SOUTH AFRICA.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9186, 25 July 1902, Page 2

SOUTH AFRICA.

HJleotrio Telegraph -Copyright—United Press Association. LONDON, July 24. The King -has approved of the appointment of Lord Chief Justice Alveretone, Justice Bigham, and Major-Gen-eral Sir John Andar, as a Royal Commission, with Mr Gilbert'Mellor, barrister, as secretary, to inquire into the • court-martial sentences passed while martial law was in operation in South Africa, and report as to tlie expediency of a reduction or remission of the sentences. Mr Killner, Mayor of Bloemfontein in 1900, 'being interviewed in Berlin, eulogised the British conduct of the war, the deep concern of the officers over the earlier mortality in the concentration camps, and the efforts to improve sanitation. He addded : "Annexation assures ■ freedom, progress and prosperity." CAPETOWN, July 24. General Botha, at Capetown, in thanking the Afrikanders at a. reception given him in the hall of the. Dutch Reform Church, urged the necessity of co-opera- ; tion, as Africa was the only country they i could call "home." De la Rey declared that the Boers had buried their Mausers and flag, but not their traditions. Many Englishmen were present at the reception. (Received .July 26, 9.7 a.m.) LONDON, July 24. The Royal clemency, in judicially revising the labels' unexpired sentences and fines still unpaid, is unanimously praised as a further step towards the pacification of South Africa.

The Tunes' Johannesburg correspondent suggests the utilising of transports in bringing one hundred thousand unskilled English labourers to the Hand free of passage, inasmuch as initial experiments with whits .labour have convinced mine managers of its success.