§ MR. LAWRENCE (Liverpool, Abercromby)To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will state whether in South Africa the property of loyal persons injured or destroyed by the operations of His Majesty's or the Boer forces is a subject for compensation; and, if so, by what authority, whether Imperial or local; and whether after inquiry by some Commission or what ascertainment of circumstances of the alleged loss.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Chamberlain.) Compensation is, in these cases, an act of grace and not of legal right, but it has been granted wherever necessary to assist individual loyalists to resume their occupations. His Majesty's Government undertook that the amount of compensation assessed by duly appointed commissions as due to loyal persons in the Cape and Natal should be paid and included in the amount of the Transvaal loan. £2,000,000 has been provided as a free grant for loyalists in the new colonies whose claims are being investigated by the resident magistrates, and in the particular case of Johannesburg by the Refugees' Aid Department.