CHARLES LEONARD,
Chairman of the Transvaal National Union.
APPENDIX K.
THE CASE OF THE CHIEFTAINESS TOEREMETSJANI
On the reports which have appeared the case or cases of Toeremetsjani v. P.A. Cronjé, Jesaja v. P.A. Cronjé and D.J. Schoeman, Segole v. P.A. Cronjé and J.A. Erasmus, have attracted, as well they might, a good deal of attention. The following résumé and commentary were compiled by a legal gentleman who was present during the trial, but not professionally employed in it.
The facts revealed in the evidence (writes our correspondent) speak pretty well for themselves, but they were brought out into lurid prominence in the cross-examination of Commandant Cronjé by Mr. Justice Jorissen. In order to make the case quite clear, it is as well to state for the benefit of those who are not intimately acquainted with things in the Transvaal that this Mr. Cronjé, who is now the Superintendent-General of Natives, is the same Cronjé concerning whose action in regard to Jameson's surrender there was so much discussion. After the Jameson Raid, President Kruger, pursuing his policy of packing the Executive with his own friends, decided to put Cronjé upon the Executive, for which purpose he induced General Joubert to resign his position as Superintendent-General of Natives. The President's intention becoming known to Raad members, the strongest possible objection was expressed to this course as being wholly unconstitutional and in direct conflict with the Grondwet; the President in the first place having no right to add to the number of Executive members and no authority for appointing any person to fill a vacancy if there were one. Notice of motion was promptly given in the Raad to instruct the Executive not to take the proposed course, as the Raad felt that the privilege and power of appointing members on the Executive rested with them alone. Twenty-four hours' notice was requisite to bring a matter up for discussion before the Raad. President Kruger hearing that notice had been given promptly called a meeting of the Executive and appointed Mr. Cronjé in defiance of the notice of motion, so that when the motion came on for discussion on the following day he replied to the Raad's instruction that it was too late to discuss the matter, the appointment having been made. Mr. Cronjé, therefore, appears on the scene on this occasion without much to prejudice the unbiassed reader in his favour. The circumstances of the surrender of the Potchefstroom garrison, which was secured by treacherously suppressing the news of the armistice between the two forces (a treachery for which public reparation was afterwards exacted by Sir Evelyn Wood), the treatment of certain prisoners of war (compelled to work for the Boers exposed to the fire and being shot down by their own friends in the garrison), the summary execution of other prisoners, the refusal to allow certain of the women to leave the British garrison, resulting in the death of at least one, are matters which although sixteen years old are quite fresh in the memory of the people in the Transvaal. The condition of Dr. Jameson's surrender revived the feeling that Mr. Cronjé has need to do something remarkable in another direction in order to encourage that confidence in him as an impartial and fair-minded man which his past career unfortunately does not warrant. Commandant Trichard, mentioned in this connection as a witness, was one of the commandants who refused to confirm the terms accorded by Cronjé to Jameson. Mr. Abel Erasmus is a gentleman so notorious that it would be quite unnecessary to further describe him. He is the one whom Lord Wolseley described as a fiend in human form, and threatened to "hang as high as Haman." Abel Erasmus is the man who had desolated the Lydenburg district; the hero of the cave affair in which men, women, and children were closed up in a cave and burnt to death or suffocated; a man who is the living terror of a whole countryside, the mere mention of whose name is sufficient to cow any native. Mr. Schoeman is the understudy of Abel Erasmus, and is the hero of the satchel case, in which an unfortunate native was flogged well-nigh to death and tortured in order to wring evidence from him who, it was afterwards discovered, knew absolutely nothing about the affair. The Queen, or Chieftainess, Toeremetsjani, is the present head of the Secocoeni tribe and the head wife of the late chief, Secocoeni. This tribe, it will be remembered, was the one which successfully resisted the Boers under President Burger and Commandant Paul Kruger—a successful resistance which was one of the troubles leading directly to the abortive annexation of the Transvaal. The Secocoeni tribe were afterwards conquered by British troops, and handed over to the tender mercies of the Boer Government upon the restoration of its independence.
It is necessary to bear these facts in mind in order to realise the hideous significance of the unvarnished tale.
Now to the trial.
Mr. Advocate WESSELS, who acted for the natives, gauging pretty accurately what the defence would be, called two witnesses to prove the prima facie case. Jesaja, one of the indunas flogged, whose case was first on the roll, proved that he was flogged by order of Commandant Cronjé without any form of trial, and without any charge or indictment being made against him, and that he received twenty-six lashes, the extra one being given because he declined to say 'Thank you' for the twenty-five. Commandant Trichard next gave evidence, and from him Mr. WESSELS elicited that Cronjé had gone through no form of trial, but handed over Jesaja and the other twelve indunas to be flogged by Erasmus and Schoeman.
Advocate: Do you positively swear that Commandant Cronjé specified the sentence of twenty-five lashes each?