§ Order for Third Reading read.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now road a third time."
§ MR. MORTON (Sutherland)said that if the Government had kept their promise of giving him an opportunity on the Report stage of the Vote on Account to raise his questions he would not have needed to trouble the House to-night; but this was the last opportunity he would have. There were a number of matters he should like to call attention to, especially with regard to the Scottish Office and the English Local Government Board, but these he would leave to another occasion. What he would draw attention to to-night was the neglect of General Botha's claim for compensation for the destruction of his property during the war in South Africa. General Botha assessed his claim at £15,000. It was reduced on the Government assessment to £7,000, and then General Botha was offered a cheque of £800 in full settlement of his claim. He declined to sign a receipt to that effect. Would the Under-Secretary for the Colonies say whether he proposed to take any action in the matter? A deliberate and solemn promise was made by the late Government that property burnt and otherwise destroyed should be paid for out of the fund 976 of £3,000,000 which was provided for that purpose, and the treatment of General Botha in expecting him to give a receipt in full settlement of his claim under the conditions he had mentioned was about the meanest transaction he had ever heard or read of. He understood on the best authority that General Botha's property and that of the other generals ought never to have been destroyed. Especially was there no occasion whatever for burning General Botha's property, and the act was pure wanton wickedness on the part of the Government of the day. He was told on good authority that every officer and every soldier connected with the British Army was opposed to that wicked destruction of property, but was obliged to carry it out. He knew that when those methods-had been properly described as "methods of barbarism," the Liberals had been charged with accusing the British soldier of carrying out those methods, but he was glad to know that no Liberal ever suggested or thought that either the officers or soldiers approved of this wanton destruction of property, but that it was done by orders of the Government responsible for all this wickedness. It was done by the late Government through Lord Milner.
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Gentleman must confine himself to the subject matter of this Bill. He is going back five years.
§ MR. MORTONsaid that all he wanted to know from the Government was what they were going to do with regard to the claims that must be now 977 before them. He understood that none of them were yet settled, and he wanted to know whether the Government recognising, as they ought to recognise, the very excellent way in which these Boer generals had behaved since the treaty settlement. Were they going to continue to treat them in the manner he had indicated? He knew his information was correct for he had it from the general. There was no occasion why the present Government should carry out the wicked work of their predecessors. The country had put them in office not to do that, but to show to all our subjects in South Africa or anywhere else that they were to be treated honestly, and that every promise that was made between us and the Boers would be carried out to the letter. If anything, let the Government show generosity to those who were once our opponents, but who had acted in the best possible spirit toward the Government and the people of this country. He hoped the Government would do what was right and proper, and ignore the evil deeds of the late Government.
§ THE UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL,) Manchester, N.W.said he was very sorry that the hon. Gentleman should have encountered inconvenience in regard to this matter, and he might assure him that it was not his fault that he was not able to be present when he raised this matter on a previous occasion, and that consequently it had been kept waiting.
§ MR. MORTONI quite admit my hon. friend is not to blame.
§ MR. CHURCHILLsaid before giving an Answer he wished to thank the hon. Gentleman for the courtesy and consideration he had shown in allowing this matter to stand over for so long. He thought he could answer very shortly the point he had raised this evening. There were three classes of people who had been paid money 978 in consideration of, or in connection with, their losses through the Boer War. There were first of all the British subjects who had suffered loss and had been indemnified to the extent, he thought, of 17s. 4d. in the £. Then there were those protected burghers who were indemnified under Lord Roberts' proclamation and who received £2,000,000 sterling amongst them, amounting, he believed, to rather more than 2s. in the £, and lastly there were the burghers under the late Boer Government who participated in the grant. It was in the last class that General Botha came. It was a mistake to assume that the grant of £3,000,000 under the Treaty of Vereeniging was intended to be compensation or repayment for war losses. It was for the purpose of assisting people to their homes and supplying others with homes. There were, he supposed, 40,000 applicants, and crediting every man with £25 a piece, that roughly speaking exhausted almost half the £3,000,000. After that the remaining sum was distributed among the claimants, having some regard to the proportion of their losses. Under this system o. allotment General Botha's share amounted to £800. It would be clear to the House that had he received merely one 40,000th part of £3,000,000 he would have received a very much smaller sum than £800. It was contended by the Boers themselves that persons who were in the Boer Republic and were very well-to-do ought not to participate in the fund which was intended generally for the relief of the poorest among the burghers, and those who had really nothing left after the war Therefore he could not admit that under the principle of distribution which was enforced by the late Government any injustice was done to General Botha. It was quite true that General Botha was not prepared to sign a receipt in full for the £800, but he thought that General Botha adopted that course not because he wished to draw any attention to any injustice to himself but because he wished to protest against the inadequacy of the general provision. He did not understand 979 that his hon. friend had any authorisation from General Botha to make a special claim on his behalf. He felt quite sure that his hon. friend had taken it up very properly as a matter requiring Parliamentary consideration.
§ MR. MORTONAnd as a matter of principle.
§ MR. CHURCHILLsaid he was sure also that as a matter of principle General Botha, would be the last person to avail himself of the influence of a Member of Parliament in order to obtain for himself special terms which other Boers did not get. Although he did not deny that the £3,000,000 sterling fell far short of the sum which would be required to balance even the material loss of the war, yet he was not at all prepared to say that they as a Government were prepared at this stage to put forward any proposal for adding to the very large sum already paid. A Committee had just reported on the compensation claims, and he hoped shortly to be able to lay the report on the Table of the House. The House would then no doubt be able to consider the question in detail. All he could say with regard to General Botha's claim was that he had been treated strictly according to the principle of allotment, and that on that principle he had received a very much larger sum than the great majority of the Burghers who fought with him so gallantly.