AFRICAN CHIEF

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22713, 28 October 1935, Page 14

AFRICAN CHIEF

PETITION DISALLOWED The petition addressed to the King by Chief Tshekcdi, of Bechnanaland. on recent proclamations by Sir Herbert Stanley, British High Commissioner in South Africa, has boon disallowed on the advice of the Secretary of State for the Dominions, says the Daily Telegraph. Tilt; proclamations issued by Sir Herbert Stanley defined the rights of the natives and instituted a new judicial system. Tshekedi’s petition set out the position of Bechnanaland at great length, emphasising that the Order-in-Council of 1885, proclaiming a protectorate over Bechnanaland, assured to the natives the retention of their laws and customs and freedom in the control of their own affairs. Tshekcdi assorted that after 50 years of protectorate rule the two now proclamations took away their separate jurisdiction, and he submitted that they were a “ breach of the treaty agreements made between the late Queen Victoria’s Ministers and our fathers.” The system of native administration, lie declared, and the native judicial system of Bechnanaland, although intricate to the white man, were completely familiar to the natives. Moreover, they worked efficiently and equitably and were in their way more democratic than the English system. The petition also urged the transference of the administration of Bechnanaland back to the Colonial Office from the Dominions Office. Chief Tshekcdi was deposed in 1933 by Vice-admiral Sir Edward R. G. R. Evans (“Evans of the Broke”), the Acting High Commissioner, for having ordered a white man to be Hogged. He was reinstated later, on' conditions.