These are the main additional clauses introduced into the law which is now in force; the remaining are not so important and refer to minor requirements, which have been reintroduced from repealed ordinances.
To go back a little, an ordinance was passed in July, 1880, when Mr. Rose Innes was administrator, providing for the searching of natives and others employed in the various mines. Owing to the want of unanimity between the four mining boards, no action was taken under this act until Feb. 1883, when the various mines were inclosed with wire fencing, searching houses at different outlets built, and a staff of men engaged to act as searchers.
These remained until February, 1884, under the detective department, the expenditure falling upon the different mines, the half per cent. registration fee on exported diamonds and the proceeds of those captured defraying a portion. The searching officers when under the detective department were excessive in number and extravagantly paid. The number and expense was ridiculous, eighty (80) searchers were employed in the four mines, and the expense was nearly two thousand pounds per month, for which they were supposed to examine all persons, white or black, leaving the mines, but this was done so hurriedly that the inspection became a mere farce. In January, 1886, the chief of the detective department reporting on this department gave it as his decided opinion that it had no effect on the theft of diamonds, and advised its discontinuance. Since this was written, however, great improvement in this department has taken place under Major Maxwell.
I am able to give my readers some statistics comprising the searching and detective expense of the four mines which are interesting, showing the cost of the detective department for the first twenty-seven months after the promulgation of the act, and that of the searching department for twenty-two months after its inauguration:
| September, 1882, to November, 1884. | |||
| 1 | Registration Fees | £38,145 | 14s. 2d. |
| 3 | Detectives’ Salaries | 24,906 | 19s. 6d. |
| 2 | Captured Diamonds (sold) | 30,671 | 12s. 3d. |
| 4 | Cost of Trap Stones (net) | 4,011 | 8s. 7d. |
| 5 | Bonuses to traps | 2,130 | 9s. 0d. |
| March, 1883, to November, 1884. | |||
| 1 | Searching Department | £39,578 | 14s. 6d. |
I have good authority for stating that the value of the diamonds seized in searching amounted to less than £200. It will, however, be argued that “prevention is better than cure,” and that the searching was to prevent the abstraction of diamonds from the mines. This, however, it failed to do, it only altered the channel by which they passed from the elevated to the underground railway, or in other words, from the pockets of the Kafirs to their stomachs.[[45]] In February, 1885, the various mining boards took the searching arrangements under their own supervision, and retrenchment is now the order of the day.
When Act 48 of 1882 was before the Cape assembly, its provisions were minutely discussed. Being at that time one of the members for Kimberley, I had the opportunity of bringing my influence to bear. I did not oppose exemplary penalties being enacted for this increasing crime, but I decidedly objected, and in this I was supported by Mr. Saul Solomon, to flogging being inflicted for what was not a crime against the person but against property. I was so far successful that such brutal ideas were expunged from the act. Mr. Scanlan (now Sir T. Scanlan), who was then premier, kindly assisted me, though I was at the time in opposition, in passing through the house the “ticket of leave” system, which I introduced into the second clause. In getting this inserted, I acted on the assurance of some diggers, and these, too, the most determined to stamp out I. D. B., that the object of their wish for increased length of punishment was not revenge for the loss that they had sustained (for which motive they were credited by many), but a desire to rid the place, for as long a period as possible, of men who were reducing Griqualand West simply to a hot-bed of thieves.
I should not be giving my readers an idea of all the legal machinery brought to bear in order to root out and bring to justice this class of criminal if I were to omit a description of the trapping system as now in vogue. The detective department is one entailing immense responsibility on its chief. When it is remembered that “the thief, the robber, the assassin, the harlot, the murderer, and every other conceivable criminal flourishes” on this sneaking crime, it may be asked, seeing none are trapped but those who are well known to be in “the trade,” why the parrot cry of its un-English-like character is raised by many against so necessary a routine.
The detective service consists of a chief, about twenty-five natives, chosen for their shrewdness, nine white men, known to the public as detectives, and several engaged on special secret service. These officers are all well paid, not only to secure the services of reliable men, but to compensate them for the risk they run, though as a rule, the diamond thief is the veriest of cowards.
When a man is daily seen drinking, gambling and riotously living, without any visible means of subsistence, when his character can be gauged by the company that he keeps, and the detective department receives private information, that man is trapped; but not before he has bought three times do the detectives “run him in.”