§ SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAGGREE (Bethnal Green, N.E.)To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that the stores of a British India merchant of ten years' standing at Wakkerstroom, named Mr. Hoosein Amod, have been closed by the British authorities, and his trading licence refused; and that another trader in the town of Rustenburg, Mr. Sooliman Ismael, who had a trading licence last year, has also been refused his licence this year, and that they are not allowed to transfer their businesses to persons willing 785 to purchase them; and, if so, will he call for reports from the authorities and state what steps he proposes to take.
§ SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAGGREETo ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the managing proprietor of the firm of Messrs. M. C. Cumroodeen and Co., who is also chairman of the British India Association there, was ordered off a public footpath at Johannesburg last month and prohibited from walking upon it; and that a British Indian subject, named Mr. N. D. Deboo, who, after satisfying the requisite test in the English language, was permitted to land at Durban and was travelling to Heidelberg to take up an appointment there, was compelled to leave his train on the Transvaal frontier and prevented from proceeding to his destination, with the result that he lost his appointment; and that British Indian subjects have been called upon to quit Johannesburg, and some of them sentenced to a month's imprisonment on account of their inability to leave the place; and, if so, will he inquire of the British authorities under what circumstances these occurrences took place, and take steps to prevent their recurrence.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Chamberlain.) I have no information on the matters alluded to in these Questions, but I have asked the Government to furnish me with a report.
§ SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAGGREETo ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if his attention has been drawn to the murder of a Mahomedan fruit-seller at Durban on or about the 6th February last in which the culprit was acquitted on the ground of his having been of unsound mind when he committed the crime; and to the death of a coolie at Ladysmith on or about the 9th March last who was suspected of having been murdered, and in respect of which the jury found that the death was the result of an accident; and whether he will call for a report of these cases from the local authorities and place the same upon the Table of the House.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Chamberlain.) I have no information as to these cases, which appear to have been dealt with by 786 the Courts of the Colony, whose decisions, as the hon. Member will recognise, I am not in a position to review. I will, however, ask the Governor to report upon them.