South Africa

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8155, 4 April 1906, Page 6

South Africa

Discussion in the House of Commons. ;V Wildlanguage.

(By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) {For Press Association.)

LONDON, April 3. In tho House of Commons,Mr Ram»ay Mac Donald moved tho adjournment as a protest against the administration of martial law in Natal, and its grave and imminent danger to tho natives. He insisted that a Court composed of military men was of necessity biassed, and it was unfair to make martial law retrospective. Tho natives ought to have been tried under civil law. They had been executed on tho grounds which might not have been accounted adequate in England. He warned the Government that tho passing of the Bill would not be a mere formality. Mr Churchill insisted that tho Government's policy throughout had been to supporc and trust the Natal Government. They had been careful not to infringe the enormous liberties perhaps too lightheartedly confided in a small white .community. No Colonial Secretary would have acted otherwise than Lord Elgin had done. Mr Winston Churchill continued that he did not accept the doctrine that the Government had no right to be consulted in such events. If the prisoners had been foreigners the objections of their governments to the trial by martial law would have been brought here. That shewed where the responsibility of the law existed. In the event of the Zulus rising, the colonists would rely on Britain to defend them. When further communication had satisfiod the Government that tho trial had been fair, Governor McCallum was informed that the matter must be settled locally. The Government's action had been correct and consistent with the inevitable, and quite unaffected by the resignation of the Natal Ministry which precipitated such a vehement assertion of independence as was hardly compatible with the constant appeals for the support of British troops. He rebuked Unionists for making party capital out of the incident.

There was a good deal of wild language over Mr Mac Donald's motion. Mr H. Myer protested against what he characterised as " these bloodthirsty murders."

Major Seely declared that if the House were asked to abandon to an autonomous colony everything it held dear, if it abandoned the principles of justice on which the Empire was founded, it would be better a thousand times that the Empire should be shattered.

Mr W. H. T/ong said the smallest suggestion that the colonies could not be trusted was bound to lead to dissatisfaction and mistrust of the Motherland.

= The motion was eventually with drawn.

An extraordinary hastily summoned meeting of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, prior to the execution, heard Mr E. G-. Jellicoe's application, on behalf of the twelve Zulus, for leave to appeal from the decision of the courtmartial.

Lords Loreburn, Halsbury, Davey, MacNaghton, James of Hereford, and Messrs John Atkinson and A. Wilßon were present.

Mr Jellicoe submitted that the c) < v itances were wholly illegal; that the military court was illegal and without jurisdiction; that no act of rebellion had been committed ; and that the civil law had not been interrupted. After consultation Lord Lorebum dis-

missed the petition, holding that it was

not an appeal from a court of ordinary jurisdiction, but against an act of the Executive who had proclaimed martial lave. Colonial courts were not asked to interfere* and apart from the question of jurisdiction any interposition directed by imperfect knowledge regarding a danger threatened or facts submitted to the courtmartial would be inconsistent with their Lordships'duty.