesia. I should like to ask in this connection—

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

As many questions, may be put, perhaps, I might say at ones that, with regard to the regulations, the first draft which was sent to the Colonial Office was considered by myself and my advisers unsatisfactory. Accordingly it was returned with suggestions for amendment; Sir Alfred Milner, who had been sent to Bulawayo, asked for delay until he had had an opportunity on the spot of consulting with persons who might give him information. After his return from Bulawayo the Colonial Office received a further draft of the regulations. That draft, in our opinion, also required important amendment, and, so amended, it again went back to the High Commissioner, who, though we are in communication with him, has not hitherto been able to return it to us.

SIR ROBERT REID

I am obliged to the right honourable Gentleman for his explanation. I apprehended that there would have been some changes, and that that might have been the reason for the delay; but I think this Vote ought not to be final without the Committee having an opportunity of examining the regulations and passing an opinion upon them. I have no doubt, however, that the right honourable Gentleman the Colonial Secretary will bear in mind the necessity of insisting very strongly upon the proper treatment of these natives until the regulations come into force. But what is far more important than regulations is administration; and, though there has been in existence in Matabeleland for five or six years a law for the protection of nativies so far as forced labour is concerned, it is not worth the paper it is written on, The most important proposals of the right honourable Gentleman the Colonial Secretary are twofold: first, that four elected members are to be added to the Administrative Council in Rhodesia. I have no objection to that; but so far as the protection of these natives are concerned I do not think it offers any security or safeguard. But there is another security, and that is that a resident Commissioner is to be appointed. No doubt that is a move in the right direction; but I wish to point out that the powers of the resident Commissioner are so limited under the proposal that they will be easily evaded by any person who wishes to evade them. In paragraph 22 of the correspondence the proposal in question is thus described— It is proposed that the Imperial officer mentioned in paragraph 20 shall be styled Resident Commissioner; that he should be appointed and paid by the Crown; that he should not, except as regards the employment of the armed forces, interfere with the work of administration; and should have no, power to overrule the administration or council; or to deal directly with the subordinate officers of the company; but that he should have a seat on the Council, with a right to speak but not to vote, and full power to call for information or reports on any subject through the Administration. On the information furnished by him the High Commissioner would act in confirming, reserving, or disallowing ordinances, and in giving or withholding his approval of appointments and removals from office. The resident Commissioner is not to be allowed to interfere with the work of administration; therefore, whatever scandal may be transacted before him, he has no right to interpose: all he can do is to report to the Cape, and thence to London, and the mischief will be well over before any interference can be effected. The Resident Commissioner has no power to overrule the administrators, and may not deal directly with the subordinate officers, and the consequence is he cannot call for reports supposing natives are being ill-used in one quarter, and he cannot make inquiries or demand information from the large native population or from the smaller white population, from whom, as Sir Richard Martin has said in his Report, it is extremely difficult to elicit information. Even Sir Richard, armed with the authority of Government, experienced this difficulty. In these circumstances these are wholly inadequate powers, and I must strongly urge upon the Committee that it is taking away half his utility from the resident Commissioner if you do not give him power to interpose on the spot when he sees something wrong being done, to demand information from whomsoever he pleases, and to insist upon having it, upon penalty of the person who refused being deprived of his office. That would not be taking up the duties of the administrator, but merely acting the part of a tribune, a person with whom anybody could communicate with the certainty that justice would be done and cruelty righteously repressed. The right honourable Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies in one paragraph of his statement intimates that he wishes to avoid giving rise to any erroneous idea as to the financial responsibility of the Government in regard to the Chartered Company. That is, indeed, a most desirable thing to do, and I shall respectfully invite the right honourable Gentleman to go a little further in that direction. But I do not see how placing a person in the position I suggest with power to interfere should in any way give rise to the idea that the Government had accepted financial responsibility for the company. Another matter to which I wish to direct attention is the relations which will be created under these new proposals between Rhodesia and the countries on its borders, notably between Rhodesia and the Transvaal. It is one of the objects of the change of constitution to prevent the possibility of a similar incident as the Jameson Raid taking place again. I think that is in point of fact satisfactorily effected under the proposals of the Colonial Secretary, because the whole of the military and police forces of the company will be subject to the control of an English Imperial officer. But I cannot refrain from a strong expression of the unwisdom of allowing Mr. Rhodes to take his seat as a director of this Chartered Company again. Mr. Rhodes was the prime source of the disgraceful Jameson Raid; he, in the eye of the law, committed a most serious crime. In the eyes of all those men who love their country, and are jealous of its reputation for honour and fair dealing, Mr. Rhodes not only committed a great offence against the best interests of our State, but also silly blunder, unworthy of a wise and prudent man. It was an offence, accompanied by deception, not only against the Transvaal Government, but by deceit against the people of this country and against his official friends and his official superiors. Mr. Rhodes has not been prosecuted or proceeded against. I do not complain of that. I am not one of those who are lovers of political prosecutions, but the fact remains that the author of this raid is still unpunished, while half a dozen young men, who believed that they were really carrying out the secret wishes of the Government, have suffered imprisonment, and are still deprived of their commissions. These young men, who risked their lives, were manly enough at their trial not to urge in their defence that they believed they had the authority of the Government, because they thought that was injurious to the interests of their country, while all the time Mr. Rhodes, and the other heroes of the South African raid, filled London with insinuations against the right honourable Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies and many other high-placed people. I know of few more flagrant instances of injustice than the comparison between the treatment of the superiors and the treatment of their victims. The victims have suffered imprisonment and the loss of their position, however much that may have been deserved, whereas the superiors have received praise in this House and outside of it, and have been restored to the directorate of the Chartered Company, and have been complimented by the Prime Minister himself. When I asked the right honourable Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies, a few weeks ago, a question with reference to the restoration of Mr. Rhodes to the position of director of the company, he said in substance that he saw no reason to interfere with the right of the company to choose their own directors in the same way as any ordinary company might do. But is this an ordinary company, and is this an ordinary case? Sir, the Chartered Company is not only a company for the purposes of gain, but it is invested with governing powers, and charged with the control of our frontiers bordering upon the South African Republic, the one State in all the world with which at the present time our relations are of a most difficult and delicate nature. But the company has grossly abused its powers in the past, chiefly, in fact entirely, through the agency of the gentleman who has now been restored to the position of director. And with regard to our border relations, I say that there has not been in the history of the British Empire any instance more disgraceful or more preposterous than the attempt to seize by surprise the territory of the Boers. The author of that transaction is to be replaced in the seat of power upon the ground that the company, as the investors of the money, has a right to choose its directors. I wonder what the effect of this will be in the Transvaal. We have, as the recently published correspondence shows, difficulties in the Transvaal, and I do not at all question that the Government of that State may have shown undue sensitiveness in regard to some of the questions in dispute. But there is no doubt that there has been considerable tension in our relations with the Transvaal. I am not one of those who wish to advocate any vacillation in the conduct of policy, or any undue surrender of any rights belonging to this country, but I thought that the policy for which the whole House expressed its preference was that of reconciling the two governing races in South Africa, the Dutch and the British, by avoiding on either side anything in the least tending towards irritation, of letting bygones be bygones, and in this way healing the wounds of the past. Will this policy of restoring Mr. Rhodes to the directorate of the Chartered Company be likely to tend in that direction? I venture to think it will tend not only to produce irritation, but to retard the growth of that good feeling which all Members of this House are desirous to see promoted with regard to foreign countries, as well as the Transvaal, where our protests of innocence are accepted too often, I am afraid, with laughter. What will be the effect of an action of this kind, except to confirm what I believe to be the unfounded suspicion, which, nevertheless, exists very widely in regard to the action of this country towards the South African Republic? There is only one other matter to which I wish to refer. It is evident to anyone who is a man of business, and takes the trouble to read the reports of the South African Company, that it is, financially, pretty nearly on its last legs. Its report and balance-sheet speak for themselves. It has raised £5,500,000 by the issue of shares and £1,250,000 by debentures. It has never paid a dividend, and only in one year—1896, I think—did it have a surplus of revenue over expenditure. During the earlier years, up to 1896, the accumulation of annual deficits amounted to £964,000, and at March, 1897, a further sum of £181,000 had been added, giving a total accumulated deficit of £1,145,000. That does not count the extra cost of putting down the rebellion—£2,250,000. A large number of other shares were issued—I think 500,000—at a minimum of 100 per cent., which produced £1,000,000. It is quite evident, I think, that this sort of thing is not likely to go on very long, unless there is some extraordinary find of gold. But grave doubts have been expressed by experts as to whether gold in payable quantities can be found. What is the position taken up by this company in its report? There is a passage in the report which I venture to think deserves the attention of the Committee and of Her Majesty's Government. It is this— Separate accounts are being kept of the amount received and expended by the company in the discharge of its duties as a government. These accounts comprise administrative revenue and expenditure, and the cost incurred in the settlement of the country. The balance of expenditure under these headings not met by revenue will constitute a public debt whenever the inhabitants of Rhodesia are prepared to take over full responsibility for its administration. The company will thus be reimbursed for a considerable portion of its outlay, and be left in possession of its mining and commercial interests. Of course, I am not suggesting that the Government have any responsibility for the statement appearing in the report of the company, but I do think this: it is a very definite statement. Mr. Rhodes has repeated it at a meeting of the company in the City of London, and he has told the shareholders that this money, which is to be taken over and constituted into a debt, amounts to £6,000,000 sterling. Lord Grey had put it at the higher figure of £10,000,000. "No," says Mr. Rhodes, "it is not £10,000,000; it is £6,000,000." See how it is stated in the report. It is not stated in language of doubt. The report states that the balance of expenditure not met by revenue will constitute a public debt whenever the inhabitants of Rhodesia are prepared to take over full responsibility for its administration. I think that is one of the most astounding proposals that has ever been advanced for the purpose of getting financial support for a company in the City of London, and of averting the well-grounded alarm of shareholders who have received no dividend. It is one of the most remarkable statements I have ever seen. The company are to govern the country, and to civilise it, and take its mineral wealth; and then, having found that it is £6,000,000 out of pocket, they propose to take over all the assets, and hand over all the liabilities—to whom? Not to the population, which is 10,000, and who will not take it over. Of course it is meant to be taken over, in one form or another, by John Bull, who is always expected to pay under these circumstances. I say it is not possible for Her Majesty's Government to maintain a reserve on this subject, because, after the public statement made in the definite language used in the report, their silence will be misunderstood by investors. I think we ought to know what are the views of the Colonial Secretary with regard to this very remarkable paragraph, to which, I have no doubt, not for the first time, his attention has been drawn. There has been £5,500,000 obtained from the public by the Chartered Company. I do not know, but it is stated on authority that 20 millions or more have been obtained upon mining prospectuses. There are outspoken critics of authority who believe, and say openly, that most of this money has been thrown into the sea, or, worse still, has gone into the pockets of unscrupulous speculators and promoters of bogus companies. I cannot say whether that is true or not, but I see attempts are being made in the report of the company to obtain capital on assurances of a kind which cannot be carried out without the assent of the Government, and I venture to think that it is not unreasonable, under the circumstances, to express a hope that the Government will declare their views upon this subject. This company has been going on for years. It has produced nothing in money to its shareholders, and nothing in happiness to the people whom it professes to govern. I see no prospect of improvement, but I say that a grave responsibility will rest on the Government if they countenance any fresh attempt by this company to get money under the circumstances disclosed in their balance sheet and report. I do not know how soon the crash may come, but I hope, when it does come, that it will be found that it was not encouraged either by silence or speech on behalf of the Government, in connection with a concern about which the less good that is said the more likely we are to be near the truth. The mismanagement of the native population, the conduct of the company with regard to the Jameson raid, and their financial attitude are such that I venture to think that the most clear statement may reasonably be expected from Her Majesty's Government. That is all I desire to say, except that I trust that many Gentlemen on both sides of the House who, I am quite certain, have a good deal of sympathy with the views I have endeavoured to put forward, will press them on the attention of the Government.

MR. WYNDHAM (Dover)

The honourable and learned Gentleman concluded his speech by a vigorous attack on the financial position of the Chartered Company. I am not a financier. I am one of those poor creatures who live upon a quarterly allowance, and I have no investments in South Africa or elsewhere. It may, therefore, very well be that the Committee will not attach any great importance to any opinion I may utter upon the financial solidity of the Chartered Company. Under the circumstances, I look to the opinion of experts and to the opinion of the British public. The British public may be the gulls—I think that is the word—which the honourable Member for Northampton takes them for, but if they are it is not for want of due and sufficient warnings from him and such orators as the honourable and learned Member to whom we have just listened. That being so, was it not a significant fact that, the Chartered Company having offered the public 250,000 £1 shares for which they were to pay £2 each over the counter, at this moment the public had paid in £1,250,000? All these jeremiads had therefore fallen on deaf ears. The British public believe that the company has assets which will enable it to pay a dividend on the £6,000,000 mentioned by Mr. Rhodes the other day. The discrepancy between the amounts quoted by Lord Grey and Mr. Rhodes arose from the fact that the company has also guaranteed the interest upon £3,150,000 invested in railway construction. My concern for the British investor is not great. My deep concern in this matter is for the inhabitants of South Africa—Dutchmen as well as Englishmen. The financial success of this company is the one cherished hope—hope is hardly the word, I would call it confidence—is the one thing which Englishmen and Dutchmen in South Africa count on for the future development of that country; and if these gloomy prophecies of the honourable and learned Member were true all I can say is that there would be a disappointment in every State in South Africa for which there will be no parallel since the days of the South Sea bubble. I do not for a moment anticipate that any such catastrophe is in store for South Africa. Before coming to the financial aspect of the question the honourable and learned Member drew a contrast between the punishment meted out to Mr. Rhodes and the punishment meted out to the officers who lost their commissions. Sir, I regret that such a fair-minded and kindly a man, as I recognise the honourable and learned Member to be, should have heightened that contrast by making a personal attack on Mr. Rhodes. I feel that Mr. Rhodes needs no defender in myself. My views on this subject found, in my judgment, adequate expression in the course which I took last year in voting in a minority of one against the report of the South Africa Committee simply because two paragraphs in it were not absolutely, but might possibly be interpreted as insinuations against Mr. Rhodes's personal honour. We know that at the beginning of a long chain of facts Miss Flora Shaw sent certain telegrams, referred to last year, and that telegrams of a similar tenour were sent from the other end of the chain. We know that Major Willoughby, in perfect good faith, made the kind but rather foolish assertion that the officers need not trouble about their commissions or anything else. I believe he said that in good faith, but neither the honourable and learned Member nor anyone else who has followed up the process which had gone on has any right, on the dispatch of these telegrams alone, to make such insinuations. The honourable and learned Member makes a definite charge that Mr. Rhodes made some use of these telegrams in London. He says that Mr. Rhodes and others had been making this or that use of these telegrams while officers—

SIR ROBERT REID

I think what I said was that Mr. Rhodes and otters had been circulating in London news suggesting the complicity of the Colonial Secretary and other highly-placed persons, which I believe to be unfounded; but may I add at once that if the honourable Member says that he believes that Mr. Rhodes was not a party to the making of these suggestions, I will at once withdraw the statement, and will be sorry to have made it?

MR. WYNDHAM

I do say so. I thank the honourable and learned Gentleman, and I think we may let the matter rest now. I will not refer to it again. Perhaps, as there has been so much mystery-mongering over the matter, I ought to say at once that, from the Blue Book, it appears—and we all know it—that all these insinuations are absolutely baseless and perfectly absurd; but it may be necessary to go to the length of repudiating the foolish insinuations which the honourable and learned Member made against Mr. Rhodes, as there might be men who would stop and listen to them when uttered by him. The honourable and learned Member began his speech by stating that he did not intend to go back on the past, and he proceeded to give the Committee a sketch of the present position of Rhodesia, as depicted in Sir Richard Martin's Report. I would remind the Committee that that Report was written in, 1896, when, owing to the rebellion, Sir Richard Martin and everyone else were more or less confined to Bula-wayo. It was writteu when rebellion and rinderpest had devastated the land. It may be that the honourable and learned Member, who is used to official proceedings in this country, cannot exercise his imagination so far as to realise what Rhodesia was like at such a time. He says that if the natives were not paid the wages promised to them it was the duty of English gentlemen on the spot, who must have known, to give the natives satisfaction. Perfectly true; but remember the paucity of population. At the very time that Sir Richard Martin was writing his Report I rode down, with one companion, from Bulawayo to Tuli, a distance of 180 miles, and during the whole course of that ride, after passing the last police station, I met only two Matabele, and not a single white man. You have no conception of the paucity of population in such a country; and, therefore, no idea of the difficulties of a judiciary rigged up on the morrow of a fierce war to deal effectively with crime committed here and there in distant mining districts. The honourable and learned Member referred to the first Matabele war as having been cruel and brutal. Does he mean that practices took place which are not countenanced in civilised warfare? I do not think any such allegation should be made.

SIR ROBERT REID

My statement was based on the report of Mr. Newton himself. I thought the first onslaught in the war was deliberately promoted.

MR. WYNDHAM

The honourable and learned Member, then, differs from the opinion given by Members of the last Government. I may say that Mr. Gladstone and Lord Kimberley both asserted in public that it would be a crime against humanity if war had not followed the conduct of Lobengula's impis towards the Mashonas under our protection. The honourable and learned Member showed great solicitude for the protection of the natives in Rhodesia. I may surprise him when I say that the best guarantee for the well-being and good treatment of the natives in Rhodesia is the presence and the power of Mr. Rhodes in that country. Mr. Rhodes is the one politician in South Africa who is permanently popular as a big personage with the natives. When I was in Rhodesia, at the end of 1896, I saw the indunas of the Matabele, who only seven weeks before had been fighting, sitting amicably around Mr. Rhodes evening after evening, and I can assure the Committee that no man could have gone into their grievances with greater sympathy and with closer understanding than Mr. Rhodes did in my presence, in October, 1896. Sir, I have dealt adequately with the remarks of the honourable and learned Member, but if the two speeches to which we have listened are added together they amount to a criticism of the policy of the Government for remedying these evils of the past so ridiculous that I do not think any scheme short of withdrawing the Charter altogether would be approved by the two speakers to whom we have listened. Upon that I have to say this: you cannot criticise a substitution for the existing adminstration unless you clearly make up your minds whether you want the Charter or not. Those who do not believe in government by charter will not be satisfied with any scheme which this or any other Government produces; but if we are to have a charter, then I think the scheme is a very good and ingenious one. I may say that in Capetown I did not find a single politician of standing, even among the most determined opponents of Mr. Rhodes, who was in favour of withdrawing the Charter now. Some said that, theoretically, they were opposed to chartered company government, but if the question of this Charter came up they would be opposed to its withdrawal, and those very politicians and opponents of Mr. Rhodes who, on principle, disapproved of chartered companies, made suggestions of amendment which were hardly to be distinguished from those embodied in the Paper laid before the House. I consider this plan a very ingenious one, because it is contrived to bridge over the period which must elapse between the status of Rhodesia as governed by the Chartered Company and the status of Rhodesia as a self-governing colony. As a rule, we have first a chartered company, then a Crown colony, and then a self-governing colony, but there are special reasons for avoiding if possible the stage of a Crown colony in South Africa, because a Crown colony would not fit in with the polity of South Africa, as a whole, and it is objected to alike by Dutchmen and Englishmen in Cape Colony, Natal, the South African Republic, and the Orange Free State. Lord Rosmead, whose death we all deplore, and who was certainly a patriotic Englishman, was right, though his words were misunderstood, when he said there was no room in South Africa for the Imperial factor. He meant no more than that a Crown colony was distasteful to the polity of the South African States. Why? Because the great majority of South Africacns—English and Dutch—look to the development—the industrial development—of the hinterland of South Africa—that is to say, Rhodesia—as their first hope for the future, and they feel certain that a Crown colony would check the industrial development of Rhodesia; and they are perfectly right. Of course it would. Would £6,000,000 have been spent in Rhodesia had it been a Crown colony? Would this Government have guaranteed the interest on £3,150,000 expended on railway construction? Nothing of the kind would have taken place if there had been a Crown colony there in place of a chartered company. There is another reason. The Bechuanaland Railway already built in Rhodesia is the limit of the whole railway system of South Africa. It is now managed under agreement by the Railway Board of the Government of Cape Colony, and you cannot cut off Rhodesia from the rest of South Africa without dislocating the whole railway system of South Africa. What we can do to mend matters in Rhodesia is to see that no abuse takes place in its administration in future. That is being done. What we can do is to see that the rights of the natives are respected. I think that when the Committee hears from the Colonial Secretary the details of the scheme they will see that the protection of the interests of the natives is safe in the hands of Sir Alfred Milner. We can prepare the country for self-government. That is being done. There are to be four elected members, and municipalities are to be given to Bulawayo and Salisbury. Then as to the rights of the Resident Commissioner, the honourable and learned Member has found fault with this portion of the scheme on the ground that the Resident Commissioner would have no authority to call for information or a Report on any subject through the Administrator. But surely any Administrator likely to be appointed with the sanction of the Crown would not refuse to give information to which the Resident Commissioner was entitled. All the Resident Commissioner need do would be to write to the High Commissioner, and say he was impeded in the discharge of his duty by the Administrator of the Chartered Company. What the Resident Commissioner can do is to get full information on all facts, and on that information the High Commissioner has power to veto legislation and appointments to, and removals from, the Executive; and also, in exceptional cases, he has the power of legislating by proclamation. The honourable and learned Member seems to think that it would be better if the Resident Commissioner held those powers without having to consult the High Commissioner. I think that in the case of South Africa it is better that there should not be any interposition—any intermediate authority—between the High Commissioner and the Executives of our colonies, or the Governments in independent States. It is important that all the States should culminate, so to speak, in the representative of the Crown in South Africa. Of course, the honourable and learned Member may say that there is the Government of Natal. Every South African regrets it. It was the isolation of Natal that prevented her drawing closer to Cape Colony long ago, as, I am glad to think, she is doing now. Two questions are left. One is the power left to the board of directors in London. The board of directors are, it is true, given a veto upon any ordinary legislation passed by the Legislative Council in Rhodesia, but that veto is subject to revision by the Colonial Secretary within eight days. It should be noted that this revision will be swift, for it is also laid down that every resolution of the board must be submitted to the Colonial Office within eight days. My only doubt is that I think, perhaps, that it would have been better to have left the London board to take the initiative in purely fiscal matters, because they are responsible for the financial solvency of this company, upon which so many interests in South Africa depend. Apart from the case of the shareholders here—although I think it would be an injustice to prevent men who have subscribed so much money from choosing who is to take care of their finances—I think in common prudence it would be most unfair to saddle this House with the responsibility of such sums as have been mentioned in the course of this Debate. Here are six millions spent already, and there is more to be spent and more to be guaranteed. Well, Sir, I think the Government would be very unwise if they accepted the responsibility for directing these very great financial operations. Of course, some of the criticism which has been directed against this scheme does spring from the fact that honourable Members altogether misapprehend the position which Mr. Rhodes holds in the affection and in the confidence of a great many people in South Africa. When the honourable and learned Member argued that the Government should have taken steps to prevent Mr. Rhodes from rejoining the board lest his return to the helm should create race jealousies in South Africa, I assure him that he incompletely mistaken on the facts. Mr. Rhodes has bitter opponents in South. Africa, as all prominent politicians have in every country in the world; but it is not true to say that the Dutch, as Dutch, are opposed to Mr. Rhodes throughout the South African Republic.

MR. HENRY LABOUCHERE (Northampton)

What does Mr. Hofmeyr say?

MR. WYNDHAM

The honourable Member for Northampton asks what Mr. Hofmeyr says. Well, he is the leader of the opposition against Mr. Rhodes, but Mr. Rhodes has just won an election as against Mr. Hofmeyr. Now, what do we say here when the other side have just won a big victory at the poll? Why, we at once point out that the nation will go to ruin in the hands of those to whom its interests have just been confided. But the best test of all is that of popular suffrage. In the last Legislative Council there were 23 members. Before the election there were 18 of them who belonged to the Bond, and five of them who did not; after the elections only nine followed the Bond, and 14 Progressives were returned to support Mr. Rhodes; and to show how very little there is in this supposed opposition to Mr. Rhodes amongst the Dutch people, I may say that out of 13 members returned to support Mr. Rhodes' policy, seven of them are Dutchmen. In those districts which are exclusively Dutch, the vote cast in favour of Mr. Rhodes' candidature has been somewhat in excess of those cast for his opponents. As far as Cape Colony is concerned, therefore, this bogey that the return of Mr. Rhodes will foment race hatred may be laid to rest. I think the same may be said to a very considerable degree of other States. At this very moment arrangements are being made, under the superintendence of the High Commissioner, to enable 50 Dutch families, with their wives and daughters and dependents, to emigrate out of the Transvaal into the Chartered Company's territory, which Mr. Rhodes is to administrate. And why? Presumably because they prefer to live in a country governed by Mr. Rhodes, rather than live in a country governed by President Kruger. I do not see any other reason for this change of domicile. These remarks may not carry conviction to the honourable Member for Northampton, but I can produce evidence of this kind almost without limit. We are too much alarmed at the possibilities of race hatred in South Africa. It might surprise the honourable Member for Northampton to know that at a flower show recently held at Port Elizabeth General Joubert, who was a candidate the other day for the Attorney Generalship of the Transvaal, who was one of the most violent opponents of Mr. Rhodes, adopted quite half of Mr. Rhodes' programme. Sir Pietre Faure made a slashing speech the other day in Port Elizabeth in favour of Mr. Rhodes and his programme, and made friendly references to General Joubert sitting beneath him. I. therefore submit, Mr. Lowther, if I am not trespassing too much upon the indulgence of the Committee, that we ought not to hinder Mr. Rhodes—nay, I think we might go a step further, and we might even help him. Some reference has been made to the speech made by Mr. Rhodes the other day to the shareholders of the Chartered Company. In that speech he made a business proposition practically to this House and to this country. He asked us if we could see our way to assist him in the extension of the Bechuanaland Railway. Now, Sir, thanks to the right honourable Gentleman opposite, the Bechuanaland Railway has already been helped, for it has been granted a subsidy of £20,000 a year for 10 years. So I hope that I may claim them as being in favour of at least so much of Mr. Rhodes' policy as is embodied in the construction of that railway into the hinterland of South Africa. The Chartered Company also gave this railway a subsidy of £10,000 a year, making a total of £30,000 a year in all. That railway was open for a distance of 470 miles, from Mafeking to Bulawayo, only in November last. Now, in the first four months, the net earnings per month have been £12,922, making an annual net earning of £155,000. Counting in the subsidies, that leaves a balance of profit on, the Bechuanaland Railway already constructed as far as Bulawayo sufficient to pay interest on the sums that will be necessary to extend that railway to Mafeking. Now, that railway has already got a balance, after paying interest on its debentures, of £85,064, which it is estimated will pay interest on the £2,000,000 needed for the future extension of the railway to Lake Tanganyika. What is asked for from this country it would, of course, be premature to express an opinion upon just now. What is asked for is, that if the Chartered Company guarantees the interest, will the Government give a collateral guarantee, say, at 2½ or 3½ per cent. in perpetuity for 30 years? Now, the suggestion is not one which ought to excite the astonishment of the honourable Member for Northampton, for this is only a collateral guarantee of interest that is asked for, and the honourable Member for Northampton was one of those who granted an annual subsidy to the parent branch of this railway.

MR. LABOUCHERE

That is hardly correct. What happened was this. We voted a certain amount in respect of expenses in Bechuanaland, and the amount was reduced by £20,000 and given to the railway.

MR. WYNDHAM

Does the honourable Member for Northampton really repudiate sympathy for the policy of constructing the Bechuanaland Railway? I always believed that both he and his Party took the greatest pride to themselves on account of that railway. I have just been informed by the right honourable Gentleman that my statement, which has been challenged by the honourable Member for Northampton, does not err in point of accuracy. But whereas the Imperial Government is asked to give a collateral guarantee of interest, we have reason to believe that the Government of Cape Colony is ready to go farther, at any rate; there is a hope, judging from what has passed between the Prime Minister of that colony, that if the Imperial Government sees its way to back up this project of extension, then Cape Colony will come forward and help even with more substantial co-operation. The railway would be built in sections, each 200 miles long, and the Government will only be asked to assist in respect to each 200 miles that paid. Sir, I feel that I should not be entitled to go into this scheme in detail. My reason for referring to it is that all these great railway projects to develop our commerce abroad are generally ventilated for one or two years before the Chancellor of the Exchequer gives his sanction. If that is so, I think it is high time to begin in the year 1898 in regard to this railway. I may say that this railway will not pass through African swamps. It will follow the great plateau which runs the whole way to the south of Lake Tanganyika. A piece of good advice was once given to us in order that we might discount the conflict between ourselves and other Powers, and it was that we should study large maps; but in order that we may gauge the chance of profit on industrial enterprises in Africa it is necessary that we should study orographical maps, in which the altitudes above the sea level are marked. If honourable Members studied those maps there would be less nonsense talked in the future about African swamps. There is a plateau there to Lake Tanganyika, and along that plateau the railway will run. I do not notice that the Leader of the Opposition seems to be beaming upon this project which I have just sketched.

SIR W. HARCOURT (Monmouthshire, W.)

The right honourable Gentleman said it would take three or four years.

MR. WYNDHAM

In the case of the Bechuanaland extension, as in the case of the Uganda Railway, the right honourable Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition will have some share in the honour attached to this method of developing the Empire. There must be many in this House who remember the scorn and contumely which the right honourable Gentleman poured upon the Uganda Railway project in 1890. I remember the sarcastic intonation of the right honourable Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition when he spoke of Uganda as "the black pearl of Africa."

SIR W. HARCOURT

The phrase was not mine.

MR. WYNDHAM

The phrase was, at any rate, quoted with a fine intonation and a sarcastic smile by the right honourable Gentleman, who seems to agree with Cleopatra; he likes to dissolve his African pearls in vinegar before he swallows them. But in the long run the right honourable Gentleman and everyone else always has to swallow these African pearls, and the fewer faces we make about it at the start the better. The time has gone by for drawing these gloomy pictures of Africa. Really, the right honourable Gentleman, when he speaks of Africa, might be described in the words attributed by Swift to the geographers— Geographers, in Afric's maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps And, o'er inhabitable downs, Place elephants for want of towns. But the right honourable Gentleman rarely drew anything so innocuous as elephants in his maps. If this railway is made and completed as far as Tanganyika, we shall tap a great area which has been specially reserved for such efforts by the united wisdom of Europe, and we shall tap the area of free trade provided by the Brussels Act of 1885, and there are great prospects of trade in that area. That great explorer, the late Mr. Joseph Thomson, who visited the country in the year 1891, reported that it was healthier than Blantyre, and, go far as he could see, it will be a most productive country. Only recently, an expedition coming from the West Coast, and piercing the area tapped by this railway, made a net profit of £70,000 out of rubber alone—a fact which I commend to the attention of the honourable Member for Northampton. Sir, when you leave Cape Town you advance at once on to this plateau, which may be followed for 1,800 miles as far as Lake Tanganyika; I believe it is, in fact, the backbone of South and Central Africa, and if you construct this railway you will give that backbone a spinal cord, and then this dark African continent, which has lain so long inert, will at last begin to live and move and have its being.

MR. J. M. PAULTON (Durham, Bishop Auckland)

I should like for a few moments to refer to the speeches which have just been made. My honourable Friend the Member for the Rushcliffe Division in his remarks spoke of the inability of those who are concerned in the management and development of Rhodesia to understand the position with which they had to deal. Now, I venture very humbly to say that the same remark might very well be applied to the speech of my honourable Friend the Member for the Dumfries Burghs and also to my honourable Friend who sits below me. Mr. Lowther, I must say that I do not think those speeches presented in any respect a fair picture either of the conditions of things in Rhodesia or of the efforts and intentions of those who are concerned in its development. A great deal has been said, Sir, on the subject of Sir Richard Martin's Report, and it is not necessary for me to deal with it. I do not intend to do so in any detail, but I do venture to say that that Report mentions everything that could be said adverse to the administration of the Chartered Company in the strongest light, and omitted to say anything which could have been produced in favour of the methods or the intentions of that administration. Now, Sir, it is true that Sir Richard Martin declared that forced labour did exist, of had existed, but there is not a word in his Report which gives any evidence of the extent to which compulsory labour would have been employed; and, Sir, to anybody who has been there, to anybody who has seen the industrial condition of the country, I must say it is perfectly obvious that the extent to which compulsory labour would have been employed must have been very very small indeed. And it is no breach of confidence on my part to say that the extent to which this matter of forced labour existed had not been considered by Sir Richard Martin at all, because, in the conversation which I had the honour to have with him, his answer to that point was that he had never been directed by the Government to indicate or declare to what extent that practice had existed. All I say upon that point is that I am convinced that the importance attached to this question of compulsory labour has been enormously exaggerated and overrated. I put this point to the House, that if it were true that the native population has been either systematically or seriously ill-treated, from an industrial point of view, it would have been on the part of those who used such a method a most short sighted and a most foolish proceeding, for the simple reason that no natives who are engaged and retained for work of any kind, if they are ill-treated or underfed, would stop, for they would simply run away. For my honourable Friend to conjure up to our minds the familiar picture of these natives being pursued by infuriated employers who desire to capture and punish them is to anybody who knows the country and the circumstances absolutely absurd. Sir, I should only like to say this, that unquestionably some offences were committed—some very gross, and, indeed, abominable offences—by individual members of the native police. Offences also have been committed by individual employers against the natives in that colony. But, Sir, when my honourable and learned Friend asked why these men are not punished for having withheld their wages, or for having ill-treated natives in their employment, allow me to tell him that many cases of punishment have occurred, and that I know those responsible for the government of the country have given the strictest orders to use every means in their power to detect and punish any case of an employer who ill-treats the natives. I was for a time in this country, and while in Bulawayo there were two cases in which individual employers or speculators were punished severely, one of them was sentenced to two months' imprisonment and the other to six months' for having withheld wages and ill-used their natives. Now, Sir, of course, in the early stages of the development of a country like Rhodesia, it is absolutely inevitable that some injustices, some crimes, if you like, and many follies, must be committed by individuals. In the process of colonisation these things must occur. I think, therefore, that it is a great pity, and I certainly think it very unfair, that the men who are engaged in the colonisation and development of these great countries should be spoken of as though they one and all sympathised with cruel methods or that they were indifferent to the rights of the native population. That is the impression produced upon me by most of the honourable and learned Gentlemen's speeches, and the general tendency of those speeches is to decry and belittle everything connected with Rhodesia. Now, Sir, in the case of the natives, I would just like to say one other word, if the Secretary of State for the Colonies will permit me to make a suggestion to him. It is this: that very great care and caution should be exercised in Matabeleland with regard to the collection of the hut tax. I do think that in the present state of the country it is most important that nothing should be done to either irritate or produce a sense of injustice in the minds of the natives; and, although I think it is quite easy to induce them to submit to taxation and cheerfully agree to it if it be done in a right way, I think you can only do it by showing them or persuading them that it is merely an alteration in the system to which they have been accustomed. If their chiefs or those in whom they have full confidence are allowed as far as possible to use their authority or their persuasion in the collection of any form of taxation, then I think you will have comparatively little, if any, difficulty with the natives. What they do not understand is a sudden change of system and method in any such matters as that of taxation. And Sir, I must say that I do think, on the whole, the policy of doing what you can to induce the natives to work—I do not mean compulsory labour, of course—and doing what you can to persuade these natives to adopt habits of industry and self-interest is of the utmost possible importance, and certainly Mr. Rhodes' policy, so far as I have ever understood it, has been to put a premium on industry in any shape or form, and to put taxation upon those who preferred to live in idleness. That is the policy of the Chartered Company, and that is the policy which Mr. Rhodes has always advocated, and I certainly do not think my honourable Friends around me ought to find fault with that policy any more than honourable Gentlemen opposite. Mr. Lowther, I do not wish to detain the Committee at any length, but there are one or two points upon which I might, perhaps, be at liberty to say one word. It surprises me that so many gentlemen, so many friends of my own, assume such extraordinary powers of prophecy with regard to Rhodesia, and they are all prophecies of forthcoming disaster and absolute failure with regard to that country. Well, Sir, it has often been said very truly that it is absolutely useless to argue with a prophet—you can only disbelieve him and leave him alone; and I would certainly say this in answer to those dismal prophecies, that the men who know most about the country are certainly not those who have the least faith in it. Personally, I have not a penny of interest in the financial success of that country, but from what I saw there and what I heard, on what I believe from careful examination to be good and reliable authority, I certainly returned with more faith in the prospects of that country than when I went out there. Although it is perfectly true that the immediate future of the country depends, as was said in one of the earlier speeches, upon the finding of payable gold, that the population may be attracted in order to assist in the development of the country. I do not go so far as to say that the absolute future of either Rhodesia or of any of these South African territories depends merely upon that; of course, it will be a slower process should the gold not be found. Sir, I desire to say and repeat that it is only right and fair, when one hears statements of this kind made, that one should express the views and feelings which one has gathered from personal observation and personal knowledge in regard to men out there who are doing their duty, and doing it, as I believe, in a manner which all Englishmen will approve of and may well admire. And, Sir, some of the statements and some of the opinions which are held are certainly very far from being accurate.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I thought I would rise early in the Debate, because what I think the House very much desires would be to hear the views of the Colonial Secretary upon this question. There are many branches of this question which hitherto have been quite unexplained. Something has been said about the financial condition of the Chartered Company. In one sense that is not our affair. It is the affair of the fortunate shareholders of the Chartered Company. The honourable Member for Dover just now said "Oh, the public are the best judges of that." He mentioned in that connection speculations in former days in which the public had great confidence, but which confidence was not altogether well placed, but these are not the considerations with which we have to do. This is not a financial matter. If it were so it could not have, I must say, a more able and successful advocate than my honourable Friend the Member for Dover, not only in regard to the present finances, but in regard to the future enterprises of the Chartered Company. What we have to do with this company is, the capacity in which it administers this immense territory which is created by and dependent upon our Imperial Government, and for which our credit and our name are responsible. It is not indifferent to us in this sense whether the company is solvent or insolvent, because you certainly would not put the fortunes of a territory, which we are always told has an area of 800,000 square miles, into the hands of what, after all, we are told, is a purely commercial company, upon which the development of that territory depends, and therefore it is by no means indifferent to us to know what is the situation of the company which exercises such large responsibilities in the British name. I have no object or desire to discredit this company, but I have to consider what is the condition which it presents upon its own Reports. In the first place, this company has never paid any dividend to its shareholders, although it has raised a capital in one way or another of six millions of money. That, of course, is the affair of the shareholders, but that does not give a large reserve of power to a company which is administering these large responsibilities. It has not, as I think my honourable Friend mentioned, except in one year, covered even its working expenses, and I observe that in the last Report it is stated that it is not likely to do so next year, and all it ventures to say is that "the time is not far distant"—rather discouraging language—"when the expenditure will be balanced by the revenue." That is the situation of the company, and I observe also a remarkable statement of what is called "suspense account"—a suspense account in this company, in which the revenue is not strong, which amounts to £91,000, which has been spent out of its funds upon the raid, and which has not yet been repaid. The raid took place nearly two years ago, and this money has not apparently been paid into the account of the company. That is a remarkable circumstance affecting the revenue of the company. Now, the raid, of course, and the rebellion—which, to a great degree, according to the opinion of Sir Richard Martin at all events, arose out of the raid—has laden this company with an additional liability of two millions. I do not think that anybody denies that the future of the country depends upon the production of payable gold. I do not pretend to be a prophet—the prophets in this case are the promoters of the company. You may believe them or you may disbelieve them. They have undertaken to say—and a great number of people believe them—that there is a great amount of payable gold there, and this company, which is to administer this enormous province, is simply a land and gold speculation. They may deny it, but that is the character of this company, and it has been said that it is to be confined, as I understand, to these commercial objects. If it is to be confined to these commercial objects, then no possible objection can be taken. That is the affair of the promoters and their shareholders. But that is not the case here; the case here is of a mixed character. You set up this land and gold speculation, and entrust to its promoters the administration of this enormous territory, and of the population upon it, and it is from that point of view that the House of Commons has to regard the situation of this company. We have to look, therefore, upon its former management. Of course, the raid, the rebellion, and the rinderpest have been responsible during the last year or two for the condition in which it finds itself. Those causes, however, were not responsible for the condition in which it found itself before that period. My honourable Friend said that we had the assurances of the company that gold exists, and my honourable Friend the Member for Dover said the best proof of that is that the people best able to judge believed in it too. I do not know that that is the fact. If it had been so, I should have supposed that the great millionaires of the Transvaal—men who had made great fortunes in gold—would by this time at any cost have developed at least one good gold mine in Rhodesia. But a statement which is more remarkable still is this: that the company themselves do not hold this opinion, because they are going to borrow a large sum of money in order to subsidise the gold mines, because the public will not take them and work them out of their own resources. Is it not a remarkable fact that this governing company is obliged to raise a million and a half of money, which is to be employed to induce people to sink mines in Rhodesia? Why are not the people who have developed the mines in the Transvaal ready to come forward without subsidies to carry out those operations? I never heard of a company in the condition of this Chartered Company of South Africa in which it was necessary to have subsidies of this character, either in California, Australia, or Klondyke. In these places people do believe in the fertility of these districts, and the possibilities of gold, and come forward and open the mines themselves. But here, in the case of the Chartered Company in South Africa, nobody appears to have come forward—nobody appears to have confidence to work these mines; and therefore, in addition to anything else, I understand that some million and a half of capital is to be raised for the purpose of inducing people to undertake mining operations in Rhodesia. The conclusion I draw from that is that the confidence is not so great or so universal as the honourable Member for Dover believes to be the case. I read with great attention the speech of Mr. Rhodes the other day in the City, and he expounded the gold law of Rhodesia. That is a very interesting subject. We have heard a great deal of the discouragement to gold mining in the Transvaal in consequence of various burdens imposed upon the gold mining industry, to the great disadvantage of the gold speculators there. But people have observed that there is a certain charge made by the Chartered Company upon that industry of gold mining, which, at first sight, sounds rather remarkable, because of that transaction which goes by the name of "vendorscrip." The company takes one half, or 50 per cent., of the vendorscrip, and Mr. Rhodes explained that by so doing the company was making no charge whatever upon the gold mining industry. I should imagine that this charge of 50 per cent. is a very heavy charge; and, in addition to that, there are the railway charges. Talk about the railway charges in the Transvaal, why, the railway charges in Rhodesia are, so far as I have been able to ascertain, much higher than those of the Transvaal. Therefore, all these things have to be considered when you are talking of the future prospects of the company to which these great powers and great responsibilities are given. Then the great question, and the important question, is, what conditions are you going to impose upon this company, to whom you give these enormous powers? If it had been a great and flourishing company—if it had been a company which had established confidence by its former transactions, and through its administrations, then it would not have been so necessary, perhaps, to strictly scrutinise the safeguards and the restrictions which are to be placed upon it. But that is not the case with this company. The financial history of this company has not been brilliant, and its connection with the raid, through its leading officers, has not been creditable. The whole of its past administration has certainly not gained through the examination of Sir Richard Martin, who was very properly sent out by the Colonial Secretary to look into its proceedings. Therefore you cannot say that this is an authority to which you are entitled to give unlimited confidence. The proposals from the Colonial Secretary, which we have before us, are really founded upon that distrust; otherwise, if that is not so, why should it be necessary to review so narrowly its conduct? If the former administration of the company has been deserving of confidence, why is it necessary now to reconstitute it? Therefore, I say that we have an admission that there have been great defects, and I observe that the Colonial Secretary in his Paper admitted that the restrictions in the original Charter are paper restrictions, and they have, in fact, proved abortive. They have proved abortive for this reason: "that great latitude was given by the board to their officers in South Africa." But what security have you got that quite as great latitude will be given by the new board to their officers in South Africa in the future? We all know that the officer in South Africa is master of the situation, and therefore the extent of the latitude to be given by the board to their officer is not a protection, and will not be a protection any more than it was a protection in the provisions of the original Charter. There is no use disguising the matter. Everybody knows that in his present position Mr. Rhodes is master of the board. The board were his creatures, and, for all I know, they remain so, and are likely to remain so. They are the same board; there is no change in the situation at all. The only thing that has happened is that the Duke of Fife has retired, and has very frankly given his reasons for retiring. He said he had been deceived, and he adverted to what had taken place. What reason in the world is there to suppose that the individual who was master of the board is not master of the board now, and that things will be administered in the future in regard to the board any differently to what they were in the past? I do not think, speaking personally, that the retirement of the Duke of Fife at all improved the condition of the board. Then it is said that there is to be a change in the council in South Africa. With regard to that, I can only say that if there is to be anything like a popular representation of the community, the Chartered Company have taken very great care to observe that the land and gold speculators shall always have a majority over the representatives of the community which is supposed to be represented. I do not think it is a question that is worth while discussing, as to how this majority or minority will act, because, of course, the council in Africa, like the board in England, will be entirely at the disposal of Mr. Rhodes. Nobody can doubt that for a moment, and the question is not worth discussing. I was going to ask the Colonial Secretary—and I think it is important to know—who is going to be the Administrator. Everybody knows who will be the Administrator in fact, whoever he is in name. The Administrator of the Chartered Company will be Mr. Rhodes. Very well, then, all the proposals and safeguards in the way of controlling the board which is to have authority over the administration of this council, which is in some way or other to represent the community, and which is to act as some check on the administration, are all paper devices which will have no operation at all. It will be the administration, both on the board at home and on the council in South Africa, of a single person—Mr. Rhodes. Then there is the remarkable check of the new Resident Commissioner. The Resident Commissioner is to be a gentleman who is to sit on this board and control the Administrator, not by any authority, but he is to have a seat on the council with a right to speak, but not to vote; a full power to call for any information or report on any subject connected with the administration. I do not very much envy the position of the Resident Commissioner. What sort of authority or influence is this gentleman, who is to speak and not to vote, likely to have? We have a great many gentlemen in this House who both speak and vote, but supposing we had a certain number of Members entitled to speak and not to vote, I do not think that the House would derive very much advantage from that situation, or from those individuals at all. Are you going to establish anything like control through the Resident Commissioner who is to sit there, and who is expected to control the actions of Mr. Rhodes in South Africa. How, I would ask, is he to obtain any information which the Administrator does not think fit to give him? There is elaborate machinery also in these orders for the Colonial Secretary to obtain information about everything that the board at home does or administers. What would have been the good of seeking that information two years ago, when the raid took place? The board knew nothing about it. You would have had the whole thing done without any information available from the board, you would have had no information given in South Africa, and you would have had no more means of dealing with the raid if you had had this machinery, which it is now proposed to set up, than if you had not had it at all. The whole of the transaction, the management of the money, the management of the men, was done in a manner over which I do not believe this machinery would have given you the smallest control. Then the honourable Gentleman called attention to the question of the natives, which, after all, is very important. The honourable Member for Dover said that nobody is so popular with the natives as Mr. Rhodes. I do not know whether the natives have heard any of the speeches made by Mr. Rhodes on the subject of native labour, because, if they have, they must be aware of the fact that Mr. Rhodes complained bitterly of all the people in this country who ever said a word in favour of the protection of labour. He has complained in the loudest manner in speech after speech dealing with that subject, and his great complaint has been the injury which has been done to the commercial interests of the Chartered Company by interference with native labour. It is said that regulations will be issued. I think, Sir, it is much to be regretted that we have not these regulations before us, and I regret it all the more because all I have said is confirmed by this fact—that the Chartered Company have sent two editions of their native labour regulations to England, which have been disapproved of by the Colonial Secretary. These regulations of the Chartered Company are the work of Mr. Rhodes; I do not attack anyone else connected with the Chartered Company, and I do not wish to speak disrespectfully of them. But I say that we have had two proposals with reference to the regulations of native labour, which have been rejected—

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

I hardly think that rejected is the word. They have not been rejected, but amendments have been suggested.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I hope that in a matter of such importance the right honourable Gentleman will agree to the petition of my honourable and learned Friend, that, before we finally dispose of this Vote, the House will see the regulation with reference to native labour. Now, I must again refer to what has been mentioned, because it is a matter of great importance, of which we ought to the liabilities of this company, and tion made by Mr. Rhodes the other day in the City of London with reference to the liabilities of this Company, and as to what is to be the position of any self-governing colony, if such should ever arise in this case, with reference to that debt. Certainly, as far as I can understand it, I can see no other explanation than this, that—whether it be a self-governing colony by the future community of Rhodesia, or whether it may be, as is much more likely, Her Majesty's Government, in case the South African Company is reduced to a condition of impecuniosity—what would be held out to us would be that we should pay £6,000,000—a national debt of £6,000,000—for the goodwill of Rhodesia. That would be a strong order in itself in the case of an insolvent affair, but when we have taken over the goodwill of the business we are not to have the business. However, whether it is the independent community of Rhodesia, or whether it is the Imperial Government, when such a misfortune happens as that the Chartered Company collapses, either the community, or the Government, are to take upon them a debt of £6,000,000 incurred by the company, and the company are to keep their half-share of the vendors' scrip. Was ever such a proposal heard of? If it is a self-governing community which is to do that, we have nothing to say about it, but I enter my caveat beforehand against the Imperial Government giving its assent to such a proposal, imposing as it would such terms upon the British taxpayer. This proposal having been put forward in the City of London I take the earliest opportunity of denouncing it altogether from its commencement as a preposterous and impudent demand. There is a still more important matter upon which I should like to have a very definite answer from the Colonial Secretary. It arises out of a part of the speech of Mr. Rhodes in the City upon the commercial relations of Rhodesia to Great Britain and other Foreign States. Now, we are all aware that the proud boast we have made to the world upon our Chinese policy is that England is the one country in all the world which has opened its ports to everyone. "The open door"; everyone knows the phrase. We are ready even to go to war for an open port. That is the great doctrine. Of course, as regards the self-governing Colonies, we cannot control them. Authority has been given to the Dominion of Canada, and other self-governing Colonies, to deal as they like with their own; but Rhodesia is not a self-governing Colony. It is a Colony—if a Colony at all—in which the Chartered Company is directly responsible to the Crown, and where the tariff is that which the Crown alone directs. What, then, are going to be our commercial relations with that territory? We have had it very clearly stated by Mr. Rhodes. He says, in this speech— The Chartered Company proposed to Her Majesty's Government"— that is some years ago— that in the constitution of the Charter the following clause should be put: 'That the duty on British goods should not exceed the then Cape tariff.' Her Majesty's Government—this is the late Liberal Government—replied: "We will accept a clause in the constitution that the duty on imported goods should not exceed the present Cape tariff." You will see that the late Government, adhering to the doctrine of the "open door," put into the clause "imported goods," and not British good only. "They fought," says Mr. Rhodes, "for the word 'imported,' and we fought for the word 'British.'" That was with the Liberal Government. "We fought over this clause, and as to whether the word 'British' or 'imported' should be put in, and they refused it." Perfectly true. The late Government said: To accept such a change as that would be a complete reversal of the commercial policy of England, which opens the ports under its control to all nations alike. We declined to accept such an alteration as that, to break down the principle of the "open port," and confine this territory exclusively to British merchandise. Then, Mr. Rhodes proceeds— Like the Sibylline books, one has come back, and tries to sell again, and you will be glad to hear that the new Government have agreed that the duty on British goods should not exceed the present Cape tariff. That is an absolute reversal of British commercial policy—an absolute denial of the doctrine of the "open port" which you have been flaunting in the face of the world as being the unalterable principle of the British Government. Meantime the Cape tariff has come down to 9 per cent., and that practically keeps the trade of that new territory for ever for England. That is to say, all the commerce of foreign States is to be excluded from this territory. I understand that Protectionist cheer, but I do not understand how this is to be reconciled with the "open port" at Kaiou-chau, or elsewhere. When you go to ask for an open port in China, or anywhere else, you will be met with the policy of Rhodesia as proclaimed by Mr. Rhodes, and endorsed, as he says, by Her Majesty's Government. I go on with Mr. Rhodes' speech— These 800,000 square miles will be purely British, and that will appeal to the people; and it is the people who rule. And again— You thought a great deal of the unfairness of the French in putting on their protective tariffs against us. Yes, that is what we are always complaining of— But the French are perfectly right, and you have to learn the lesson if you are to keep your position. That is the commercial policy which Mr. Rhodes says has been adopted by Her Majesty's Government.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

No, Mr. Rhodes does not say that.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I did not believe it, and I was going to say so.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

Mr. Rhodes says that his proposal has been adopted, but he does not say that the argument you have just read has been adopted; you applied your observation to the last argument of Mr. Rhodes.

SIR W. HARCOURT

No; I applied it to the fact that the new Government have agreed that the duty is to be applied in favour of British goods and not foreign goods.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

Hear, hear!

SIR W. HARCOURT

Then they have adopted it?

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

Hear, hear!

SIR W. HARCOURT

Very well. Then this is the commencement of the Zollverein, and to-morrow the doctrine of the "open port" where will that be? Where will you be when you are going to war for an "open port" and equal opportunity for everybody, when other countries point to the communication between the Colonial Secretary and Mr. Rhodes? I believed this was untrue. I had thought that this was a thing which was intended for the consumption of the shareholders at the meeting in London; but, apparently, this is a negotiation that has taken place, and I think that before this Debate commenced Parliament should have had some communication as to the manner in which the commercial policy of this country has been reversed behind the back of the House of Commons. Then I should like to know whether another proposal has been accepted—it seemed to me at first to be incredible, as the other—and that is the financial proposal so eloquently advocated by its great promoter the Member for Dover, and I congratulate him upon the way in which the prospectus is drawn. It was sufficient to have tempted all the shareholders of the world to have embarked in the speculation of this new railway spoken of by the honourable Member for Dover, who, I am quite sure, preached from the text which Mr. Rhodes had already given out from the pulpit in the City. This is a proposal which I should like also to know whether Her Majesty's Government have accepted. It is that Mr. Rhodes will not charge the Chartered Company with any more liabilities. He has already begun to believe that the Council is bearing the last straw, and therefore, although there is to be a new railway, it is not the Company that is to pay for it. Who is to pay for it? It is to develop the property of the Chartered Company north of the Zambesi, and, of course, it would be a great advantage to them commercially; but they are to pay nothing for it. It is the British Government who are to guarantee two millions of money to make a railway from somewhere in Southern Rhodesia into Northern Rhodesia and Lake Tanganyika. Then when you get there this is what Mr. Rhodes says is going to happen: "Look at the map. You get the railway to Tanganyika, you have Her Majesty's sanction for the railway into Uganda (it turns round and joins us), and then you have Kitchener coming down from Khartoum. That gives you Africa—the whole of it." I only want the House to understand the extent of the undertaking, because it is not the Chartered Company that is to pay for it. "You have Kitchener coming down from Khartoum, and that gives you Africa—the whole of it." It is only £2,000,000 for the railway, but the consequence is that we are to take over Africa, "the whole of it," and so the conquest of Africa by the English nation is a practical question now. That, no doubt, would please the honourable Member for Sheffield. This is put in a little cruder form than that in which it was presented to us by the honourable Member for Dover: "Will you not endorse our promissory note to go to Tanganyika? That means giving you without expense the whole of Africa." What a noble and generous offer! Only it is not the Chartered Company who is to pay for this—it is the British taxpayer. You must remember that this prospectus is not only for English publication and English consumption, but it is a notice to other countries who most wickedly imagine that they have some claim to some share in portions of Africa, even though it be in what Lord Salisbury calls "light soil"; and when they are informed that the British Government has embarked in an undertaking without expense, and only guaranteeing two millions of money, to take the whole of Africa, they may be rather disturbed in their mind. This is the sort of administration to which you have committed the British name, credit, and reputation in South Africa, and solemnly and seriously these things were put before a meeting, I will not say of merchants, but shareholders, in the City of London, and presented by a solemn proposition to Her Majesty's Government, and, as far as I can hear, seriously accepted by Her Majesty's Colonial Secretary. In addition to the adoption of his policy, which is a purely Protectionist policy as regards Great Britain in South Africa, we have also got accepted in an interval of two years—possibly bargains are already made—the first step of a policy by which for two millions of money, we are to have the whole government of Africa. I hope that this, which may be called a "wild cat" policy, is not accepted by Her Majesty's Government. I am sure it will not be accepted by the House of Commons or the English people, although I know the honourable Member for Sheffield is of the opinion that the whole world should be under Her Majesty's Government. What is the administration to which you have entrusted the organisation and conduct of this great territory and its population with 800,000 square miles? The first object, we are informed, is to reconcile the Native races in South Africa. Everybody must feel that that is a matter of the most supreme consequence. We know perfectly well that the racial difficulty has long existed. Everyone knows it was greatly embittered by the raid, and what are you going to do?—to place that supreme task of the reconciliation of the races in the hands of the author of the raid, and that is the policy you have deliberately adopted. What is the unanimous decision on this subject of the Committee of this House appointed to inquire into the raid, a decision to which the Colonial Secretary himself was a party? It was that the raid was "a grave injury to British influence in South Africa." And so it was. And the author of that grave injury to British influence in South Africa is to be replaced and maintained in his authority. "Race feeling," it is stated, "was greatly embittered." The man who embittered that race feeling is to be entrusted with the task of reconciling the races. "Public confidence has been shaken." Public confidence is to be reassured by the policy you are pursuing. Serious difficulties were created with neighbouring States. That is the language of the Report; that is the opinion of the right honourable Gentleman. Will these serious difficulties with neighbouring States be diminished by the administration of this great territory which surrounds these neighbouring states by the man who created those difficulties? It is quite true that the police have been taken out of the hands of the company, and therefore the actual circumstances of the raid could not recur. Everyone must admit that. But it is the moral effects of this administration that we have to consider. You have not cured the feelings that have been created by this raid. I do not agree with the honourable Member for Dover. That among the Dutch people many of them may support Mr. Rhodes I do not deny. I think I have some information on the subject. In the Transvaal and the Orange Free State an acute memory of the raid still lives. My information differs entirely from yours. There is more in it than that. A very evil example has been set in this matter, the evil example set to our colonial population and those who are responsible for their conduct in every part of the world. What is it that has been done? The Committee say— There was no excuse for the conduct of a person in Mr. Rhodes' position in subsidising the organising and stimulating an armed insurrection against the Government of the South African Republic, and employing the forces and resources of the Chartered Company to support such a revolution. Yet it is to him you are going to commit in the future the responsibility of such administration. "He seriously embarrassed both the Imperial and Colonial Governments." How do you know he will not again seriously embarrass the Imperial and Colonial Governments. Has he shown any disposition to pay respect either to the Colonial Government in the person of Lord Rosmead, or to the Imperial Government, from whom he concealed the whole of his proceedings? "His proceedings resulted in the invasion of the territory of a State which was in friendly relations to Her Majesty, in breach of an obligation to respect the right of self-government of the South African Republic under the Convention between Her Majesty and that State." You are always appealing, and you have a right to appeal, to the Convention of 1884. Here you have it on record. You are giving the administration of that territory to the man who made a gross and flagrant breach of the Convention of 1884. Do you think that strengthens your position in South Africa in the administration of that territory. "Such a policy once embarked upon inevitably involved Mr. Rhodes in great breaches of duty towards those to whom he owed allegiance." He deceived the High Commissioner. You are going to send him out again to the High Commissioner to represent the Imperial Government. He concealed his views from his colleagues in the Colonial Ministry"— Do you think it will be more necessary for him to reveal his views in the future than in the past— and from the board of the British South Africa Company, and led his subordinates to believe that his plans were approved by his superiors is the description unanimously given by members of all Parties on the Committee of the House of Commons, and agreed to by the Colonial Secretary; and finally we have put on record, unanimously an absolute and unqualified condemnation of the raid, and the plans that made it possible. The final sentence is—

The result caused for the time being grave injury to British influence in South Africa; public confidence was shaken, race feeling was embittered, and serious difficulties were created in neighbouring States. Do you say you have reconstructed the Chartered Company? It is upon that basis that you have reconstructed it. I am asked whether I desire that the Chartered Company should be put an end to at once. I answer, Certainly not. But what I should have desired would have been, when feeling and knowing that the Chartered Company is their agent for administering this great territory—that this company for whose acts the Government are responsible to the world—that this company which represents British credit and the British name should be reconstructed upon a basis on which it would not have been likely in the future as in the past to be guilty of grave injury to British influence in South Africa, to shake public confidence, to embitter race feelings, and to create serious difficulties with neighbouring States. I feel no confidence whatsoever that the basis the Government have adopted for the future government of Rhodesia may not and will not be open to all the objections that have arisen in the past, and for which, I am bound to say, I see no security in the safeguards they propose to introduce in the present. We have professed to foreign countries—I hope honestly—that we disapprove, that we condemn the raid—a raid truly described by the right honourable Gentleman the Colonial Secretary as a lawless act of filibustering, a marauding expedition which would bring up the question by the suspension of the charter altogether. Yet the charter is continued under exactly the same auspices, and what will be the opinion of the sincerity of those declarations on the part of the British Government and the British people, if for objects of self-aggrandisement—for objects which, in my opinion, do not belong to the credit of honour of a country like this—if for objects of that kind, we are willing to express not our condemnation, but really what amounts to our approval of these transactions in the past by entrusting the same responsibility to the same individual in the future.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

When the right honourable Gentleman rose the Debate had already ranged over a very large area, and embraced a great many questions of detail. Certainly, in the course of his speech, he has still further enlarged its scope, so much so that I almost fear I may not be able to do justice to it in the course of the time still at my disposal. It appears that not only have we to discuss the merits of the Chartered Company, and the merits especially of the new scheme which we have provided for its future administration, but we are to discuss Mr. Rhodes' cration in another place, and upon a different subject. The right honourable Gentleman makes me regret very much that Mr. Rhodes is not a Member of this House. He, I have no doubt, would be able to defend, not merely his proposals, which I do not think are as absurd and ridiculous as they appear to the right honourable Gentleman, but he would also be able to defend his method of argument with regard to them, which I do not think it would be my duty or within my competence to defend. But, as the right honourable Gentleman has criticised that speech, I admit he has a right to ask how far Her Majesty's Government are committed by it. His questions have applied to three separate points. In the first place, it appears that Mr. Rhodes has suggested to the shareholders that, as a matter of book-keeping as I understand, they should separate their capital into two parts, and that a certain portion of the capital which does not constitute, as the right honourable Gentleman said, the goodwill of the business, but which does represent the capital expended in making the business, should be put aside as a fund which, in the event of any change in the company which might hereafter be expected or desired, the Imperial Government or the colony, if it becomes a colony, should take over. I need not say that it takes two to make a bargain. That statement gives us what Mr. Rhodes thinks it would be prudent to do, and what he would wish us to assent to. I admit that if a proposition is made to the Government to the effect that that proposal, which appears to me to be one altogether premature, should be accepted by the Government, as at present advised, I should not see my way to assent to that view. No, Sir, a proposal to create a public debt may or may not be a wise one, but the necessity for dealing with it, and for the Government to express approval of it, does not arise until this contemplated change takes place. If the change takes the form, as I anticipate it will, of transferring the administration and general rights of the Chartered Company to a self-governing colony, I should imagine that the self-governing colony would very naturally desire to have a principal part in settling the terms on which it would take over the territory. If, on the other hand, this property should devolve on the Crown, I am quite sure my right honourable Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer would examine very carefully all the figures presented to him before he accepted any such liability as that suggested. Then the right honourable Gentleman goes on to deal with the railway proposal which has been made by Mr. Rhodes, and which is under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government. The time has not yet come; we have not had time ourselves to consider this proposal. No doubt it will want a great deal of consideration, and I will not anticipate in any way what our decision upon it may be; but this I will say, that to treat a scheme of this kind, even in its inception, as a wild cat scheme is characteristic of the right honourable Gentleman, but it is not justified by our colonial history.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I spoke of the speech. My remarks were not applied simply to the railway. I spoke of the possession of the whole of Africa as a wild cat scheme. That is the point.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

I did not know that cats could scheme, especially wild cats. Then, does the right honourable Gentleman think that this scheme is one which Her Majesty's Government may fairly consider?

SIR W. HARCOURT

They may consider it.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

Yes; but I understood that the right honourable Gentleman represented it as ridiculous from the first. I ask, Sir, is it one atom more ridiculous, for anything the right honourable Gentleman knows, than the original proposal to make the Canadian Pacific Railway? The Canadian Pacific Railway has made the Dominion of Canada. What was it before? Indeed, it was nothing but "our lady of snows." At that time the greatest wheat-producing area in the world was nothing more than a desert of prairie, which not even the Indians themselves had passed over. That has been entirely changed by this great railway, carried through by a poor colony under extraordinary circumstances, with the greatest enterprise, and, fortunately, with most absolute success. If the right honourable Gentleman wants my opinion, there is nothing more ridiculous and nothing more improbably successful in the proposal now made by Mr. Rhodes than in the proposal of the Canadian Pacific Railway. But it is quite a different matter whether, and how far, the Imperial Government should assist in a proposal of this kind, and as to that I desire to be considered absolutely and entirely unpledged. Then the right honourable Gentleman wants to know something about what he calls our commercial relations, and here he has been sitting on a mare's nest which is large enough to satisfy even himself. Now, Sir, what are the facts of the case? Mr. Rhodes some time ago made to the late Government a proposal that the tariff imposed in Rhodesia upon British goods should never exceed the then tariff of Cape Colony. He now makes the same proposal to us, with this difference: that as the Cape tariff is now lower than it was then, the offer is proportionately Improved, but otherwise it is the same offer in principle as the offer made to the right honourable Gentleman and his colleagues; and, unless I have been misinformed, some of his colleagues, not the least Influential, were very desirous that it should be accepted. At all events, it was refused, and the right honourable Gentleman and his Government must, of course, take the responsibility of the refusal. What was the refusal? The right honourable Gentleman would not allow a British Colony to make a preference in favour of the Mother Country, and to make such a preference was considered by them as an abominable Protectionist piece of business, and a reversal of the Free Trade policy of this country. Both the right honourable Gentlemen opposite agree to that? [Mr. JOHN MORLEY acquiesced.] Then they are entirely opposed to the offer which we have had and from which we are now benefiting, which was made to us by the Free Trade Premier of Canada, and by which a preference of 25 per cent. is given to British goods imported into Canada.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I said that a self-governing colony could do what it liked, but that the policy of England and the Imperial Government was to open to all countries alike, and that you could not stipulate that preference should be given only to Great Britain and not to other countries.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

If the right honourable Gentleman thinks he has improved his case by that, I think the Committee will see he is entirely mistaken. It is quite true that a self-governing colony can make any offer it pleases, just as Mr. Rhodes can, but it is for the Imperial Government to say whether or not it shall be accepted, and if it be right for the Imperial Government to refuse the offer made by Rhodesia, it would have been right for the Imperial Government to refuse the offer made by Canada. We ought to have said to Canada, "No; inasmuch as we are a Free Trade country, we cannot accept the offer, although, no doubt, you intend it most generously, unless you extend it to all other countries." That is the argument of the right honourable Gentleman. Has he ever heard of an institution called the Cobden Club? Does he think the Cobden Club exists in order to bring about a reversal of our Free Trade policy? Yet the Cobden Club gave its gold medal to Sir Wilfrid Laurier. And we are told, forsooth, that we are unfaithful to the doctrine of the open door, and have taken a step which involves the reversal of the whole fiscal policy of this country. The Government do not think they ought to refuse this offer of Mr. Rhodes; and although he was a little premature in saying that they had accepted it, he can say so now, because a communication has been addressed to him or to the company to say that this provision will be inserted in the constitution. Now, Sir, this is a general Debate, which was initiated by the honourable Member for the Rushcliffe Division in a speech of great moderation and impartiality. The original Debate deals with three subjects. In the first place, we have had a good deal of criticism of the Chartered Company and its past administration. We then had criticisms on Mr. Rhodes in connection with his recent election by the shareholders to the position of a director of the company. I say, in passing, by the shareholders, because the right honourable Gentleman, in his speech, put the whole thing down to us, and says we have entrusted Mr. Rhodes with this, that, and the other. I will shortly show to what extent our responsibility has been increased by the action of the shareholders; but whatever has been done with regard to Mr. Rhodes has been done actively by the shareholders, and not by us. It is not we who suggested this. All we have done is to refuse to interfere in regard to it. The third point of criticism is directed to the proposal for administration which the Government have laid on the table of the House. I will deal with these in their order. In the first place, let me take the criticism of the Chartered Company. How inconsistent are the right honourable Gentleman and the honourable Gentlemen who have made these criticisms of the company! Why do not they come forward with an alternative, which clearly would be that the company should be abolished, the Charter withdrawn, and Imperial control established in Rhodesia? If the Chartered Company is as bad as it is represented to be, there is absolutely nothing short of direct Imperial administration which can save us from the evils which have been pointed out. What is the position of the right honourable Gentleman? He occupied a considerable time in examining the financial position of the company. The House will say, "What business is that of ours? That is a question for the shareholders." "No," he says, "because if I show you that this company is insolvent, then you will think it unfit and improper for the Government to entrust to it any further administration." I should agree. The right honourable Gentleman apparently considered that he had proved his case, and it is rather a curious thing that, while I am sure there are no two honourable Members in this House to whom we should less attribute anything connected with stock-jobbing than the right honourable Gentleman himself and the honourable and learned Member for Dumfries, they should have taken up between them half an hour of the time of the House to bear the company's shares. I assure the Committee it is not my business to bull them, and I shall leave the matter entirely where they left it, except to protest against the flagrant inconsistency of those who show at one moment that this company is insolvent, and at the next moment say that if you ask for the Charter to be withdrawn they are entirely opposed to any such logical proceeding. What it is much more important to meet are, not the charges which are made against the financial solvency of the company, but those which are made against its past administration. I do not pledge myself absolutely to every opinion that Sir Richard Martin may have expressed, but that he came to his work with very strong qualifications, that he brought to it an absolute sense of justice and absolute impartiality, there can be no doubt whatsoever. Practically, I am prepared, for one, to accept his general conclusions. The first conclusion to which we have been referred is as to the cause of the rising. It is said that the rising was the fault of the company, but you cannot accept Sir Richard Martin's Report, and maintain that doctrine, because Sir Richard Martin shows that the first and principal cause of the rising was that the Matabele were not subdued, and no doubt that is the truth. When you go into the country of a proud, warlike, and barbarous people and, before you have thoroughly conquered them, attempt to impose upon them your taxation, your customs, and your justice, you must expect that, under those circumstances, they will rise in rebellion against you. But it does not at all follow that on that account you should not proceed in that work of conquest and civilisation. I do not want to be drawn now into large considerations of general policy, but do not let it be said that if that policy is wrong it is the fault of the Chartered Company, or of chartered companies alone. It is a policy which has necessarily been pursued by the Imperial Government as well as by chartered companies, and by every nation and every ruler who has been brought into contact with savage and barbarous nations. The next statement of the honourable Gentleman referred to the treatment of the natives, and especially to the regulations under which what he called almost a state of slavery prevailed. I think he used that word with some hesitation, and in my opinion another word he used much more correctly expressed the situation that did exist in Matabeleland and Mashonaland at the time to which he referred—to the policy of the corvée, which is, after all, something entirely different from a policy of slavery. The corvée existing in Matabeleland was of this nature—that the natives, against their will, were practically compelled to give a certain time of the year to ordinary industrial labour. It was not the whole of their time, but I think it was three months in the year that the native chiefs had to furnish a certain proportion of labour for the mines. I am not going at length into that to-night, because it is a matter which we shall have to deal with in the regulations, which, as I have said, are not yet ready for presentation. But I would say, in passing, that the question is not one which is free from difficulty, and I think that is fully recognised by the honourable Member for Rushcliffe. When you say to a savage people, who have hitherto found their chief employment, occupation, and profit in war, "You shall no longer go to war; tribal war is forbidden," you have to bring about some means by which they may earn their living in place of it, and you have to induce them, sooner or later, to adopt the ordinary methods of earning a livelihood by the sweat of their brow. But with a race of this kind I doubt very much whether you can do it merely by preaching. I think that something in the nature of inducement, stimulus, or pressure is absolutely necessary if you are to secure a result which is desirable in the interests of humanity and civili- sation. And I say that that experience is not the experience of Matabeleland alone. It is the experience of our own Colonies all over Africa, and has been he experience of every other European nation which has had anything to do with African possessions. The next point is as to the administration of justice. Here I must say I was sorry to hear the honourable Gentleman say that, as I understood him, he had evidence, or that it was admitted that justice bad not been properly administered.

MR. JOHN ELLIS

What I intended to say, and what, I think, I said, was that I was in possession of many instances in which there had been a failure of justice both civil and criminal.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

I should be very glad, if those instances have any bearing upon the present, and if there is any evidence attached to them, to have them communicated to me, because up to the present time I must say that, although I have had many communications, some of them criticising the administration of the Chartered Company, I have had no complaint whatever as to the administration of justice in that territory. The judges of the High Court are all gentlemen, I believe, of the very highest reputation. An appeal has been given from every magistrate to the High Court, and from the High Court a further appeal is given to the Supreme Court of Cape Town. For the life of me I do not see how we could possibly imagine a system better calculated to secure the proper administration of justice. I have got here some practical instances of the way in which justice is administered which, I confess, I think are very remarkable, and, at all events, speak well for the impartiality of the judges. I say very remarkable, because we know that where you have a small white population in the midst of an enormous black population there is a kind of prejudice, which sometimes leads to injustice, as against the native in favour of the white. Here are two cases of which a report has been sent to me in a paper dated November, 1897. In the one case a white man was charged with theft from a black man, the theft having taken place with some aggravating circumstances. The sentence was six years with hard labour. His Lordship Judge Vincent said— It was such men as the accused who, going about in the guise of native commissioners, brought the officials of the Government into contempt with the natives. The other case is a charge of rape which was made against a white man, and in this case also the man was sentenced to hard labour for nine years. So long as convictions can be obtained, and sentences of that kind can be inflicted, I do not think there can be any serious charge against the administration of justice.

MR. JOHN ELLIS

These were sentences since Sir Richard Martin's Report?

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

Yes; they were in November, 1897. It has also been said that the Civil Service of Rhodesia is inefficient. Are we not sometimes a little unfair? Will not honourable Members drop out of sight altogether all question of whether it is a chartered company or not, remembering that this is an administration in a new country, which is half as large as Europe, with a sparse and scattered population, and that suddenly, in the course of a year or two, the whole framework of civil administration has had to be set up. When I think of what has been done, I am not so much surprised that here and there it has broken down, as I am that there has been any success at all. When I compare what has been done in Rhodesia with these imperfect means, and under these difficult circumstances, with a rebellion going on, with the rinderpest—the greatest plague that could afflict the country, desolating it and bringing starvation to the homes of the natives—when I think of what has been done, in spite of all those obstacles and difficulties, I really think there is nothing in this which should justify the condemnation of the Chartered Company, or of its methods. Chartered companies are a good deal out of fashion just now, but I am not quite certain whether, if we argued the matter out impartially and quietly, we should not be, at all events so far as the majority of us are concerned, in favour of using and continuing to use them as instruments which bridge over the period between the first acquisition of one of these possessions and its ultimate destination, either as a self-governing colony, or as a Crown colony under Imperial administration. Certainly, according to my experience, the results of Crown rule over a long period of years in colonies similarly situated are not so much better than those of a chartered company as to justify any strong comparison in their favour. What then is the reason for any change in the administration of this territory? Undoubtedly, it was proved to us by the experience of the raid that the Chartered Administration had insufficient control over their people; that they had used the resources of the Company and of the territory for improper purposes, and it was absolutely necessary, it was owed of course to the surrounding States and it was owing to ourselves, that we should take steps to make any repetition of that offence absolutely and entirely impossible. I am also quite prepared to allow that in some respects the civil administration had broken down, although I have put forward reasons for believing that, after all, that might have been recovered without any great changes in the system, if the Chartered Company had had more time and more experience to deal with it. But I admit that there are these undoubted mistakes on the part of the Chartered Company which have to be provided against, and I would ask the Committee to judge the proposals we have put before them by their opinion as to whether or not such mistakes will be prevented under the new system. I do not think I need argue for a moment as to the alternative which, apparently, has not got a single friend in the House—namely, that the Chartered Company ought to be abolished. There are many practical reasons against it, but the reason on which I rest myself is that no action could possibly be taken by the Government which would be more unpopular in South Africa itself. It is not merely in Rhodesia, where such an idea would be scouted, but it is in Cape Town, throughout the Cape Colony, and in Natal that any direct interposition of the Imperial Government would be resented. But the scheme provides for a system of control which, in spite of the criticism of the right honourable Gentleman opposite, I believe to be ample for the purposes we have in view. Let us see what it is he complains of. In the first place he goes to show that the company and the administration of the Company will be Mr. Rhodes, that it will be a one-man concern, and that he will have as absolute and entire control of all the administration in the future as, he says, he has had in the past. Let me say, in passing, I assume that would be the same whether he were a director of the Company, or whether he were only the power behind the throne. I do not think the mere fact that he assumes public responsibility by becoming a director alters at all the amount of the indirect influence which he, in many things, would have been able to exercise. But I do not think that the right honourable Gentleman has thought this matter out, because he made the extraordinary statement that Mr. Rhodes would be Administrator, and at the same time would have absolute control over the board in London. Mr. Rhodes is not a bird, and cannot be in two places at once, and, if he is Administrator in Rhodesia, it is quite impossible that he should have this personal control over the proceedings of the board in London. There is no foundation for that statement, and no truth in it whatever. The administrators of the company in the future will be two—one, Mr. Milton, and the other Captain Lawley; one established at Bulawayo, and the other at Salisbury. There will be a joint Executive Council, over which one of them will preside, and of which the new president is to be a member. Now, says the right honourable Gentleman, what a pitiful position the Resident Commissioner will be in, because he is there only to speak and not to vote. But we do not want him to vote. What advantage would it be to ham to vote? The right honourable Gentleman seems to dissent, but if he will not interrupt me, I will show him what an advantage it is to speak. There would be no advantage whatever in the Resident having a vote, because, of course, he would be in a minority, and I do not want him to take that kind of responsi- bility for anything that goes on in the council. He is there as the eyes and ears of the High Commissioner. He is there to express his objection to what is done if he does object. That is why speech will be useful to him. Having expressed that objection, does the right honourable Gentleman suggest that no attention will be paid to his complaints? Well, Sir, if no attention is paid to his complaints, he telegraphs at once to the High Commissioner, the High Commissioner interferes, and he has the power of removing the whole of the council, and every official of the company. Through the High Commissioner and through the Resident we have absolute power. We have our fingers upon every act, great or small, and the new council which is to be established, and that power it is intended to exercise whenever Imperial interests are concerned, or native interests are wrongly dealt with. But, says the right honourable Gentleman, why should the Resident not communicate with the minor officials of the company? Of course, he is in direct communication with the two administrators; why should not he communicate with the minor officials? Well, Sir, because anybody who has ever had anything to do with a large concern would know that it would be absolutely destructive of all discipline, and make a sort of dual administration, which would be absolutely impossible. No, Sir, all that is meant by that provision is that he should communicate through the administrators and was not to go behind the backs of the administrators, destroying their authority; but if he wants any information he shall make that demand upon them, and they will be bound immediately to supply it to him. Well, then, Sir, at the same time the Resident, with the High Commissioner at his back, or High Commissioner acting through the Resident, has absolute control over every policeman in the country. What more power can you wish for than that? I really think the criticisms of the right honourable Gentleman go quite beside the mark, and that it would be impossible for him or anybody else to devise a scheme which would give us more complete control, short of taking the whole control into our own hands, and working it ourselves. Well, now, Sir, we consider, under these circumstances, that we shall be able to guarantee to foreign States the due observance of all the obligations which Rhodesia may have towards them, and shall be able to protect native rights, and to see that no Imperial interest is at any time endangered. Well, then, Sir, I come to the only remaining point of any importance, as to which I admit I hardly understand the line of argument taken by the right honourable Gentleman and some other Members. The argument of the right honourable Gentleman is this: Granting that every security has been taken for Imperial interests, and granting that they are absolutely safe, still Mr. Rhodes must be excluded from any official position in the development of the country which he has secured to the British Crown, and in the administration of the company which he has founded. That is the position. We are not to take a negative part, but we must take a positive part, and exclude him and him alone. Apparently he is the one person who must not sit at this board, and the shareholders who have elected him unanimously, and found the money—for there is no doubt about that—almost entirely on the faith of his connection with the company, are to be overruled, and we are to take the responsibility of saying that they shall not have the directors they want, and, I suppose, that they shall have the directors which we like. That is a great responsibility. I cannot for the life of me see the difference between that and abolishing the charter, and taking full and absolute control of the whole business. The one principle that we have laid down for ourselves is that we would make ourselves secure as regards our own rights and interests, but that we would take no responsibility whatever as between the directors and the shareholders, or for any of the financial transactions of the company. From that we want to keep the Government officials entirely free. Of course, the proposal of the right honourable Gentleman would render that altogether impossible. Well, now, Sir, I ask why is this exceptional, this extraordinary position to be taken up? Because Mr. Rhodes was the author of the raid, and deceived his colleagues and the Government? But is his exclusion demanded because he is dangerous, or is his exclusion demanded because you want to punish him? It must be either the one or the other. If you say it is because he is dangerous, I really do not agree with you. I do not believe it. In the first place, I think Mr. Rhodes' character is sufficiently understood. Mr. Rhodes has admitted, in the fullest possible terms, that he has made a great mistake. I do not think he is at all likely to repeat that mistake, or any mistake of the kind. In the second place, my contention is—and certainly the criticisms of the right honourable Gentleman have not shaken my opinion in the least—that, under the new system, it would be absolutely impossible for him to do any damage even if he wished. Well, then, Sir, the right honourable Gentleman talks a great deal about embittering racial animosities. I am as anxious as the right honourable Gentleman can possibly be to reunite the races, in so far as they are still separate, in South Africa, but I must say I cannot conceive any proposal less likely to attain that result than to put Mr. Rhodes into a special Index Expurgatorius. Why, Sir, what is Mr. Rhodes? Mr. Rhodes was Prime Minister at the Cape. Are you sure he will not be so again? I do not know. What would be your position if he were? Then, indeed, he would be in a position of great power and authority, and then, indeed, we could not control him as we can control the Chartered Company. Is Her Majesty to be advised by the Government of the day not to accept Mr. Rhodes as Prime Minister if a majority of a self-governing colony should elect him? I am speaking on pure hypothesis. I do not know whether such a thing is possible, but the cheer of the right honourable Gentleman opposite compels me to say that if the result of the recent elections is to be taken as an augury of the elections that are still to come, it will be a possibility, and that within a very few months. Of that there can absolutely be no doubt. Then, I want to know, what is the view of the right honourable Gentleman. Does he suggest that under these circumstances it would be the duty of the Government to advise Her Majesty not to receive Mr. Rhodes as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony? I cannot imagine that he would suggest anything of the kind. But, if you cannot interfere on any of these grounds with Mr. Rhodes' election as Prime Minister of Cape Colony, it surely is a very strong thing to say that you are to go out of your way to put this exclusion upon him in a case in which it is clearly not necessary for any Imperial interest or to prevent any Imperial danger. Well, Sir, I think myself that the Government would make a very great mistake if they appeared to take sides in what is a question of the utmost political importance in Cape Colony. The question between Mr. Hofmeyr on the one side, or President Kruger and the personality of Mr. Rhodes on the other—these are matters of tremendous interest in South Africa, and we, at all events, ought to avoid showing ourselves as partisans in such matters. But we should show ourselves partisans if we were to interfere with this company alone, and with the right of the shareholders to check Mr. Rhodes as a director of a concern which we have reduced from its original position to the position of a great commercial company. Now, Sir, the only other reason that could be given is that it is desirable to punish or humiliate Mr. Rhodes. I do not believe that the right honourable Gentleman entertains any feeling of that kind, and it has certainly been disclaimed by the honourable and learned Member for Dumfries. But, it seems to me, that it would be punishing the wrong person. If you say Mr. Rhodes shall not be a director, you are punishing the shareholders and relieving him from a great deal of responsibility, without taking from him any of his real power. If Mr. Rhodes is now, two and a half years after the raid, to be punished for his offence, or if there is anyone who thinks that he should be punished for his offence, all I say is that this is rather a belated time for putting forward that proposal. It should have been put forward when all those matters were much more fresh than they are now. It was not put forward either by the Committee, or by the minority of one, which made a separate report; and I can hardly believe under these circumstances that it is likely to be put forward by anybody now. Well, Sir, I think I need not say more. We have done our best in these new regulations to secure the objects which we have said we had in view. It is not for me to prophesy what will be the future of this great territory which Mr. Rhodes has secured for us. I do not mean to boom it or to discredit it. I agree with those who think that its immediate prosperity, and the quickness with which the hopes of its promoters are realised, depends upon the discovery in large quantities of payable gold, and certainly I shall not offer any opinion upon that thorny and problematical subject. But of this I am confident, that whether there be gold there or not, there are still in the future great probabilities of success for this enormous territory. Sir, it is not like a great deal of the territory which we have in Africa. A great part of this territory, at all events, is territory in which Englishmen can live; and when I remember what the energy and enterprise and courage of Englishmen have done in places which, at first sight, appeared to be much more hopeless—in Australia, for instance, as to which five or six years ago the reports would have been much more unfavourable than they are now as to Rhodesia—I do not doubt for a moment that Rhodesia will yet be a very important part of the British Empire. And when that time comes it is evident that its prosperity shall always be connected with the name of the man who has secured it, who saw its possibilities, and who has staked his fortune and risked his life on the attempt to develop it.

After the usual interval Mr. A. O'CONNOR (Donegal, E.) took the Chair.

DR. TANNER (Cork, Mid)

I beg to call your attention, Mr. O'Connor, to the fact that there are not 40 Members present.

[Quorum formed, Debate resumed.]

MR. JAMES L. WANKLYN (Bradford, Central)

I was under the impression, Sir, that at the close of last Session we had agreed to bury the hatchet on this question in the interests of South Africa and in the interests of the Empire. I cannot but express my regret to-night that this question has been dug up by right honourable Gentlemen and honourable Gentlemen opposite, and has been dug up for the purpose of attacking Mr. Cecil Rhodes. Sir, it seems to me that this is all idle recrimination. We have heard Mr. Cecil Rhodes referred to to-night as the author of the raid. Well, Sir, I might reply, if I cared to indulge in recrimination, that without grievances there would have been no disturbances, and I may say that these grievances have been recognised as very real, and as grievances that will have to be dealt with. Sir, it is no duty of mine to defend Mr. Cecil Rhodes, but I certainly have these qualifications, that I have no interest either past, present, or future, direct or indirect, in any South African schemes or in any South African securities. Therefore, I have no interested motives; but as a looker-on, and with some knowledge of Mr. Cecil Rhodes from his Oxford days, I am firmly persuaded that he is a remarkable man, and that he is not influenced by sordid motives. I, Sir, regard him as a great statesman in this respect, that he was one of the very few men who, 14 or 15 years ago, foresaw, to use his own words, "that the wars of the future would be tariff wars, and that the unions of the future would be tariff unions." He saw that there would be a rush for neutral markets. He foresaw the absolute necessity for a closer union of the English-speaking race. I can only say that I now willingly pay my testimony to a great man, and I seize this opportunity of doing so. For myself, Sir, let me say this, that, in future ages, when honourable and right honourable Gentlemen opposite are lost in oblivion, there are millions yet unborn who will live to bless the name of Mr. Cecil Rhodes for opening up a country where the people can live a contented and reasonable life, instead of, as at present, eking out an unsatisfactory existence in these overcrowded islands here at home. Now, Sir, the whole of the time of the Committee before the adjournment was occupied with the consideration of Rhodesian matters arising on the State Paper emanating from Sir Robert Martin. Well, Sir, I venture to suggest that that State Paper is of secondary importance compared with the State Paper which I hold in my hand, in which are set out the questions which were dealt with at the conferences held at the Colonial Office last summer. I allude to the conferences of the Colonial Premiers and the Colonial Secretary, which dealt with questions of defence, commercial law, and finance. Sir, it seems to me that these questions are of supreme importance to-day. I might say, with regard to the Paper which I hold in my hand, in comparison with the Paper we have been considering this afternoon, that the greater includes the less. For, Sir, I will suggest to the Committee that it is beginning to dawn on us to-day that the strength of our diplomacy as an Empire is in exact proportion to the force which is behind our elbow; and, speaking for the Empire, we are beginning to understand that there is no security without physical strength. Sir, what an object lesson we have in the case of the Empire of China! What an object lesson is China to the democracy of this Empire. There is an Empire with a vast population, with wealth, learning, and a civilisation which seems to suit them, absolutely at the mercy of every marauder. And why? Because the Empire of China has neglected its physical education, and has placed its trust in professors, in lawyers, in logicians, and in competitive examinations. Is it, Mr. O'Connor, extravagant to suggest that if the views which 20 years ago were held by honourable Gentlemen opposite had prevailed in this country—is it extravagant to suggest that the British Empire to-day would have been exposed to the same risk and the same fate as that which has befallen the Empire of China? Our Australian Colonies might have been seized by one Power, South Africa by another, and possibly Canada by a third. Sir, that does not seem to me altogether extravagant, and it does seem to me that in the fate of China we have a great object lesson. Lord Salisbury, on Wednesday last, told us—and when I say us, I suggest not only us here at home, but all of us, wherever we Britons may happen to live—that the nineteenth century was remarkable for the formation of great nations and of great Empires. Living growing Empires are absorbing the dying and decaying Empires, and I suggest that the problem for our Colonies during the remaining years of the nineteenth century is this: are we to come together as a great Empire, and how is it to be accomplished? It is because this State Paper dealing with the conferences at the Colonial Office treats of that question and deals with the probabilities that arise under it; it is because this State Paper deals with these problems that I suggest to the Committee that it is all-important that it should receive our best consideration to-night. With regard to the political relations between ourselves and our Colonies, I confess I have little fear or anxiety. That great statesman of the past century, Burke, pointed out that our welfare as a United Kingdom did not depend upon any written constitution; he pointed out that it was not the land tax upon which depended the raising of the revenue; it was not the Vote in Supply which gives the Army its power; it was not the Mutiny Act which inspired our soldiers with bravery; but he pointed out that all depended upon the love of the people and their attachment to the Government. Sir, as regards our Colonies, I say that the conception they have formed of our Government is that it is the guardian of their liberties and their civil rights. And, therefore, I say that, as regards the political relations of the future and the question of a political constitution, the Australian Colonies do intend to rule themselves, and have no intention whatever of being ruled by Russia. I speak of these Colonies as a part of the whole. Sir, with regard to defence, there are some four or five most interesting points which were raised at these conferences last July at the Colonial Office, and I should be glad to hear from my right honourable Friend the Colonial Secretary as to what progress has been made by the Colonial Defence Committee of Experts, and as to what progress has been made with schemes of common defence and mobilisation, with regard to uniformity of arms, with regard to exchange of forces, the training ships for the Navy, and the Pacific cable. As regards our commercial relations, which is the next point the conferences dealt with, I shall be glad to hear something of postal reforms; what has been done for the advancement of the uniformity of the law; whether any progress has been made as regards Colonial securities under our Investment Trust. And, of course, above all, I am sure the Committee and the whole country will be deeply interested to learn—I know my own constituents will be most interested to learn—the date of the next conference. If this has not been decided, upon, I should like to know if any approximate date has been settled for the next conference dealing with these questions affecting the Empire. Above all, Mr. O'Connor, it seems to me the question of defence is of supreme importance to us and to our Colonies. We are face to face with the most significant fact that during the past four years three Foreign Ministers have broken down in health. I refer to Lord Rosebery, Lord Salisbury, and the Under Secretary of State (Mr. Curzon), whose absence at the present moment we all regret. Now, Sir, it is said, in the case of the Under Secretary of State, as it was in the case of Lord Rosebery, that the right honourable Gentleman has broken down from overwork. I can only say that, personally, I have never yet known a man to break down from overwork. While I think few men have died from overwork, I admit that undue anxiety and undue strain has killed millions. In my judgment, the undue strain on these Foreign Ministers resulted from the fact that their hands were tied, both physically and fiscally. We have abandoned every weapon of offence, both fiscal and physical, and we have no answer when a door is closed in our face, or when a barrier is put up, except that of war. In the case of war, I suggest that our Army and our Navy are formed on a purely defensive basis; and I suggest that if we came to blows with a combination of Powers, our Navy would have more than its work cut out to keep open trade routes, the route to India, to protect the coaling stations, and our Colonies. Though I do not advocate conscription, I would suggest to the Colonial Secretary that he should endeavour to establish the principle throughout the Empire that physical education is just as important to the people as mental or spiritual education. I wish to suggest, Sir, that we should begin, not only in the united Kingdom, but throughout the Empire, with the children in our schools—in our State-aided schools—and drill them. We should teach them that to bear arms in defence of their country, or on behalf of humanity, as men of our race are doing at this moment, is a noble thing to do, and is the first duty of man. After leaving school, these boys, certainly the best of them, would be induced to enrol themselves among the Volunteers. In this country—at any rate, I can speak with some knowledge of the North—those interested in Volunteering are seeking for a higher standard of efficiency to-day, and would welcome the maximum standard of efficiency if it were laid down. You have only to offer, certainly in the North, a bonus, and you can form a Volunteer Reserve of over-whelming strength. If this were done, and ten years hence we had formed territorial regiments throughout the Empire, and at the same time had not neglected our Navy, it seems to me that we should then be in a position to defy any Power, or all the Powers, and compel the peace of the world. I believe the whole future of the Empire depends upon a satisfactory solution of the problems which are set forth in this Paper which I hold in my hand, and which I recommend, Sir, to the earnest consideration of the Committee.

MR. CAWLEY (Lancashire, Prestwich)

I intend to confine my remarks as much as possible to the Colonial Vote I am one of those who think that Mr. Rhodes ought not to be allowed to have anything to do with the administration of Rhodesia, or to remain a director of the Chartered Company. He has, as the Committee reported, broken his word to his superiors, and I am sure that if that had happened in any other sphere of life Mr. Rhodes would have been relegated to obscurity. It was urged by my honourable Friend opposite that Mr. Rhodes had not been influenced by sordid motives, but if this is the case, then he has been faithless to his trust, because Mr. Rhodes is supposed to do his best to earn money for the Company, of which he is a director, and which was established for the purpose of making profit. The right honourable Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies said that Mr. Rhodes had at least acknowledged his fault. Well, we all remember—I think it was in February or March, 1896—that Mr. Rhodes stated in Cape Colony that he was coming home "to face the music." He came home, and, as I understood from the Colonial Secretary and from the right honourable Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, denied having had anything to do with the raid. Was that acknowledging his mistake? As far as I understand it, Mr. Rhodes lied to the Colonial Secretary, and he lied to the Leader of the Opposition. He affirmed to everybody that he had nothing to do with the raid, and yet it is stated that he acknowledged his fault. He admitted his fault because of the telegrams, and after he was found out. If Mr. Rhodes had been prevented from going back to Rhodesia in 1896 I believe that almost any terms might have been obtained from President Kruger in favour of the Uitlanders. In allowing Mr. Rhodes to go back, the Colonial Secretary committed a gross error of judgment, and practically confirmed the suspicions of President Kruger. He was known to be antagonistic to President Kruger, and I think it would have been advantageous to this Empire had Mr. Rhodes been kept from any active part in the administration of the Chartered Company. We ought to do everything possible to conciliate the Dutch people. I do not agree with the Colonial Secretary in thinking that they are inclined to forgive Mr. Rhodes. For my part I do not believe he has their confidence. I do not think that it tends to the well-being of this country that a man like Mr. Rhodes, who has been convicted of betraying his friends, of betraying his Government, and of betraying everybody he has had anything to do with, should have been allowed to remain practically the Governor of Rhodesia.

MR. J. MORLEY (Montrose Burghs)

I rise, Mr. O'Connor, not with a view of entering at large on the great and important considerations which were raised by the right honourable Gentleman, the Leader of the Opposition; but there was one point incidentally raised in the discussion between my right honourable Friend and the Secretary of State which ought not to be allowed to pass without some observation being made upon it. Sir, I do not think it would be creditable to this House that so extraordinarily important a change in our fiscal policy as that to which the right honourable Gentleman announced to-night he has given his sanction should pass without note being emphatically taken of it. I did not like to interrupt the right honourable Gentleman when he confronted the Leader of the Opposition and myself by saying, "Do you, or do you not, approve of the assent of Her Majesty's Government being given to the proposal made by Sir Wilfrid Laurier on behalf of the Canadian Government?" And then the right honourable Gentleman seemed to find a completely satisfactory retort upon us in the fact that Sir Wilfrid Laurier had been presented with the gold medal of the Cobden Club; and that, if Sir Wilfrid Laurier had been thought worthy by that body, the repository of the most sacred traditions of Free Trade, it might be assumed that the step which he is now taking was, at all events, not deserving of our condemnation. I should have liked to point out that the whole position of the right honourable Gentleman involved a most complete fallacy. What Sir Wilfrid Laurier did was that, as Minister of a Protectionist country, he agreed on certain conditions to lower duties, and the right honourable Gentleman refers to that as the analogue of the proposal made by Mr. Rhodes.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

Yes, but I do not agree with the right honourable Gentleman's description of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's policy. The object which the Canadian Minister had in view was to give a preference to the Mother Country, without intending to give it to other countries.

MR. J. MORLEY

That may be. The step itself I am not concerned to criticise. Canada is, as the Leader of the Opposition said, a self-governing community, and it has a right to make any fiscal proposals it likes. But, whatever the aims and motives in the minds of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his advisers may have been, the step was that of a Protectionist country lowering its tariff on certain conditions. But the step with which the right honourable Gentleman compared it is of an entirely opposite description. As I understand it, the Chartered Company proposed, and Her Majesty's Government have assented to the proposition, that there should be a discriminating duty in favour of British goods as compared with French, German, or any other foreign goods going into Rhodesia.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

The right honourable Gentleman, I am afraid, has not followed this question very closely. The proposal of Mr. Rhodes is that, by the constitution, it shall be impossible for the Government of Rhodesia ever to impose more than a certain maximum duty on British goods. Mr. Rhodes says nothing whatever about goods from other countries, and refuses to pledge himself with regard to them. There is nothing in the present proposal about discrimination; but Mr. Rhodes absolutely refuses to pledge himself for all time that he will never make a discrimination. So far as the present proposal goes, it is only confined to British goods, and says nothing whatever about foreign goods.

MR. J. MORLEY

My right honourable Friend knows as well as I do the history of the relations on this question between Mr. Rhodes and the late Government. My noble Friend Lord Ripon refused this offer of Mr. Rhodes on the ground that it would involve the approbation by Her Majesty's Government of a distinct and almost revolutionary change in our fiscal policy, and that he, as Secretary of State, objected to so extraordinary a change being made in connection with what is, from a commercial point of view, a small, narrow, and unimportant area. That, I believe, was the argument used by Lord Ripon for declining to assent to that offer. Therefore it is perfectly clear that the offer was intended by Mr. Rhodes, and was understood by Lord Ripon, as involving—and it clearly does involve, even from the right honourable Gentleman's own statement—the assumption of the liberty by a Rhodesian Administration, to discriminate against foreign goods, whenever they might wish to do so. Of course, the Chartered Company can take no step of that kind without the positive assent of the right honourable Gentleman, and he has given his assent. Therefore the point I have to submit is —and it is an extremely important one, containing within itself the seeds of a reversal of our fiscal policy—that the right honourable Gentleman has assented, not in the case of a self-governing colony, where, of course, his powers are limited, but in the case of a community where he has complete power of veto; and after that power was exercised by the Government, of which I was a Member, he has assented to the principle that a discriminating duty may be imposed against goods imported from foreign States as distinguished from the Mother Country. I cannot but think that that is an important change; and I think the sanction given by the right honourable Gentleman to that change deserves all that was said of it by the Leader of the Opposition. It does two things. First of all, it puts us in a completely false position in reference to Germany, France, Russia, and other countries, upon whom we are now making importunate demands for the adoption of a completely Free Trade policy; and, in the second place, it encourages not only Rhodesia, but all other Protectionist Colonies, to believe that Her Majesty's Government have no rooted objection to discriminating duties in favour of one class of goods as against another. I submit that that makes a completely new departure. It is true that it is at present only potential and not actual, but the right honourable Gentleman has given up a principle which, in our view, no Government of a Free Trade community ought even for a moment, however indirectly, to surrender. As to the gold medal given to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, to a certain extent the presentation was justified, because Sir Wilfrid Laurier's action was a Free Trade step of a kind, taken by a Protectionist Government. But there is no sort of analogy between the action of the Canadian Government and the action proposed by the Chartered Company, which I most emphatically deny to be justifiable.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

I cannot help thinking that this discussion is very premature. At the same time the statement of the right honourable Gentleman is one which will be, in our future Debates, of immense importance: and I desire to emphasise it as much as it is possible for me to do so. The right honourable Gentleman has truly said that this is only a potential power, which has been conceded to Rhodesia. All that we have got from Rhodesia is that under no conceivable circumstances, shall Rhodesia impose a Protectionist or differential duty on foreign goods. We have not pronounced one way or the other on that question, but we have left it open. The late Government desired to conclude the question once for all, and to make it certain that Rhodesia, as a British Colony, should never, under any circumstances, give to the Mother Country a preference which she refused to give to any foreign country. The late Government desired to conclude the question once for all, and to make it certain that Rhodesia, as a British colony, should never, under any circumstances, give to the Mother Country a preference which she refused to any foreign country.

MR. J. MORLEY

I beg your pardon—that is not quite the point. Of course Rhodesia, as a self-governing Colony, can do what it likes; but Rhodesia, as a Colony, for the Government of which my right honourable Friend is responsible, is a totally different thing.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

Therefore, I will treat it as a Crown Colony, because it is somewhat in that position. In Crown Colonies we have a veto or control over legislation. Is it the policy of the Opposition that the Colonies shall never give to the Mother Country any kind of advantage without giving it, at the same time, to every other country? Is that the policy of the Opposition? We have it that it is the policy—I was going to say of the Leaders of the Opposition, but there, of course, I leave it as a hypothetical question. It is the policy, of course, of two of those whom we recognise as Leaders of the Opposition. Is it the policy to which the Opposition itself desires to be committed? Is that the policy for the first time of the Liberal party? Unless it is contradicted the matter will be fairly raised in the House. We challenge the Opposition, and if there be any of them who differ from this new policy, and who do not express themselves now, we shall assume that it is their policy, and we shall act upon that assumption. The policy of the Opposition is that in the case of a Crown Colony, at any rate, under no circumstances are the subjects of Her Majesty to offer to this country any advantage whatever, unless they offer the same advantage to every other country. The right honourable Gentleman says that any opposite proceeding is justly described by the right honourable Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition as a reversal of our Free Trade policy. I deny that absolutely, but I am delighted to find that the Opposition are prepared to follow their leaders in this direction. I say it has no resemblance whatever to the policy of the open port and the policy of Free Trade. That policy is as between nations, and not as between branches of the same nation. Why, it is one of the objects which we desire to establish, and to which it appears the Leaders of the Opposition are hostile. At any rate, one of the desires we have is to establish this friendly communication between members of the British Empire, from which other nations who are strangers and foreigners are not necessarily excluded. For no other reason have we agreed to denounce the treaties with Belgium and Germany. Then was the time to say that there was a reversal of the Free Trade policy. The object of denouncing the treaties was to allow the Colonies, if they so chose, to make terms between themselves and the Mother Country which they did not make with foreign countries. Then there is this pretence about establishing a difference between a Crown Colony and a self-governing Colony. In this particular instance it is monstrous. Are we not to allow to our fellow subjects, because they are a Crown Colony, what we gratefully accept from members of a self-governing Colony? The right honourable Gentleman suggests we should treat them differently. No! If we are willing to accept this favour and to thank Canada for it, and give a gold medal to her Prime Minister for having proposed it, then I think the next thing is for the Cobden Club to give a gold medal to Mr. Rhodes. As far as the Government is concerned, we are prepared gratefully to accept it. The offer is not to make a preference in our favour. It is only to pledge the Colony not to impose more than the existing Cape duties on British products. It does not follow that the Colony may not hereafter extend the same preference or advantage to other countries. But I do not want to go into that point. Suppose to-day the proposal of Rhodesia was to impose upon foreign goods a differential duty as compared with the Mother Country. I say we should accept it in the same spirit as we have accepted the offer of Canada. It has nothing whatever to do with the question of the open port. We look forward to the time when there will be some preference given to the Mother Country by her children in return for all that she has given them.

MR. J. MORLEY

The right honourable Gentleman has expressed some exultation in pinning the Opposition to a certain view.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

Hear, hear!

MR. J. MORLEY

I do not indulge in those high emotions of exultation. I might feel some satisfaction as a Party man, but great dissatisfaction as one who is more than a Party man in the proposition to which the right honourable Gentleman has committed himself. He has now committed himself to a principle which it is quite true he has advanced before in public but when he was in a less responsible position—he has committed himself to this, that it is a sound principle that a discriminating duty might well be imposed by our Colonies, whether Crown Colonies or Colonies, with a representative or responsible Government, between the goods imported from the Mother Country and the goods imported from foreign countries.

AN HONOURABLE MEMBER

Is that not done in America?

MR. J. MORLEY

I am not going to argue it, but I do think it is too important a deliverance from my right honourable Friend, and it shows that I was right in calling attention to the new departure by the sanction given to the proposal from Mr. Rhodes. My right honourable Friend, and I presume the Gentlemen behind him, will assent to a proposition which is nothing more or less than a proposal, which it was reported the right honourable Gentleman said "he would not touch again with a pair of tongs." Would he say so now? I daresay he would not, but that was the way in which it was reported. My right honourable Friend has introduced or suggested—

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

That is a different thing altogether. That was a mutual and reciprocal arrangement that was under discussion with the Colonial Premiers, that the Colonies should make a differential duty in our favour, and that we should make a differential duty in their favour; and, be that right or wrong, it is totally different from the present policy. The present policy is that the Colonies should make a differential duty in our favour without demanding anything in return.

MR. J. MORLEY

This general discussion is one of the most important, from my point of view, that could possibly engage the attention of this House. My right honourable Friend appears to think that it would be a good thing for our Colonies, whether Crown Colonies or self-governing Colonies, to institute discriminating duties—

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

In favour of the Mother Country.

MR. J. MORLEY

Yes, of course; but my right honourable Friend has to-night, since dinner, surrendered the very principle which is the foundation of our whole system of fiscal policy.

MR. LABOUCHERE

We have heard the speech of the honourable Member for Dover, who was himself on a visit to Africa for two or three weeks, or perhaps six weeks, and I have always observed that when a gentleman goes to a foreign country for a couple of weeks he comes back knowing more than anybody else. Therefore, I do not ascribe too much importance to his statements in regard to Mr. Rhodes. We have also had a speech from the Secretary of the Colonies, who seems to exhaust himself in laudation of Mr. Rhodes and the Chartered Company, and he appears in a new rôle. The right honourable Gentleman is generally apt to defend himself, but he has now opened his arms to his enemies. Mr. Rhodes has attacked the right honourable Gentleman in the most outrageous fashion at the Committee, but when Mr. Rhodes smote him on one cheek, the Colonial Secretary turned the other—he seems to think only of forgiveness. God forbid I should go back to the wrangles and quarrels on that Committee. I was a member of it, and did my best to get a clear investigation as to what had taken place under the Chartered Company; but I am free to admit that I failed to get at the bottom of what occurred in South Africa or in this country. The Committee broke up without having inquired into the financial condition or administration of the Chartered Company, but one thing the Committee did do was to visit Mr. Rhodes with the severest condemnation—in effect, they said that Mr. Rhodes' conduct had been dishonourable. Is any man in the House prepared to assert that Mr. Rhodes' conduct was dishonourable. I will only read this very short extract. In their Report the Committee say— Such a policy once embarked on, inevitably involved Mr. Rhodes in grave breaches of duty to those to whom he owed allegiance. He deceived the High Commissioner, representing the Imperial Government; he concealed his views from his colleagues in the Colonial Ministry, and from the Board of the British South Africa Company; and led his subordinates to believe that his plans were approved by his superiors. Is there any honourable Gentleman in this House who is prepared to assert that that was honourable conduct? Is there any person prepared to deny that that was dishonourable conduct? The only person who does that is the right honourable Gentleman the Colonial Secretary, who did it in a speech last Session, but that was due to his kind and forgiving temperament, and it was the only way in which he could show that he forgave Mr. Rhodes. But Mr. Rhodes not only deceived those sitting here to-night; he did more—and this I never will forgive him—he deceived the Colonial Secretary; he took advantage of the right honourable Gentleman's confiding nature, and tried in every way to persuade persons that the right honourable Gentleman was connected with this raid. For my part, I have not that dislike of conspirators that some persons in this House may have. I can conceive a most respectable conspirator; I can conceive occa- sions on which it is a desirable thing to be a conspirator; but I like a man who stands by his friends, and there is nothing more contemptible, in my opinion, than for any man to enter into a transaction such as Mr. Rhodes entered into, deceiving those who trusted him, and hiding his plans from them. I think I shall be borne out when I say that all through its sittings Mr. Rhodes defied the Committee. He would not submit the telegrams we called upon him to submit; he ordered Mr. Hawksley not to produce certain letters that he had written to the Colonial Secretary; but no sooner were the sittings of the Committee over than Mr. Hawksley, who was solicitor to the British South Africa Company, wrote to the papers stating that, if those letters had been produced, the Colonial Secretary would have been proved to have been in complicity with Mr. Rhodes.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

Will the honourable Gentleman quote that letter? I should like to see it; I have never seen such a letter.

MR. LABOUCHERE

I assure the right honourable Gentleman that I have seen it; it was in the papers.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

I am not at all satisfied with the right honourable Gentleman's assurance. I should like to see the original letter. I have seen no letter in which Mr. Hawksley said that, if certain letters had been produced, my complicity would have been proved, and I do not believe it exists.

MR. LABOUCHERE

The right honourable Gentleman apparently thinks that anything he does not see cannot exist. I read it myself in the newspapers.

SEVERAL HONOURABLE MEMBERS

Produce it!

MR. LABOUCHERE

I will produce it.

SEVERAL HONOURABLE MEMBERS

Now!

MR. LABOUCHERE

I did not for a moment suppose that the right honourable Gentleman had not at least seen that letter. I thought he was certain to have seen it.

SEVERAL HONOURABLE MEMBERS

Where is it?

MR. LABOUCHERE

You shall have the letter.

SEVERAL HONOURABLE MEMBERS

Now, now!

MR. LABOUCHERE

How can I produce it now? Will you allow me to go away for an hour, and remain quiet until I return?

THE CHAIRMAN (Mr. ARTHUR O'CONNOR)

The honourable Member must address himself to the Chair.

MR. LABOUCHERE

I am sure you, Mr. Chairman, do not wish me to go away. I confess I am much surprised at the right honourable Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies, after all that has happened, having appointed Mr. Rhodes a director of the company—

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

The accuracy of the honourable Member can be judged by that statement. I have not appointed Mr. Rhodes.

MR. LABOUCHERE

I beg the right honourable Gentleman's pardon. I used the wrong expression, and I withdraw it. What happened was this: Lord Grey went to the right honourable Gentleman, and appears—I think I am right in this—to have inquired whether he would or would not disallow Mr. Rhodes to be made a director. The right honourable Gentleman is not sure whether Lord Grey came from the company, or was merely asking for his own information, but surely he must have known that, if he said he would not disallow Mr. Rhodes to be a director, Lord Grey would tell the company that the right honourable Gentleman would not disallow the appointment, and that, consequently, the company would make Mr. Rhodes a director?. In his speech, the right honourable Gentleman asked how it was that no one in the Committee suggested that Mr. Rhodes should not be made a director. But, Mr. Rhode was not then a director. The company itself had made it clear to Mr. Rhodes that it was undesirable he should remain a director. Whether Mr. Rhodes resigned himself, or whether the company urged him to resign, I do not know, because the papers in regard to that matter did not come before the Committee, but I am convinced that, if several members of the Committee had had the remotest idea that it would be possible that Mr. Rhodes, after their severe condemnation of him, would again have been appointed by the shareholders a director of the company, they would have insisted on something being put into their report to say that he ought not to be a director. The right honourable Gentleman asks if we want to punish Mr. Rhodes. In the sense of punishment, doing an injury to him, I do not, but I do think, as Mr. Rhodes conducted himself in this fashion, and as it was a dangerous example to set to all men in his position in our Colonies, that we ought to have punished him so far as not to allow him to have connection with this particular company, not to do him personal harm, but as a mark of our reprobation, and as a recommendation to others not to act in the same fashion. The right honourable Gentleman says, "Do you consider that Mr. Rhodes is dangerous as a director of this company?" I answer that I do consider him dangerous as a director of the company, not so much from any possibility of his being able to renew his raid against the Transvaal, but because the fact of his being a director produces that racial feeling between Dutch and English at the Cape which we all deprecate. Therefore, I think Mr. Rhodes is dangerous in the sense that all this racial feeling in the Transvaal is a danger to the Empire, and ought to be avoided. The company is a Chartered Company; you cannot get out of that. There is a connection between the Government and this company which does not exist between the Government and any other company. The company is granted a Royal Charter, and that Charter does involve our responsibility so far that we are bound, if we really do consider that a man as a director has acted in a manner that brought danger and harm upon the British Empire, to insist upon his being no longer a director of that company. The right honourable Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies seems to suggest to the directors that the shareholders have a right to nominate whom they please, but I point out that, by the Charter, they are not allowed to do so. It is said in the Charter that in order to be a director a man must not only not be an alien, but he must not even be a naturalised British subject. You therefore put limitations upon the company, because of the connection and the responsibility that exist on the part of the Government towards the Company. With regard to the Matabele war, I have no doubt that, if the Matabeli had been well and properly governed, they would have been gained over, and would not have broken out in rebellion. It is because you stole their cattle, and subjected them to forced labour, and having done that, you took away the police, and they seized upon the opportunity to break out into rebellion. I do not think that many honourable Members will contest the fact that if it had not been for the raid there would not, in all probability, have been a rebellion, or, at any rate, it would not have attained such proportions. The right honourable Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies denied that there had been any atrocities in the war. I can only say that I read with interest a speech of the honourable Member for the University of Dublin, in which the honourable Gentleman, although he did not take the same views as I do, treated it as a fact that a large number of these Matabeli had been killed in a cave by dynamite, and the honourable Member himself protested against that action. I do not ask the House to take my view, but I think that, after a statement like that is made and commented upon by a gentleman of the calm philosophic temper of the honourable Member for the University of Dublin, it ought to obtain credence in this House. The right honourable Gentleman seemed almost under the impression that the conduct of the Chartered Company towards the natives—

MR. W. E. H. LECKY (Dublin University)

If the honourable Member is referring to me, I made no such statement.

MR. LABOUCHERE

I was anxious to have the right honourable Member as a witness.

MR. LECKY

I have never alluded to it.

MR. LABOUCHERE

That is a mere detail. While the Committee was sitting my honourable Friend the Member for the Rushcliffe Division made it his business to go into the statements with regard to the atrocities, and he was fully convinced that they were proved up to the hilt. The right honourable Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies seems to be under the impression that the conduct of the Chartered Company towards the natives was laudable, and he says that slavery does not exist, but only the corvée, by which, for three months in the year, the native chiefs are compelled to supply a certain number of their followers to the colonists, and that these men are obliged to work during these three months. The right honourable Gentleman thinks that was so. Perhaps they had other means of living, for they were living amongst their own tribe. They were cultivating their fields, and were perfectly undesirous of earning anything more in the mines. Do we really suppose—sincerely suppose—that when the colonists or the company insisted upon these tribes sending their men to work in the mines they were actuated by any desire for the benefit of the unfortunate people themselves, and not because they had entered into vast speculations with regard to these mines, and that they found great difficulty in getting free labour, and so they insisted upon having forced labour? The right honourable Gentleman says that with these negroes—

MR. LECKY

They are not negroes.

MR. LABOUCHERE

Very well, I will call them blacks. The right honourable Gentleman says that with regard to these blacks you must use "stimulus, inducement, and pressure." Now, what was this stimulus, inducement, and pressure? What does it mean? It means a hippopotamus whip, and that they were to be beaten with it. Sir, we know perfectly well what are the sentiments entertained by Mr. Rhodes in regard to these matters. Mr. Rhodes said that this country was being ruined owing to the prevalence of Exeter Hall fads. Now, I am not a frequent attender at Exeter Hall myself, but, without being an attendant there, I am in favour of the old rule, which is that no individual under the British flag shall be forced to work unless he chooses to work himself. I recognise no right to levy a tax upon these people, and then to tell the chiefs that it is absolutely necessary for them to send a certain number of their men to work in the mines in order to enable the tribe to pay their tax. We have seen what takes place with these taxes, and for my part I think one of the greatest mistakes of the Chartered Company was their endeavour to levy this tax, which was done solely for the purpose of exercising "stimulus, inducement, and pressure" upon these men, who only have the little food they are able to procure, and yet they were obliged to go and work in the mines in order to pay this tax. And now about the new arrangements of the right honourable Gentleman. Sir, I admit fully the very great difficulties that the right honourable Gentleman was under. I for my part agree entirely with him when he says that he does not think anyone in this House would wish that the charter should have been abolished. It might have been well to have abolished it immediately after the raid, but the thing having gone on a year or two since it would be an unwise thing to abolish the charter now. I do think this, however, that the right honourable Gentleman ought to have taken more strict control than he did over the acts and doings of the Chartered Company. The Chartered Company, it must be remembered, is absolutely paramount, and master there in a much greater sense than the Government of any other country. The company owns the entire land, and everybody there is dependent upon the Chartered Company. Therefore, we ought not only to have a resident Commissioner, but we ought to have given that resident Commissioner an opportunity to find out what was going on in different parts of the country by having a number of subordinates dependent upon him, and independent entirely of the company, spread all over the country. You have got towns, and these towns are to have municipal powers; and how in the world can it be possible that one Commissioner living at Bulawayo can have eyes and ears to all that goes on in that country? I think it is exceedingly probable that there will be cases in connection with the administration in which he ought to interfere, but with which he will not be able to from the fact that he has not known of them. The right honourable Gentleman the Member for Dover indulged in a very flowery statement in regard to the finances of the company. I should not have alluded to that but for the right honourable Gentleman himself having done so; but he tells us that this is a specious financial paradise as well as a paradise in everything else; and when the right honourable Gentleman the Colonial Secretary tells us that Europeans can live there, then I think it is well to say one or two words about the finances, all the more so on account of the suggestion that is made in the report of the directors, that an account is to be kept, and that the huge debt they have incurred is to be handed over to the nation. We know what that means. The object is not to hand it over to the settlers, for the settlers will not be found there if there is no gold, but in some sort of way to recognise self-government in that dependency, and take over and guarantee ourselves this debt. Sir, you have got at the present moment, taking the amount of this new arrangement, one million shares about to be issued. The capital of the company that has been received is £8,741,000. The company has expended large amounts in paying for concessions, and it is to be remembered that it has been paying enormous sums in every case, either to the directors or to the promoters of the company, and paying in concessions in excess of administration cost far above the amount of taxes received. The Matabele war cost £4,655,000. The accounts are very much muddled, and I have called the attention of the right honourable Gentleman to this. The right honourable Gentleman understands accounts himself, and I am sure he must have himself found some difficulty in following these accounts, and the reason of it is that the revenue and capital accounts are mixed up together So far as I can see, the last account of 1897 shows positively in the account of the expenditure on governing the country no item for the police; and yet there must have been an item for the police which ought to come in the revenue. I only mention this detail, because I do think that, if we are to have these accounts presented by the Colonial Office to the House of Commons, we ought to have them in a clear form. The ques- tion of the assets of the company would be practically unimportant to us, however important they might be to the shareholders, were it not for the statement that they contemplate handing over this vast debt to the settlers. Now, the right honourable Gentleman, in discussing that, said he did not express his approval of it, but did the right honourable Gentleman express his disapproval of it? That I did not gather. And, surely, when Mr. Rhodes had made the statement that this £6,000,000—he put it at £6,000,000—was to be handed over as a debt to the settlers—that is to say, as a debt we ourselves should pay—when he had done this, as the right honourable Gentleman the Member for Monmouthshire stated, obviously to puff his shares in the market and get them off as fresh shares, surely the right honourable Gentleman ought to have got up and said that he had never heard of so monstrous a proposal. Then, Sir, the right honourable Gentleman was somewhat vague in what he was prepared to do in regard to this suggestion that we should guarantee £2,000,000 for a railroad to be built beyond the Zambesi. Now, this railroad will not run through English territory, for it would have to run through the territory of the Congo State.

MR. WYNDHAM

Not at all.

MR. LABOUCHERE

Then I really do not know what happens in Africa. Here was the right honourable Gentleman comparing this to the Canadian Pacific Railway. He said that this railroad would develop as the Canadian Pacific Railway had developed. But that was built in a country where colonists could settle, and where they could live, and it was to connect the Pacific with the Atlantic Ocean. No doubt the Canadian Pacific Railway was of enormous advantage to Canada, but to say, because the Canadian Pacific Railway was of advantage to Canada, we are, therefore, to spend £2,000,000, or to guarantee £2,000,000 in order to make a railroad in a territory where Europeans cannot live—

MR. PAULTON

Yes they can.

MR. LABOUCHERE

But has the honourable Gentleman tried it?

MR. PAULTON

Yes, I have.

MR. LABOUCHERE

Then the honourable Gentleman was not there long enough.

MR. PAULTON

I was there long enough, for I stayed three months. I was there quite long enough to form some judgment of it.

MR. LABOUCHERE

The honourable Gentleman was there three months, and in that three months he is able to form a conclusion whether European colonists can go there, and whether they can bring up children there. They may go there as they go to India, but surely they would not be agricultural colonists living with the intention of remaining in that country. I think that a more monstrous thing that this proposal to guarantee £2,000,000 cannot well be imagined. We are told that the Government are considering the matter. Well, a Government that considers a matter is lost. I have not the slightest doubt that the result of the Government considering the matter will be—if the Government remains a sufficiently long time in power—that we shall be called upon to make this expenditure. I really do not know what Mr. Rhodes could not ask for which the right honourable Gentleman would not give him. Here is this railroad to be made through the country, and there are hardly any Europeans there, and the country is not settled. If the country belonged to the Chartered Company, that company would gain enormously by this railroad; and we are asked, without knowing whether it will be settled, without knowing what is to be introduced into that country, and whether produce can be brought to the coast, and shipped to other countries—we are asked to guarantee a railroad—that is, practically, to make this long railroad. If it pays, the benefit is to go to the Chartered Company; and, if it does not pay, the loss is to be ours. I do not complain so much of the arrangement of the right honourable Gentleman in regard to the Chartered Company in the matter of appointing Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Maguire, or some other gentleman, or anybody else. I saw it was proposed to elect Mr. Beit, but he said he had reasons not to stand. I do think that the Colonial Secretary's statement in regard to forced labour of the Africans was perfectly horrible. The right honourable Gentleman ignored all the principles upon which the Liberal Party has taken its stand for years and years. If honourable Gentlemen can show me any single case 20 years ago anywhere where the British flag flies in which we sent men belonging to the tribes to work in the mines, I shall be glad to hear of it; all I can say is that I do not know of such a case. What I do know is that when the Spaniards went to America they did the same thing—it was the system of repartementos. I have again and again seen in books—although perhaps the right honourable Gentleman has not seen it—denunciations from every class of Englishmen against the cruelty and atrocities of the Spaniards in this matter.

MR. COURTNEY (Cornwall, Bodmin)

At this time of night it would be unpardonable to address the Committee at any length. I will endeavour, as far as possible, to avoid either that fault or the fault of saying over and over again what has been already said. The real question before us now is whether the Chartered Company should be maintained; and, if so, under what conditions. My right honourable Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in his powerful speech, said that chartered companies were at present in disfavour I do not know how that is; for my own part. I have always felt that it is impossible to lay down any fixed rule as to chartered companies; they must be judged according to the circumstances in which they are placed, and the conditions under which they work; and we must always recognise that, even if a chartered company does not fulfil everything you desire, you may have to put up with something equally unsatisfactory, do what you will. That is a problem which we have long had before us, and I do not regret that it should be so. There are adventurous spirits of our race who will go out into the wilderness; they carry with them certain obligations and certain rights; they may involve you in circumstances where they may make a valid claim to your protection, and it is of interest to you in one way or another to maintain some organisation that shall reduce their action to some form, and make it faithful to some principles. You cannot set up at once a responsible Government wherever a few roving adventurers may go. You cannot at once set up a Crown Colony; sometimes you have to leave them entirely and absolutely alone. If you find a certain number of them who have ventured into the wilderness coming to you and suggesting that, under certain conditions, they shall be organized with powers of mutual control, powers of regulation of government; if they give you anything like satisfactory tests of their future conduct, and if the principles of their associations are such as to give some probability of their fulfilling their promises, it may often happen—it has often happened—that the best thing you can do is to give these people a charter, and give them an inchoate political status. There have been companies in the past that have done great work, sometimes under severe criticism, but sometimes rising, I think, to the height of most men's desires. There is the history of the East India Company; if that is compared with the action of a Crown Agent in a similar period, I doubt whether, judged by that standard—the fair standard of comparison—the East India Company would have been found very faulty, and certainly long before it was extinguished it had purged itself of many of the evils of the period in which it came into existence. As to the circumstances which brought about its extinction, it was no more responsible for them than the Government at home there had been a great misfortune, a great mutiny, and the East India Company went under; but the East India Company was no more responsible for that mutiny than the Board of Control Another comparison with the Chartered Company we are now dealing with will be more appropriate, because it is concerned with some what similar problems. I refer to the Hudson Bay Company after it had outlived its period of storm and stress, and I have always understood, and I believe rightly, that the government of the Hudson Bay Company with respect to the natives of North America was a pattern to the surrounding communities in their conduct towards those tribes. Well, we have the question before us of this Chartered Company. You cannot lay down any absolute rule; you must determine your action by what it has done in the past, what it is now likely to do, and what you can look forward to its doing. As to what it has done, I think we have ground of complaint. That terrible Committee of last year had a double duty to do. It had a duty to consider and report upon what change, if any, should be affected in the constitution of the Chartered Company. It did not discharge that duty at all; it ignored it completely. They said that they had before them a Report of Sir Richard Martin. The Chartered Company wanted to make an answer to that Report, but the Committee said that that would take a great deal of time, and they did not recommend that they should be called together again, in order to obtain the materials that might be so valuable, and they did not fulfill the task that was given them. That is almost, I think, unprecedented in the history of Parliament—that we should be asked to undertake the solution of a great problem without any materials being supplied to us, without the Report of any Select Committee, or by the Government itself. We have got Sir Richard Martin's Report and Lord Grey's reply, and these are the only materials upon which we can form our judgment as to what the action of the Chartered Company has been in the past. Is there anything else? What is the history of the company laid before us authentically upon which we can pronounce judgment? With respect to the Chartered Company, you must consider its conduct by comparison with what may have subsequently followed Sir Richard Martin's Report is right in respect of forced labour. Disguise it how you will, the effect is this: that the company, for itself or for any others wanting labour, did apply, through an organization set up for the purpose, to the indunas, and called upon them to supply a certain number of laborers, and when they could not supply them themselves, the police of the company was called upon in order to compel these people to come. There was no compulsion, only they must; the burden was put upon them, and they had to go, and when they got there they were forced to remain at work. If there had been a Crown Colony in Rhodesia, if there had been a self-governing Colony there, we should have had no organization of that kind at all—that would be quite impossible. Therefore, if a repetition of that kind of thing is made in the future, if there is to be a choice between a chartered company and a Crown Colony. That choice is very clearly in favour of the Crown Colony. If it had been a Crown Colony it would have been impossible to have had that system of forced labour in existence, or to have this organization for obtaining forced labour. As to the future, what are to be the changes that are to be made? My right honourable Friend the Colonial Secretary has proposed certain changes, which will probably be made in the amended Charter. There will, in the future, be a change in the legislative body from London to Rhodesia. A legislative body is to be set up as to which I observe my right honourable Friend has not very much confidence as to the character of the legislation it will adopt; but he has reserved power to override any legislation or to set it aside. He has also proposed that there should be a Resident Commissioner, who shall be able to assist at the sittings of the Councils, without voting at the Councils, and shall be able to call for any information he desires, and he will be in direct communication with the High Commissioner and with the Government at home. Some criticism has been passed upon this Resident Commissioner, that he is not entitled to call upon every agent of the company in the Colony to answer for anything he does, and that he is not entitled to vote at meetings of the Council. I entirely accept the answer of my right honourable Friend to this criticism. It would be impossible for the company to work at all if this Resident Commissioner had the power of interfering with every magistrate and every agent throughout the territory. You could not have any cohesion if you had this disturbing power introduced upon every occasion. Nor do me in the least desire that such a person should be able to vote on the Council. He has much greater power if he can tell the Council what his views are, and if he has behind Turn an authority to which he can appeal, and which authority can not only set aside the work of the Council, but can entirely undo it and set up decrees of its own. But the position of this Resident Commissioner will be a very trying one. I suppose my right honourable Friend is not able to tell us whom he will appoint.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

Yes; I intended to give an answer to that question put by the honourable Gentleman the Member for Rushcliffe, but I forgot to do so in the course of my speech. The Government propose to appoint for this very important office Sir Marshall Clarke, who has a most distinguished record, and who has been most successful in Basutoland and again in Zululand. He has a full acquaintance with the natives, and wherever he has been has obtained the confidence, both of the natives and of the white people.

MR. COURTNEY

I am delighted to have elicited that information. If I have done nothing else, I may claim the gratitude of the Committee for having brought that out. I have the honour of knowing Sir Marshall Clarke, and I have the greatest regard for him. He has done all that my right honourable Friend has said, and he is a person who may be thoroughly trusted to hold his own, and he will do all we want him to do, I am sure. I hope he will be able to be followed in due time by others equally worthy, but I confess I have not met with many in the history of South Africa who can be put on the same level as Sir Marshall Clarke. I am delighted to hear that he is to be in this position of Resident Commissioner, and I confess that the organization proposed by my right honourable Friend, backed by the presence of such a person as Sir Marshall Clarke, will be an organization that, I think, in itself, if there were nothing more, might be trusted to conduct the government of the territory in a manner satisfactory to all concerned. But then there comes the painful question of the reappearance of Mr. Rhodes. I myself may claim to have approached the career of Mr. Rhodes in a perfectly dispassionate mood. Mr. Rhodes held a very difficult position at the Cape, and his great policy of past years was a policy of bringing together the two races in South Africa which had been separated by unhappy discords in the past. I entirely approved of that policy. I recognized, as I thought, that in Mr. Rhodes there was a man who had got true policy, and who was steadily carrying it through under very difficult circumstances with great forbearance and great discrimination. This will be a great surprise to the honourable Member for Sheffield, who thinks that I am so identified with President Kruger. It, of course, meant that Mr. Rhodes was willing to put himself upon what I have always recognized as the lower level of Boer morality with regard to their conduct and dealings towards the natives as contrasted with the English morality. I have always recognized that as a lower level, and Mr. Rhodes, in his desire to bring the two races together, necessarily accommodated himself to that lower level, and sought, as I thought with great forbearance and patience, to bring the races together by raising the lower level up to the higher state of things which he cherished on his part, practicing a larger toleration, a toleration which I do not think it irreverent to compare to that of God Almighty, who endures many things He would have come to an end. I followed his career in the past with great interest, and with much sympathy, and it was not until that fatal raid, which exposed not only a moral defect, but an intellectual defect, that it appeared to me that he put himself in an impossible position to be associated with the future Government of Africa. Apart from the whole moral question, upon which much need not be said, I consider that this attempt to carry out a forcible seizure of the Transvaal indicated an intellectual defect on the part of Mr. Rhodes. I do not speak this of myself alone; I say it after consultation with men of very different opinions, very different habits, and of very different traditions, who are connected with South Africa. If he had a real understanding of what he had been working amongst for so many years, and of the conduct and character of the two races, he could not conceive that the enterprise was even momentarily possible, or, if it could for the moment have been realized, that it could have been maintained. He showed himself there as a person who ought not to be trusted, because after the fullest possible acquaintance with the races before him, he lost sight of the traditions and departed from the policy in which he had formerly engaged, and set apart those races which we hoped he was struggling to bring together; and that exists to this hour. It is quite true that there has been an election for the Legislative Council, and that he has got a majority in it, and that he has got some Dutchmen amongst his followers in that majority, and that, whether he succeeds in getting a majority in the legislative assembly or not, he will have a large amount of authority in the government of the country. But he will have the raid in the Transvaal against him, and the Dutch of the Orange Free State, and a large minority in the colony that he has severed. He has divided these people, and putting him into authority again will, instead of healing up this division, only keep it fresh and open. I have spoken of what I consider the intellectual mistake of the enterprise which Mr. Rhodes provoked, and upon that ground alone I should regret the fact that he had been restored to his position. Of course, I recognize with my honourable Friend the Colonial Secretary that, whether he be on the board of the Chartered Company or not, so long as the Chartered Company exists. He will be the person behind it. He is there by virtue of his position in the company, and whether he is on the board or not he will be the master spirit of the company; and we must recognize that, after the elections to which I have referred, he is, and remains, in the history of South Africa still a person of great importance, all of which reasons may render it essential to allow him to be on the board of the company. But to continue the Chartered Company as that company is continuing is to raise an argument to bring the company as a governing power to an end as soon as possible. It may be said that the company, checked by such a man as Sir Marshall Clarke, might be suffered to conduct the future government of the territory, but as soon as you allow Mr. Rhodes to associate himself with Sir Marshall Clarke in the government of the territory, the balance of that argument, in my opinion, is drawn the other way. My recollection was drawn just now by an animated passage of arms between my right honourable Friend the Secretary to the Colonies and my right honourable Friend opposite to another point in Mr. Rhodes' action. It appeared to me that his speech—it may be rank blasphemy on my part to say so, but I am going to say it all the same—it appeared to me his speech in the City was one of the most puzzle-headed performances I ever heard. The extraordinary manner in which he persuaded himself that 50 per cent. duty on a gold mine was a favourable thing all round! I think one thing was not very clear, so far as the poor Boers or President Kruger was concerned. I do not think that President Kruger would be sorry to exchange for that 50 per cent. Duty the very reasonable payment he gets now.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

My right honourable Friend is in error. It is not 50 per cent. On the output; it is 50 per cent. On the vendors' rights.

MR. COURTNEY

That is the same thing, so far as I can understand.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

I think, perhaps, I can express it better in this way: the vendors' rights are at a premium, and half what they get goes to the company, but not half the output of the gold from the mines.

MR. COURTNEY

Half what would be realized by the sale of the mine, which, if properly valued, comes to the same thing. Now, I pass on to the point which caused the passage of arms just now. I should not, I feel, do justice to myself if I did not say a word in relation to this point. It was raised by my honourable Friend the Member for West Monmouth, who pointed out that in consenting, as my right honourable Friend the Colonial Secretary has consented, to put into the Charter a clause prohibiting the Government of the territory from imposing any higher duties upon British products than are at present levied in Cape Colony—in consenting to that condition, the doctrine of Free Trade is given up, and that it is quite at variance with the principle which we were advocating when we claimed the "open port" and equality of opportunity in respect to China. My right honourable Friend protested vehemently that there was no question of Free Trade at all, and that we were not giving up the doctrine of free trade; and that if we were, we were giving it up in order to reduce these duties on British products. He referred also to the parallel, case of Canada, and argued that if assent to the proposed clause in the Charter was to be condemned consent to the recent Canadian legislation must be condemned also. I think there is some confusion here. In the case of Canada you have two conflicting principle brought before you. The first principle you have is that of enforcing, rightly or wrongly, what you consider to be a measure of free trade, and next the principle of yielding obedience to the will of a fully emancipated colony Canada is a fully emancipated colony, and, having made her request to us, the Government, recognizing the rights of a fully emancipated colony, allowed them the liberty to do those things which, as free traders, we recognize or regard as being injudicious; but it does not follow because the Government have recognized the right of an emancipated colony to do it that the conflicting duty is the same in the case of a Crown colony, and still less is it the same in the case of a chartered company. Supposing you allow a fully-grown-up son, whose will you cannot withstand, to do certain things, you do not take the same stand with a boy in his teens, and still less with a boy of nine years of age. Even if Canada had wished, as a large portion of the Colonies did wish not very long ago, to enforce preferential duties against us instead of in our favour, you would have had to yield to that wish; but in the case of a Crown colony, and still more in a chartered company, the circumstances are entirely If you recognize that this principle is inconsistent with Free Trade, you are bound to repudiate the application of it in this case. Now, it is said that the doctrine of the "open door" cannot be maintained in respect of every country You say it is a great thing with respect to foreign countries like China, but equality of opportunity in South Africa is a very different matter, and is there to be disregarded. I should like to know how you could look your opponents in the face and say: "Although we claim in China equality of opportunity, in South Africa we do not intend to allow equality of opportunity."

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

Does my right honourable Friend attribute that doctrine to me?

MR. COURTNEY

No. What my right honourable Friend says is this: that as between different divisions of the same political organisation—the British Empire—there is no departure from Free Trade, although there is differential treatment of one part of it as against the outside public. That is his point. Now, I say, if that is true, it does not depend on the different communities which make up the British Empire, but the same thing is true of the different classes which make up the people of that Empire; and it is, therefore, no departure from Free Trade to say to the agriculturists of Great Britain: "We will undertake that your produce shall not be taxed on the same level as we tax the produce Of foreign countries." It is a mere accident, so to speak, which my right honourable Friend would doubtless like to get rid of, that these divisions exist between different communities and different outlying portions of the Empire. Imagine them fused all into one, and then the argument is plain, that any treatment for the reduction of duties between one part and the rest is the same thing in principle as imposing duties upon the produce of a foreign country as against the produce of your own country. When you say that the agricultural producers in this country shall be treated on the same footing as the agricultural producers of foreign countries that is the principle of Free Trade We tax spirits, but we tax foreign spirits in precisely the same way, so that there is absolutely the same quality of treatment as between the people of these islands and the people of foreign countries. That is Free Trade. A good many people do not like it, but that is Free Trade. But if you mean to establish in Rhodesia a disparity of duties in respect of the commodities produced there, which will be in our favour and against the foreigner, you will have there a departure from Free Trade. These remarks, perhaps, may be thought to be rather savoring of a debating society; but my honourable and learned Friend, who seems to assent to that suggestion, did not witness the energy of the right honourable Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies in dilating upon this question, and you must lay the blame upon him. Now I take my stand as an honest man in the matter. My right honourable Friend has referred to the presentation, by the Cobden Club, of a gold medal to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, adding he was thus recognized by the highest authority as an eminent Free Trader. I am an honorary member of that club, but I have never been an ordinary member, and I have never associated myself with any one of its actions; and when I read that a gold medal had been presented to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, I could not but think that the Cobden Club had committed a betise. Sir Wilfrid Laurier is a person of eminence and great standing, and a man who possesses fine rhetorical powers; but whether he is a master of political economy or of the principles of Free Trade I do not know. But I am certain that his action in proposing to reduce the duties on British produce imported into the Dominion of Canada was not of a character which would have recommended itself to Mr. Cobden. I think be would not have accepted it. Mr. Cobden would have known a good deal better than that, and he would have been the last to approve of it. Now, Sir, I must draw my remarks to a conclusion. I have said, and I repeat it, that if the Chartered Company could have been kept apart from the reintroduction of Mr. Rhodes, and could have been overlooked by such a man as Sir Marshall Clarke, you might then have gone on content with the existence of the Charter; but inasmuch as Mr. Rhodes is by the very necessity of the case re-imported—I lay no blame on my right honourable Friend for allowing him to be re-elected—but as he is brought back again, and as the constitution of the company is one which lends itself to mere trade and speculation, and that does not conduce naturally and simply to good government and real organization of territory, then I say the point of view which must be assumed with respect to this problem now is not the immediate withdrawal of the Charter from the company, but a recognition of the fact that it must be withdrawn as soon as circumstances will allow it conveniently to be done. Then, instead of acquiescing in the position of allowing the company to rule, it will become the duty of the statesman who has this matter in band to take the earliest possible opportunity of sub-sitting for the action of the company checked by the Government the action of the Government checked by such local circumstances as will always very strongly influence and modify the action of a Government. That is the conclusion to which I am somewhat reluctantly drawn, because I recognize that whenever the withdrawal of the privileges of the Chartered Company comes to pass, we shall be undertaking great duties coupled with great expense, though that is comparatively a small matter; and we shall be hampered with a feeling that we are not fulfilling those duties as we should desire. But I repeat that in these Colonial questions you have to be satisfied much too often with second best. You must take what you can get, and you must practice toleration, so far as it is necessary to carry administration along with it. Here the circumstances of the case lead me to the conclusion that in the not distant future it will be the duty of this Parliament to insist upon the withdrawal of the present governing privileges of the South Africa Company.

MR. SCOTT MONTAGU (Hampshire, New Forest)

Mr. Lowther, the Committee has listened with great interest to the speech of the right honourable Gentleman who has just sat down, and to several of the other speeches which have been delivered in the course of this Debate, but I do not think much light has been thrown on the future possibilities and present condition of the country under consideration. I must say that I totally differ from what was said by the honourable Gentleman who opened the Debate as to outrages which were alleged to have been committed during the rising at Bulawayo, and I think many honourable Members will be disposed to admit that far worse outrages and tortures than those suggested are sometimes inflicted In this country on poor children put out to nurse, and that there is no ground Whatever for the idea that the settlers in Rhodesia are a hard-hearted and brutal race. I have seen something of them and their country, and I can acquit them of any such accusation. Another point on which I can speak from my own observation relates to the present agricultural condition of the country, and I think honourable Members ought to know that there are very many thousands of acres under cultivation in Rhodesia and on which Kaffir corn and mealies are grown. A great part of the country, which I seen for myself, is remarkably well adapted for growing corn and would support a very large population. If, as we hope, this country takes over Rhodesia with the view of promoting self-government and making it a prosperous country, the debt incurred will not be very large, for it would work out, roughly speaking, at about fivepence an acre over the whole country. Of course, a great deal will depend on the administration of the mines and the prudence with which the crushing and other operations are conducted; but I believe that Rhodesia has a great future in store. Apart from the discovery of gold, there are copper, iron, timber, and an enormous area of coal. At this late hour I need not trouble the Committee with details on those matters, or the wise methods adopted for raising working capital in a cheap and satisfactory manner, for endeavouring to develop the mines at a reasonable cost. The Charter of the South African Company expires at the end of 16 years from now, but at the end of 11 years Rhodesia, so far as we can see, will be a self-governing colony, and I think the Chartered Company will deserve some praise and will promote its own interests by trying to establish a proper self-governing colony even before the expiration of the Charter. I believe Mr. Rhodes is perfectly sincere in his efforts to assist and direct public spirit in Rhodesia and to encourage the people to govern themselves; and I have no doubt that under the proposals of the Government the best men will eventually come to the front. What Rhodesia wants more than anything else to-day is that really good men should come forward to assist in its development No doubt a good many of the first comers to Rhodesia were excellent pioneers, but they were not excellent governors, and they were not politically educated; but when the community gets into a more settled form we shall see the same development in Rhodesia that we have seen in other British Colonies, and we shall find that she is in the van of progress in South Africa. I take a great interest in this territory, which I have visited; and although I agree with the honourable Member for Northampton when he says that a few months residence in a country may not be sufficient to enable one to judge of it to a full extent, still, I may say that there is great advantage in having seen a country such as this, and it seems to me that if a great many Gentlemen in this House were to follow the example set by the Member for Bishop Auckland, the Member for the Tyneside Division, and other honourable Members, they would benefit themselves and benefit the Empire at large, by making themselves acquainted with the surroundings of the whole question. The future of Rhodesia is, of course, largely hypothetical, but I think that no part of our Colonial Empire has finer prospects, and I do not regard the idea of an extension of our dominion to Khartoum, or even to Cairo, as chimerical, or, at least, as a mere dream. Such an extension is to be desired for the common good and for the sake of the peace of our Empire in Africa, and I am sure that Mr. Rhodes in the South and Sir H. Kitchener in the North are making vast strides towards the accomplishment of that object.

MR. C. P. SCOTT (Lancashire, Leigh)

Sir, I should like to call attention to the state of things which exists in another part of South Africa, for which our responsibility is, perhaps, less direct than in Rhodesia, but which, I think, is not less clear—I refer to British Bechuanaland. I think that perhaps the House is not fully conscious of the terrible state of things which exists in British Bechuanaland. Something like one-third of the population have been driven from the country, a large number of them have been deprived of their land, deprived of their cattle and their homes, and dispersed no one knows where. Besides this, a considerable number of them have been deported something like 800 miles from their homes, into distant parts of the country, and they have been indentured for a long term of years to Cape farmers. The only correct way of expressing their condition is to say that it is one of temporary slavery. Sir, if it can be shown—and I think it can be shown—that this state of things is, in part at least, due to the action of our own Government, I think it will be felt that this is a matter with which this House ought to concern itself. It will be said, no doubt, that this country is now under the Cape Colony, which, after all, is a self-governing colony; that British Bechuanaland was handed over to the Cape by the Government of the day a couple of years ago; and that, much as we may deplore the action of the Capo Government, we are not responsible for it. Sir, I should be very sorry to think that the British Government, or the Colonial Secretary, was responsible for everything that has gone on in British Bechuanaland during the last year, but I think there is no question whatever that these events are, in part at least, due to the action of the Government, and that some of the most serious consequences have resulted from that action. When British Bechuanaland was handed over to Cape Colony it was not handed over unconditionally. There was a strong protest made by the natives. They had been very happy and very comfortable under the Government of this country as a Crown Colony, and strong protests were raised both by them and on their behalf against annexation to Cape Colony. In consequence of those protests special precautions were taken to guard against danger. The proclamation under which Bechuanaland was transferred to the Cape included the reservation of native lands. Now, what is the history of this rebellion? No doubt it was a rebellion of a very serious nature, but it was really of a mere sporadic character; it had no concerted movement. It arose out of the destruction of cattle to stay the ravage of rinderpest. The first outbreak took place in a district which is close to the Transvaal border, and that outbreak was due simply to the discontent of a chief at his not receiving the compensation he considered due to him for the compulsory slaughter of his cattle. It is obvious, I think, when you consider the facts presented in the Blue Book, that, with a little energy on the part of our Colonial troops, the rebellion should never have been allowed to come to a head at all. But, however that may be, that is no reason why there should have been such excess of rigour in putting down the rebellion. We find in this correspondence that not only were native prisoners shot down in cold blood, but even the bodies of the dead were desecrated. We have it on record—to the shame of our race—that in the case of one chief of these poor people, who died with arms in his hands, a Colonial officer dug up the grave, and this poor native's head was actually wrenched from the body, the officer's excuse being that he desired to present the head to a museum at Cape Town. I think, Sir that facts like these ought to make us pause in meting out punishment to these natives, because we must see that there is blame on our side as well as on theirs, wrong on the side of the white man as well as on the Bide of the black man. I say that these people have been sufficiently punished by the course of the war, by the ravages of famine, and by the outrages committed on them by the Colonial troops. It would have been amply sufficient if at the close of the war the ringleaders had been punished and the people restored to their lands. But what happened? After these people had been deprived of their lands, left without the means of subsistence, and were actually starving, then the Cape Government stepped in and found them employment. But how was that done? It was done in a way which I venture to say was most, unjust to these people. They were not given any choice in the matter. They were told that unless they consented to indenture themselves they were to be prosecuted for sedition. That I venture to say was both disingenuous and illegal. These people did not understand the real nature of the terms put before them. They were not told that the most that could happen to them, unless they had been guilty of actual murder in cold blood, would be a prosecution for sedition. In the case of two, who were, in fact, prosecuted, they had to be discharged. The truth is, they yielded to the unknown terrors of a threat which had no real force. Sir, I appeal to the right honourable Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies to use his influence on behalf of these poor people who are still in a state of virtual slavery. What is to happen to them now that the troubles are over? They have no land, no means of subsistence except by this system of indenturing, and they must become a permanently servile class. This is a matter to which I trust the right honourable Gentleman will give his most earnest attention. And, further, I hope the right honourable Gentleman will exercise the greatest caution, in any further arrangements that may be made with the Cape Government, to protect these natives from any further surrender of their rights and territories.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

I am ready to give full credit to the honourable Member who has just sat down for earnestness in the cause which he hat undertaken to champion, and for a general belief in the statements he has laid before the Committee, which, of course, he has received on the information of others.

MR. SCOTT

The information I gave to the Committee was taken from the Parliamentary Papers.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

No, not all the information which the honourable Member has given to the Committee. I was going to say that his statement is vitiated by two characteristics of certain critics of Colonial affairs. In the first place, in all such matters between natives and Englishmen they always proceed on the assumption that the natives are right and their own countrymen are wrong and secondly, although they are all born Home Rulers, they have not the remotest conception of what Home Rule means. No doubt this rebellion in Matabeleland was a serious one. The honourable Member has said that two were killed, but, as a fact, 60 were killed, and included in them were four people who were absolutely unarmed, who were simply traders, and who were brutally murdered at the outset of the rebellion. In one district, Mr. Robinson, a trader, was the first person murdered.

MR. SCOTT

I beg the right honourable Gentleman's pardon. I said that only two of the Colonial troops were injured on the first two occasions. I believe 58 Colonial troops were lost through death and sickness, but that was subsequent.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

Then I think the honourable Member made a very incomplete statement, because the Committee would have understood from that statement that only two persons had been killed, and that, therefore, an altogether disproportionate punishment had been inflicted upon the natives. Now, the honourable Member is aware that 60 persons, mostly Europeans, were killed under circumstances of great brutality. I shall quote against the honourable Member's witnesses one whose credibility the honourable Member I am sure will not impugn—I mean the Rev. Roger Price, the senior missionary of the Church Missionary Society, who in speaking of these offences said that the pouncing on solitary families in isolated places is the only mode of warfare that the Bechuanas ever have recourse to If the honourable Member were living all alone in a desolate place among people who have this unfortunate peculiarity he would feel not quite so much sympathy with them, and not be quite so unsympathetic with the white men as he has shown himself to be. Then the honourable Member brought forward certain isolated charges of cruelty and improper conduct on the part of individual traders, and quoted a very improper proceeding by some officer of the troops, who, after the death of one of the natives, dug up a grave in order to secure his skull as a memento or curiosity. The honourable Member for- got to mention that this fact was brought to the notice of the Colonial authorities, and the officer in question was deprived of his commission. The honourable Member also made a charge that in a particular case some man shot a person in cold blood. No doubt that was alleged, but I do not accept everything that is alleged as proof. In this case what did the authorities do? They brought the man to trial. The jury at the first trial did not agree; and he was brought up for a second trial, the result of which I do not know. What more could the authorities do? Is the Colonial Government to be held responsible because outrage and crime are not totally unknown? Brutality and cruelty occasionally happen in this country, but we do not accuse the authorities of the country. We do not blame the whole white population because a Mrs. Nicholls or somebody else behaves with great brutality under certain circumstances. All we have a right to expect from our countrymen in other parts of the world is that they should do what we do here—bring to justice and to trial anybody who has been guilty of this exceptional conduct. But, Sir, the honourable Gentleman is not content with that. He-brings a general charge against the Colonial Government—namely, that wrongfully, brutally, cruelly, without consideration, they have deprived these persons of their land and have indentured them to, I suppose, a kind of slavery. The rebellion broke out, as I believe, in the first place, absolutely without ground. If the natives were discontented, they certainly had no good reason. What happened was this. The whole country was being threatened with rinderpest. Arrangements were made by the Beehuanaland and Cape Governments for killing the cattle which were infected, and, in the case of the Cape, for giving compensation when cattle were killed. There was a certain chief who was a notoriously bad character. Sixteen cattle of his were allowed to stray into the farm of a Cape colonist; they were found to be infected with rinderpest, and they were killed in accordance with the regulations. The chief made that a ground of complaint, and he sent a message to say the police must leave the country, and that the natives were anxious to fight. When he was summoned by the police he refused to attend, and when the police were sent after him his tribe fired upon them. And let me say in every other incident of the war it was always the natives who began, and not the police. Under the circumstances a detachment was sent into the country, in the first instance especially for the relief of a trader. That was the history of the rising. The rebellion was put down with the loss of 60 lives. The question was, what was to be the punishment? The universal opinion held is that there is only one punishment which the natives fear, and that is to deprive them of their reserves of land. The Colonial Government felt that, in accordance with all precedents, the lands of the particular tribes who had risen in rebellion should be confiscated, and I saw no reason for deviating from the policy which had always been taken by my predecessors. Sir, that is the only thing in connection with these disturbances in which I had any personal responsibility whatever. It is said I might have vetoed the action of the Cape Assembly. The honourable Member does not understand the principle of Home Rule. It may be right in some places and wrong in others. This no one will deny—that if you grant Home Rule in any country, whether it be a Colony or part of the United Kingdom, you must not think you are going to keep up perpetual irritation ever after. Do not pretend to think that when you have granted Home Rule you can control every action. That ought to be a sufficient answer to the honourable Gentleman, and it would be if I had not sympathy with the feelings of the colonists, who are indignant at the charges brought against them by philan- thropists like the honourable Gentleman, who do not take the trouble to examine into the facts on the other side. The honourable Member brings a charge of brutality against the Cape Government. The Cape Government is no more inhuman than the British Government or the Government of any other civilised State, and I think it is outrageous that these charges should be so lightly brought. What is the state of the case? The state of the case is that there were at the end of the rebellion 3,500 people practically prisoners and in the hands of the Cape Government. They might have proclaimed an amnesty and sent them back to their reserves. If they had done so, what would have been the result? In the opinion of the Cape Government a vast majority of these people would have starved, and it was in the interests of humanity and with an earnest desire to save the lives of these people that they took the alternative course which the honourable Gentleman reprobates so strongly. They brought these people down and gave them the alternative of being tried for rebellion or of being indentured or apprenticed for five years, under certain conditions and on payment of ordinary wages, to farmers and others, who would be selected. The matter was carefully explained to them individually by people like Mr. Rose Innes and others who have the greatest care for the interests of the native population. The result was that the great majority agreed to go and be indentured, and, these people having been indentured, many more people applied to be indentured also. The Cape Government take every pains to see that the conditions are faithfully carried out. They have appointed special inspectors, and up to the present time there have been very few complaints, and in every case where complaints have been made they have been satisfactorily dealt with, and on the evidence of these inspectors, confirmed by the independent testimony of men like the Rev. Roger Price, and other missionaries of the London Missionary Society, there is no reason to Relieve that these natives who have been indentured in this way are being worse treated than ordinary domestic servants would be in Cape Colony. Is it not almost inconceivable that, in the face of this evidence, which ought to be conclusive, the honourable Gentleman should come down and make such charges of ill-treatment and inhumanity against the Cape Government?

MR. JOSEPH A. PEASE (Northumberland, Tyneside)

pointed out that this native rising began in October of 1896, and although the authorities were in direct telegraphic communication with the officials on the spot it was not till the 11th of January following that the Government took any steps in the matter. Whatever might be thought of the justifiability or otherwise of the delay in the action taken by the Colonial Government In putting down the rebellion, he contended that the Secretary for the Colonies ought not to have allowed the reserve territory to be taken away from those natives who were innocent of actual participation in the rising, especially as it was a well-known fact that many of the settlers desired to acquire this land for themselves, and had a direct interest in encouraging a rebellion for this object. The result of depriving the natives of their land and placing them under this system of indenturing was to place them practically in a condition of slavery, and to remove from them the very means they had to secure future sustenance. The Cape Government ought to have been satisfied with bringing into court and punishing the chiefs who had been the ringleaders in the rebellion; but the right honourable Gentleman the Colonial Secretary ought to have taken steps to secure that the punishment should not fall indiscriminately on innocent and guilty alike, and there was no justification in sending into slavery some hundreds of women and children and men who had not been proved guilty of any offence whatever. Mr. Rose Innes had, at a public meeting at Cape Town on the 26th October, protested against this system. He knew from his own knowledge that the Colonists were very sensitive to Imperial interference, but there was no need for the Colonial Secretary to give a command in a manner which might have been resented, but he ought, as a Member of the Cabinet, to have made representations to the Government of Cape Colony in favour of the abolition of the system of indenturing, and strengthened the hands of the anti-slavery Colonists at the Cape. If they were starving, the Government ought to relieve them in some other way than by making them slaves for five years. That other natives, 2,000 as stated by the Colonial Secretary, asked to be indentured, did not justify the system, but only showed the natives were in a starving condition, and they preferred this slavery to death by starvation. He would like to draw the attention of the Colonial Secretary to the problem that would arise in Natal. There were there about 500,000 natives and 50,000 Indian coolies; the former were not employed, and the latter did the work which it was desirable that the natives should have been induced to perform. A serious problem in the future would be presented by a large unoccupied native element, whose tendency must be toward demoralisation if thus left neglected. He was not in favour of forced labour in Natal, Rhodesia, or Cape Colony, but it was in the interest of the natives themselves they should be voluntarily induced to work and lead useful lives.

The honourable Member had not concluded his observations when,

It being Midnight, the CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

House adjourned at 12.5.