§ MR. ASHLEYI bog to ask the President of the Board of Trade in view of the fact that certain Native labour rules, approved by him on his own responsibility when visiting the British East African Protectorate, were condemned at a large meeting of colonists on 24th March; whether he was authorised by the Secretary of State before leaving England to sanction regulations or do other acts affecting the general policy or expenditure of the Protectorate without reference Home.
§ MR. CHURCHILLThe promulgation of rules for the treatment of Native labourers is fully within the competence of the Governor of East Africa. During my visit to that Protectorate I had the opportunity of discussing with the Governor and his officers the conditions under which Native labour should be recruited and regulated, and His Excellency saw fit to embody the result of these conversations, and of minutes which I had written upon them in a series of rules designed to secure native labourers recruited for private employers by Government agency protection against neglect or ill usage, and generally to enforce a greater respect for their rights and a more intimate study of their needs. I afterwards expressed my entire agreement with the Governor in the course he had adopted. This procedure was regular in every respect. The phrase employed by the hon. Gentleman "condemned at a large meeting of colonists" is inaccurate and misleading. Less than 150 persons were present at the meeting. There are upwards of 4,000,000 natives in the administered districts of the East African Protectorate.
§ MR. ASHLEYwas understood to ask if the meeting of colonists was not a very large one.
§ MR. CHURCHILLIt may have been large for Nairobi, but certainly it was not large when compared with the number of settlers concerned.