BOERS AND BRITON.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3583, 7 March 1914, Page 10

BOERS AND BRITON.

“ANOTHER DUTCH REPUBLIC.” LIKE UNDER MARTIAL LAW. ENGLISH TREATED LIKE DOGS. ADELAIDE, Feb. 23. The steamer Berrima, which arrived at the outer harbor yesterday, brought to Australia 120 people from South Africa, the majority of them being miners and railway men and their families, who left Johannesburg after tli e strike. On the way over they formed a committee to draw up ' a statement for publication regarding recent events on the Rand, and they will also get in touch with Trades Hall parties in order to place their side of the case ,before them. The men are very bitter at the treatment they received, and say they left by the first train after martial law ended, and that they are so sick of South African rule that they left their homes and hunt their furniture. Speaking to a representative of the

“Sun,” members of the committee said : “We were absolutely driven out of the country owing to the rule of the Dutch, and we decided that British rule is absolutely a farce so far as South Africa is concerned. There is no longer any British rule in the country. Britishers are not wanted, and the fact that General Botha supplied the Dutch people with arms is an indication that he means to proclaim a republic in the near Future. Briton s are treated far worse now than before the Boer War. They have been driven out of the streets to their homes by the sjambok and at the point of the bayonet.

“At the Premier diamond mine there were 900 whites and 17,000 kaffirs. Sixty w rivea were arrested and escorted by 500 Boers right through all the kaffirs, this being done to humiliate them, and to show the kaffirs that the Bocr s were masters or the British. Men were kicked off the streets with any provocation, and put in gaol without trial. The deported men had no trial. They were picked out before the strike started. The strike was not due to them, because a ballot was taken, and the men decided it—not the leaders —and yet the latter were taken away at dead of night. There was martial law, and censoring of newspapers, and we could not send telephone messages, telegrams, or cablegrams without being arrested. But the men never raised a hand. It was a passive strike. Our instructions were not to do anything except cease work. The railway men struck against a scheme of retrenchment when the authorities indicated a reduction in wages. The miners came out for selfpreservation, because if the railway men lost the miners would be reduced also. Forty men left the Premier mine, 'where they were getting £1 a shift with 58 hours a week. Other men were then taken oil 16s Bd, and there was a scheme to get a general reduction throughout South Africa. The railway and the mine-owners were in league with the Government.

“When 433 men struck at the Premier Mine they were given their discharges in five hours. The men could not get the position explained to the people, as only two newspapers were published one of which went to the East Rand and the other to the West. The one an the cast said there was no trouble in the west, and the one in the west said there was no trouble in the east.” The returned Australians view with alarm tlie mobilisation of the Boers, and say this was the third time there had been martial law since responsible government. All the people wanted was freedom of speech. Six hundred burghers went into the towns three weeks before the strike on an excuse that there was danger of a kaffir rising;’ but the real object of General Botha was to arm the Dutch burghers of whom there are 60,000 in South Africa. Each one that came in was given the latest type of rifle, a bandolier, 30 rounds of ammunition, and a new saddle. When they took charge many of the burghers were in rags and bootless, and many of the Australians alluded to them as “a lot of vermin.”

They say Britons were hounded out of the streets by men whom they had beaten in the war, and were imprisoned in kaffir cells; even young lads were thrashed; the red flag, and even the wearing of a red flower, were prohibited ; everyone had to have a permit to leave any district; but tlie Boers were so ignorant that they were deceived by dog licenses, which they accepted as passes.”