§ MR. LEIF JONESI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to a c. se tried before Mr. Van den Berg, at "A" Court, Johannesburg, on May 17th, 1905, in which an overseer at the Croesus Gold Mine, Langlaate, was fined £20 for cruelty to a native, and in which the indictment alleged that, on 8th May, the accused assaulted one of his native employees, named Jim Simali, by handcuffing him to an non staple attached to a wooden plank made fast to the floor, keeping him in that position for four days 252 without food or drink; whether he will take steps to have the man convicted of this crime removed from his post as overseer; and whether he will devise some greater safeguards than at present exist to prevent the occurrence of similar incidents in future.
§ MR. LYTTELTONI am asking the Governor for a report on this case and for his observations as to the steps which the Government may be able to take not merely to punish such offence v but to prevent their occurrence. In the newspaper account of the trial which I have seen the accused is referred to as "a contractor" and not as "an overseer" and the magistrate found as a fact that the native had not been kept without food and drink.