4. There should be a fine of 100 Pounds or six months' hard labour on any farmer who provides the Native with a shelter while he is waiting for this disappointing reply to his application (Sect. 5 Nat. Land Act).
5. Native tenants to be hounded out of the Government farms long before the segregation takes place and that white people, who are not debarred from buying or leasing land for themselves, be settled thereon at Government expense. (See magisterial notice above.)
If Mr. Harcourt has been told by any one that the Lagden Commission recommended any of these pitiless iniquities, then we are afraid that his informer is a romancer of the superlative degree. The Lagden report was never discussed in any South African legislature, much less adopted by any Parliament in South Africa; indeed, it is detested because it recommended a Native Franchise for South Africa like the Maori Franchise of New Zealand.
One member of Parliament (Mr. Joynson-Hicks) said South Africa was a Home Rule country and he wondered what would happen if after Home Rule had been granted to Ireland some one asked the Imperial Parliament to interfere with Irish legislation.
We wonder who could have told this hon. Member that there was Home Rule in South Africa! There used to be Home Rule in the Cape Colony alone, but this has been swamped by the Act of Union, which has since established an oligarchic Government throughout the country. And if by Home Rule to Ireland it is intended to give the franchise to a selfish, greedy and tyrannical few; and give carte blanche to this few, telling them thereby to do what they wish with the rest of the population of Ireland, and telling them further that they will be accountable to nobody for any good legislation that they might enact on the one hand, or any maladministration that they might perform on the other hand as is the case in South Africa — if that be what is meant by Home Rule for Ireland, then God have mercy on the Irish.
When the reply of Mr. Harcourt was published in South Africa, supporters of this cruel law bubbled over with joy concerning it. One Dutch writer, after saying in a Dutch journal some very fine things about Mr. Harcourt, wound up a high-sounding eulogy by congratulating South Africa on having such a good Colonial Secretary at Downing Street. "Had Mr. Harcourt's predecessors been like him," said this writer to his readers, "South Africa would have been saved many tears." We doubt if Mr. Harcourt, the object of this appreciation, would feel flattered by it if he knew that all the black victims of this cruel law, and all their European sympathizers, stood firmly by the Imperial Government and by the Colonial Government in the present struggle, while the gentleman at whose instance it was introduced in Parliament, as well as the Dutch editor of the journal alluded to, are at present (May 1915) committed for trial on charges of high treason; and the proprietor of another Dutch journal, in which we read similar vaunting adulations of Mr. Harcourt, was fined 60 Pounds (so his paper says) for alleged complicity in the recent rebellion. These facts should impel the Rt. Hon. the Colonial Secretary to stop, look round and inquire "who's who" among his South African admirers.
Two members of the South African Parliament — Senator T. L. Schreiner and Mr. Wilcocks, M.L.A. — the former an opponent and the latter a supporter of the Natives' Land Act, recently discussed the Act from separate points of view; and both came to the conclusion that the measure was designed to keep the blacks in subjection. This conclusion is in harmony with the bitter experiences of the native races since this Act was enforced. Yet in the face of this unanimous testimony of different observers, Mr. Harcourt equivocates behind the irrelevant "assurances of General Botha" about a possible segregation, which question is not now before the country. Assurances on segregation only serve to confound the issue. If the Beaumont commission, or its successor, should ever report then the question of segregation may come before Parliament some time in 1926. The point before the country now is not segregation, but the Natives' Land Act of 1913, which is now scattering the Natives about the country. That is the measure against which the Native appeals for Imperial protection. Not the future segregation.
The only serious objection with which Mr. Harcourt apparently was able to charge the native deputation, and one which the Natives do not deny, is that they came to England against the "entreaties of Lord Gladstone" (who previously had twice refused to see them), and against the "advice of General Botha", by whose Cabinet the measure was enacted and enforced.
It is a pity that Mr. Harcourt did not at the same time tell the House of an authentic case where an aggrieved party ever sued for redress with the consent and advice of his oppressor. In this connexion, the scope of our reading being limited, our ignorance is possibly abysmal; but it must be confessed that we have never heard of such an interesting appellant and we are inclined to believe that there never has been one.
If General Botha wished to tell the whole truth, instead of making vague assurances to Mr. Harcourt, he would say: "I foresaw all the difficulties under which the Natives are suffering; and when Mr. Grobler proposed the summary stoppage of the sale and lease of land to Natives before the areas are segregated, I warned the House against this trouble, but the Hertzogites being too much for me I had to give in." Gen. Botha could go further and say to Mr. Harcourt: "If you will turn up page 579 of the South African Hansard (first column) reading from the top of the page, you will find my warning in these words: —