4. That for common crimes, the loss of property, all or a portion, should be substituted for the punishment of death.
25. Now these laws were formally proclaimed by Mr. Shepstone, who represented the British government in Natal, and proclaimed with the formal consent of Cetywayo, of the chief men of the nation, and of the natives then assembled. It was not done as a mere idle ceremony or form: it was not done in secret but in public; it was not done in the dark, but in the open day; it was not done in solitude, but at the royal kraal, in the presence and the hearing of the king, the chiefs and the assembled people. They were laws for the good government of the Zulu people. The subject of them had been carefully and deliberately discussed beforehand between the British representatives and Cetywayo and his councillors, and agreed upon, and then afterwards, in the hearing and presence of the people, the laws had been solemnly affirmed.
26. These laws for the well-being of the Zulu people were the conditions required by the British government, in return for the countenance and support given by it to the new Zulu king, by the presence of its representative, and by his taking part in the king’s coronation; and once spoken as they were, they cannot be broken without compromising the dignity, the good faith, and the honor of the British government.
27. The British government now asks, How has it been in this matter? Have the promises then made been kept? Have the laws which were then proclaimed been observed? Let the Zulu king answer!
28. There is but one answer. The king and people know very well that the promises have not been kept. They know that these laws have not been observed, but that they have been broken time after time, and that they are almost daily broken in the Zulu country. They know very well that the lives of hundreds of Zulu people, men, women, old and young, have been taken since that day without any trial at all, that the indiscriminate shedding of blood has not ceased, and that the killing of Zulu people has gone on as if no promise had ever been made, and no law ever proclaimed.
29. Hence it is that all Zulus live in fear to lose their lives any day. No man knows when he may be suddenly set upon and killed, and all belonging to him destroyed or taken away.
30. How can these things be? Were the words which were spoken at the coronation mere empty words, meaning nothing? The Zulu king knows that it is not so, and that it cannot be so. The British government in Natal did not want, and it did not ask, to take any part in the installation of Panda’s successor. It wished well to the Zulu country and the Zulu people, but for itself it wished for nothing, it asked for nothing. It was Cetywayo himself, it was the Zulu nation assembled together, that sent to the government to ask it to take part. Even then the government did not desire to take any part in what was being done, but it consented to do so, asking nothing for itself, but asking certain conditions for the good of the Zulu people.
31. The conditions which it asked were conditions for the protection of the lives of the Zulu people, that they might not be condemned and slain without trial, without knowing what their offence was, without cause, and without chance of justice. These were the laws proclaimed.
32. The British government cannot, then, allow that the words which were once spoken on its part should be empty words, or that the promises which were made to it, and for which it became the mouthpiece and the guarantee to the whole Zulu nation, should be treated as if they were mere idleness and empty sound. But for five years they have been so treated, and now it can be no longer so.
33. The promises have not been kept, and how is it possible they can be kept so long as the present system of government is maintained by the king?