The Swazi Submission.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5212, 20 March 1895, Page 2

The Swazi Submission.

Sy cable we learn that* the threatened ! trouble in Swaziland haa passed over. ! The President of tho Tranßvaal took ! a brutally candid course. He sum- ■ moned the king of the Swazis to j come in and be duly recognised, and' sworn in as " paramount chief," warning him that if he failed to do so within, a ; Bet time, bis claim to sovereignty would bo ignored. The youug man who calls ' himself king of the Swazis, knowing that the alternative was a war of Bubjugation, expatriation, or extermination, stepped down and accepted the Boer conditions. His country has passed under a Boer "protectorate" — surely a cruel mockery of language — and he himself becomes a monarch of the Tawhiao type. It ■ appears that he never had any valid claim to kingship. There was no direct heir to the Crown, and a claim was made on behalf of a half-brother of the lately deceased Queen, After a good deal of negotiation and discuesion he was declared King of the Swazia, but many of his dusky subjects looked upon him as a usurper and openly ridiculed his pretensions. Two natives were, according to a Cape newspaper, recently shot by him for jeering at him in public and pointing thefr assegais at hitn. Such ia the interesting "infant" on whose behalf the Swazi delegates a few months ago made such a pathetic personal appeal to Queen Victoria. His country will become " civilised " sftter a good deal of tyranny and oppression have been expended upon it, but England will hold herself blameleEs, and will cast all the odium upon those dreadful Boere. "Free development of English influence in the Transvaal is the return expected for giving a free hand to the Boers in Swaziland. The English, the Boers aud the natives of South Africa represent the ape, the cat and the chestnuts in tha fable. England makes use of the Boers to subjugate a country, and then steps in, pushes the Boers out, and reaps the fruits of their labours. •In the present instance we may rejoice that the cat is not likely to get its paw burned, and will not maul and lacerate the chestnuts.