§ MR. C. B. HARMSWORTHI beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to the fact that numbers of persons have recently emigrated from South Africa to the Argentine Republic; that many of these persons are alleged to be in a state of destitution; will he say to what nationalities these persons belong; and whether he can state the causes of their emigration from South Africa.
§ THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RUNCIMAN, Dewsbury, for Sir EDWARD GREY)A party of some 140 persons arrived in the Argentine Republic from South Africa at the end of last year. The 931 latest information received from the British Consul dated the middle of April was that the Colonists were reported to be suffering hardships, as many of them were living in tents, but he did not report that they were in a state of destitution. These persons were from the Transvaal, the Orange River Colony, and the Cape Colony, but most of them apparently from the Cape Colony. One of the chief causes is said to be dissatisfaction with the local conditions of South Africa, economic and social. The leading Dutch paper published in the Cape Colony, Our Land, has dissuaded people from going, but without complete success.