By the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Buxton, Mr. and Mrs. Cobden Unwin (in conjunction with Mrs. Saul Solomon), Lady Scott of Westminster, Mrs. S. J. Colenso of Amersham, and Mr. H. E. Wood, J.P., of Camberwell (the latter being a prelude to a successful meeting of the delegates with the Baptist Council of England), Sir Albert Spicer, M.P., and Lady Spicer, and Mr. and Mrs. Harris of Dulwich, receptions — some of them attended by English and Colonial guests — held at the residences of the friends named, were given in honour of the delegates.
== IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
Mr. P. ALDEN: I wish to bring to the notice of the right hon. Gentleman the question of the native lands in South Africa. I happen to have been responsible for a Resolution passed unanimously in this House previous to the passing of the Act of Union, and in the discussion which took place on that occasion the Under-Secretary of State to the Colonies laid it down as one of the duties of the Imperial Parliament to protect in every possible way the interests of the Natives in their land, and protect their rights and liberties in that respect. If we take away the land from the Native we take away his liberty. In reference to the Natives Land Act of 1913, I want to put two or three points before the right hon. Gentleman. In the Union of South Africa, blacks own about 4,500,000 morgen of land, and the whites own fourteen times as much land as the blacks, though, of course, they are very much smaller in number. The inequality is very noticeable in the Transvaal, where there are 300,000 whites holding 31,000,000 morgen of land, and the 1,000,000 Natives only have 500,000 morgen of land which they can call their own.
It has been said over and over again in South Africa that this law applies equally to Europeans and whites as well as to the Natives. There is, they say, no injustice. The European is estopped from this purchase of land, just as the Native is estopped. All I can say in answer to that is that the fallacy is shown the moment you begin to ask what land the Natives have to sell. The native areas are already overcrowded, and they positively have no land which they could sell. When once a Native leaves his farm or is evicted, or has to quit for any reason whatever, the Act does not allow him to purchase, hire or to lease anywhere else for farming purposes except from Natives, who have not the land to lease or to sell. He therefore must become a servant on the farm. There is absolutely nothing else for him to do but to become a servant. This Act has already produced very great hardships. It has produced hardships to the people who were under notice to quit at the time the Act was passed, to the people who have actually since then been evicted from their farms, to the Natives who were in search of land and who are wandering about with their families and stock and have nowhere to settle, and to the Natives who have had to leave their crops unreaped. There are many hundreds of such cases of hardship which have been inflicted under the Act which is being enforced on all sides. I do not wish to go into this question at very great length, because the right hon. Gentleman knows more about it than anybody in the House in all probability, and he knows the difficulties of the situation.
I want to put before him just one point with regard to what can be done. WE CALL OURSELVES THE PROTECTORS OF THE RIGHTS OF THE NATIVES, and we claim that we have always, in season and out of season, insisted that those rights should not be infringed, and that no action should be taken against their liberties. The Imperial Government cannot, of course, intervene in the sense of asking the Government of South Africa either to rescind an Act of Parliament or to amend an Act of Parliament, unless it is their own wish, but I must point out that Clauses 1, 4, and 5 do operate most harshly against the Native, and it might be possible, on the representation of the right hon. Gentleman, for the Prime Minister of South Africa to mitigate the hardships.
Mr. CAVE: The subject to which the hon. Member has referred is no doubt of importance, and no one can quarrel with the tone of the speech in which he has introduced it.
Sir ALBERT SPICER: I quite realize that in South Africa we have a self-governing country, and, therefore, one would be desirous to be very careful in what he said with regard to its administration and legislation. But this, at any rate, is the right place to express the views that are held by very large numbers of people in this country, who have devoted a good deal of time and money in doing what they can to educate and uplift the native races of South Africa. Those of us who know South Africa, are perfectly well aware that whilst it is now a country owned by the white races, it can only be properly and fully developed with the help of the native races, and the better educated they are, the better work they will be able to do for South Africa. This Native Lands Act was passed very hurriedly. Of course, we cannot blame South Africa for passing legislation hastily, seeing that we are accustomed sometimes to do the same thing in the Mother of Parliaments. Again, the appointment of the Commission, which is now inquiring into the subject and is taking evidence, is helping, I think, to produce injustice in some cases, so far as the Natives are concerned, because the introduction of the Lands Act has led farmers to take action to enforce their rights. They have terminated the rent-paying agreements of former tenants, and, knowing that these are precluded from making new agreements for the hire of land, they have either ejected them or have demanded from them three months' unpaid service per annum, which has had the indirect effect of reducing a free people to a condition of service. I could give instances of that from well authenticated sources. I will refer to one only. It is the case of a chief and his people living on land which they and their fathers have dwelt upon for eight generations. The farm was recently purchased by a farmer resident in another province. He decided to terminate the rent-paying conditions previously in existence between the former owner and the Natives, and to substitute labour conditions, under which even the chief, an old man, has been required to give service. The people were called upon to quit their houses, square buildings, timbered and thatched, and in connexion with this the owner gave less than one month's notice in the following terms: —
"This is to notify I can let you have the school building no longer. I bought the farm and wish to receive the same at the end of your school quarter."
We desire to speak with all due respect of the self-governing Dominions of South Africa, but I think we may fairly ask the Colonial Secretary to help the Union Government to realize that there is a strong feeling in this country in favour of everything possible being done to secure just and reasonable treatment for the Natives. One may fairly ask the right hon. Gentleman to use all reasonable influence with the Union Government to secure for the Natives a fair quid pro quo for the loss of their former rights of land purchase, which would mean in some cases an extension of the native area, and if it were possible to suspend to some extent the operation of the Act until the Land Commission has reported. Having been connected with South Africa for a good many years, having travelled through it, and given a good deal of time to it, I desire to do what I can for the uplifting of the people of that country, and that is my reason for intervening in this Debate. ==
Other sympathizers, including the Member for Woolwich, rose in different parts of the House to support the foregoing appeal, but the Colonial Secretary stopped them by delivering his reply.