§ SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAGGREETo ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that the Liquor Law of the late South African Republic to the effect that no negro, aboriginal, native, or coloured person may be served with alcoholic drink, has been made applicable now by the Transvaal Government to respectable and educated Eurasians and other subjects of His Majesty from India employed on the railways of the country; and whether he will represent to the Transvaal Government that such application of the prohibition is not called for, since the object of the provision in question was solely to prevent intemperance among the natives of the country and immigrants of the uneducated coolie class.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) Under Sections 46 and 48 of the Liquor Licensing Ordinance passed 57 by the Transvaal Legislature in October, 1902, no coloured person may be supplied with intoxicating liquor [Cd. 1365], and under Section 1 (c) of Ordinance No. 68 of 1903 a railway employee's liquor licence authorises a sale of liquor only to white male persons of the age of sixteen years and upwards who are employed on the construction of any railway works in the Transvaal. It is admitted that the liquor legislation of the Transvaal has had a salutary effect, bat I will bring the point raised by the hon. Member to the notice of the officer administering the Government and ask for a report. Provision has been made under Proclamation No. 35 of 1901, printed at p. 42 of Cd. 904, for exempting coloured persons of education from special legislation affecting natives and coloured persons generally.