From the same telegram I learn that the measures which are now being taken to prevent desertions are proving effective. The roll-call of October 8—I am now quoting the immaculate Reuter—"showed 278 absentees, and during the following week 245 were captured and brought back to work. Last night," adds the correspondent, meaning the night of October 17, "nine coolies attempted to raid a homestead in the Krugersdoorp district. The farmer fired through a window, and shot one Chinaman dead; the others fled." I commend these statements, together with those quoted hereafter, to the earnest attention of the editor of a certain yellow-covered weekly journal, devoted to the interests of South Africa—the organ of the Rand lords in London—which persistently pooh-poohs the "yellow slavery" cry.
Meanwhile gangs of escaped Chinamen are wandering over the country spreading terror everywhere. The Boer farmer goes to bed at night in his lonely farmhouse on the veld as if he were still at war with Great Britain. Long hidden rifles are brought out from the hay-ricks and other hiding-places and got ready. Windows are boarded up, doors are double locked. Every preparation is made to warn off the ever expected attack of the yellow desperadoes.
At the beginning of October two homesteads in the Boksburg district were attacked by a party of Chinese, who attempted to gain an entrance by breaking in the back doors and windows. In both cases, however, the farmers had made every preparation for such an attack, and fired on the marauders, one of whom was wounded in the chest and another in the abdomen. The remainder made off.
A similar outrage occurred in the middle of November. A lonely farmhouse near Germiston, occupied by an Englishman and his wife, was attacked by a band of Chinese, who were armed with crowbars and stones. The farmer opened fire, seriously wounding one of the Chinamen in the jaw, and the rest decamped without entering. The injured man was captured, but the whereabouts and identity of the others were not discovered.
In Johannesburg the talk is of nothing but murders and assaults by gangs of ten or fourteen escaped labourers. House after house away on the veld has been broken into and looted, and the inhabitants murdered if they showed any signs of resistance; they have indeed in some cases been murdered without showing any sign of resistance at all.
Quite recently the Legislative Council of the Transvaal has re-amended for about the tenth time the Ordinance. It has proposed to offer £1 a head for the recapture of these yellow hooligans, an amendment which would have placed the very much-bepatched Ordinance on a level with the laws that prevailed in the Southern States of America before the abolition of slavery. It is charged, however, with that strange spirit of hypocrisy which has characterized all the proceedings of the Rand lords into a reimbursement to the capturer of his out-of-pocket expenses. This of course is only another way of offering £1 for every recaptured Chinaman, for it may be taken for granted that the capturer's expenses will always include the wear and tear of horseflesh and moral damages and other matters which can only be estimated in the abstract. According to the schedule of fees payable in respect of the capture of Chinese deserters, which was published early in October, they ranged from 1s. per mile for one or two arrests to 3s. for eight or more.
Here is a letter from another member of the South African Constabulary to his people at home which emphasizes the state of affairs which exist at present on the Rand.
"The Chinese have been causing a lot of trouble. There was a whole family murdered about a month ago. Several places have been broken into. Last Sunday there was a storekeeper murdered about ten miles from where I am staying. We have orders on no account to go out on patrol without a revolver. The people are seeking police protection, and are frightened out of their wits. I believe it is as much as a South African Constabulary man's life is worth to be seen at some places on the Rand in uniform. I am determined that if I meet any Chinamen, and they show fight, I will shoot the first one dead."
This is the spirit abroad—a spirit which every right-minded man must regard as the inevitable result of the criminal action of the Government in sanctioning the Chinese Labour Ordinance.
Here is another case which has never been reported in the press:—