SOUTH AFRICA

Otago Witness, Issue 3555, 2 May 1922, Page 18

SOUTH AFRICA

THE GOVERNMENT’S INTENTIONS. CAPETOWN, April 22. The Minister for the Interior announced in the Assembly that the Government intended to compensate persons engaged in military operations who were injured in the recent disturbances on the Rand; also to appoint a committee to deal with claims for injuries caused through military operations to property belonging to persons not concerned in the disturbances. After an all-night session the second reading of the Indemnity Bill was carried by 65 votes to 47. GENERAL SMUTS’S WARNING. CAPETOWN, April 23. In the Assembly, General Smuts, in replying to the Indemnity Bill debate, in a vigorous fighting speech, said that a commission was more necessary than ever, because, owing to the mine owners’ victory, there was a danger of the employers refusing to take account of the choice of organised Labour. The Government could not countenance tyranny on either side. While welcoming the fullest inquiry by the commission, he acknowledged that some irregularities were inevitable, such as those which the Opposition had exploited to the extreme, though the findings at the preliminary inquiries gainsaid the allegations. The Government did not attribute the blame for the upheaval to the Jews, and it did not intend to administer the immigration laws with any hostility towards Jewish immigrants. He expressed the greatest contempt for the Labour legislators who had led the strikers deeper into the mire, while Messrs Tielman and Roos were making the Nationalists a party of workers and peasants. The country should realise this danger. SENSATIONAL ALLEGATIONS. CAPETOWN, April 24. A sensational allegation of arson, torture, and slavery is being investigated by a Royal Commission under Sir Herbert Sololey in Bechuanaland. It is alleged that a number of warriors of KingKhama, the most powerful native chief in South Africa, raided a tribe who have been settled for 20 years on a strip of land near the Timpopo River. Tl le tribe had been ordered to leave, but refused. King Khama’s warriors attacked the tribe, captured a large number, and looted and burned villages. The captives were treated as slaves. The women were outraged and some of the men were torturect. This story is told by refugees who entered the Transvaal, hut it is not suggested that King Khama himself, who is a Christian chief, authorised the raid.