A Century of Wrong

by Jan Christiaan Smuts

As a result of the continual agitation of the South African League, three occurrences were selected and elevated by Mr. Chamberlain into culminating instances of the Uitlander grievances. To give the world a clear insight into the nature of the grievances in general, extracts are given from the official accounts both of the British and the Republican account of these occurrences. There were three—the "Lombard affair," with reference to the maltreatment of coloured British subjects at Johannesburg; the "Edgar case," in connection with the shooting of an English subject by a police official; and the "Amphitheatre occurrence," in regard to a disorderly meeting of the South African League.

a. The Lombard Incident.

With regard to the "Lombard incident," Mr. Chamberlain says:—[43] "As an instance of such arbitrary action the recent maltreatment of coloured British subjects by Field Cornet Lombard may be cited. This official entered the houses of various coloured persons without a warrant at night, dragged them from their beds, and arrested them for being without a pass. The persons so arrested were treated with much cruelty, and it is even alleged that one woman was prematurely confined, and a child subsequently died from the consequences of the fright and exposure. Men were beaten and kicked by the orders of the Field Cornet, who appears to have exercised his authority with the most cowardly brutality. The Government of the Republic, being pressed to take action, suspended the Field Cornet, and an enquiry was held, at which he and the police denied most of the allegations of violence; but the other facts were not disputed, and no independent evidence was called for the defence. The Government have since reinstated Lombard.

"Unfortunately this case is by no means unparalleled. Other British subjects, including several from St. Helena and Mauritius, have been arbitrarily arrested, and some of them have been fined, without having been heard in their own defence, under a law which does not even profess to have any application to persons from those Colonies.

"However long-suffering Her Majesty's Government may be in their anxious desire to remain on friendly terms with the South African Republic, it must be evident that a continuance of incidents of this kind, followed by no redress, may well become intolerable."

The answer of the Government of the South African Republic was as follows:—[44] "With reference to the Lombard case, this Government wishes to point out that no complaint was lodged with any official in this Republic for a full month after the illtreatment of Cape coloured people was alleged to have taken place, and that neither the Government nor the public was aware that anything had taken place. The whole case was so insignificant that some of the people who were alleged to have been illtreated declared, under oath, at a later period before a court of investigation that they would never have made any complaint on their own initiative. What happened, however?

"About a month after the occurrence the South African League came to hear of it; some of its officials sent round to collect evidence from the parties who were alleged to have been illtreated, and some sworn declarations were obtained by the help of Her Majesty's Vice-Consul at Johannesburg (between whom and this League a continual and conspicuous co-operation has existed). Even then no charge was lodged against the implicated officials with the judicial authorities of the country, but the case was put in the hands of the Acting British Agent at Pretoria.

"When the allegations were brought under the notice of this Government, they at once appointed a commission of enquiry, consisting of three members, namely, Landdrost Van der Berg, of Johannesburg, Mr. Andries Stockenstrom, barrister-at-law, of the Middle Temple, head of the Criminal Section of the State Attorney's Department, and Mr. Van der Merwe, Mining Commissioner, of Johannesburg; gentlemen against whose ability and impartiality the Uitlander population of the Republic have never harboured the slightest suspicion, and with whose appointment the Acting British Agent also expressed his entire satisfaction. The instructions given to those officials were to thoroughly investigate the whole case, and to report the result to the Government; and they fulfilled these instructions by sitting for days at a time, carefully hearing and sifting the evidence of both sides. Every right-minded person readily acknowledges that far greater weight ought to be attached to the finding of this Commission than to the declarations of the complainants, who contradicted one another in nearly every particular, and who caused the whole enquiry to degenerate into a farce."

"According to the report, nothing was proved as to the so-called illtreatment; the special instances of alleged illtreatment turned out to be purely imaginary; but it was clearly proved and found that the complainants had acted contrary to law, and the Commission only expressed disapproval of the fact that the arrests and the investigation had taken place at night, and without a proper warrant. It fills this Government with all the greater regret to observe that Her Majesty's Government bases its charges on ex parte, groundless, and, in many respects, false declarations of complainants who have been set in motion by political hatred, and that it silently ignores the report of the Commission."

b. The Edgar Case.