AFRICANS AND CORONATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 71, 25 March 1937, Page 13

AFRICANS AND CORONATION

It was recently stated that no African chiefs had been'invited 'tp the Coronation, and the answer was made by the authorities that the precedent of King George V'S Coronation was being followed, and then' no African chiefs were asked. I understand a comprpmisej and a most, unsatisfactory one, is now under '•'consideration,' says a writer' in-the ""Manchester Guardian."

-It is being proppsed that the Legislative 'Cpuricils in ' thpse African territpries which have them should be allowed to' appoint two members, one a native, to attend'the Coronation. Btit there are no f(L'egisl^tive; Councils in trie Southern Protectorates—Bechuanaland, Basutoland, and Swaziland—nor in Uganda, so that the effect 'of this arrangement woiild still 'be to stop King' David of Uganda and the Protectorate' chiefs from coming' to the Coronation.' The matter is to be raised in Parliament, and the Government is likely to be asked whether all this reluctance to bring the African chiefs to London is not explained by the fact that the Union Government of South Africa is frowning on their coming; certainly that suspicion exists in some quarters here.

Pleading guilty to a fourth statutory offence of drunkenness, Albert Bowen, aged 55, a seaman, and' 'Henry' Barrett, aged 38, a butcher, were each sentenced to one month's imprisonment by Mr. W. F. Stilwell, S.M., in .the Magistrate's Court today. John Wynn, aged' GO, a boile'rmaker, was fined £1, in default fourteen day's' imprisonment, for a third statutory offence of drunkenness.