IsiXhosa Intellectual Traditions (IsiXIT) Digital Archive

THE East London Dispatch has the fol¬lowing about the destitution among the natives in its own division :—' Natives in hundreds are now in a state of semi-star-vation in this division. Mr. Sprigg is not yet aware, he says, of 'utter destitution. Well, that will be staved off to a very large extent as long as there is anything that can be pilfered from the substance of the European farmers. But is that a satisfactory or even tolerable state of things? We trow not, and the Govern¬ment is bound to hear more about it. It is now not worth the while of any man to prepare for the next crop of mealies, be¬cause he may be sure that he will never reap them. Thieves will do that for him, unless he is prepared to watch his lands with a gun in his hand every night for many weeks together.' MR. HARRY MTOMBENI, of Hackney, Queen's Town, made an application on the 25th June, to the Resident Magistrate of his division, to have himself enrolled as a Law Agent. He states as his reasons for the step, which, we observe, has at¬tracted a deal of notice throughout the Colony, that ' the natives of Whittlesea are under the disadvantage of not having legal practitioners among them, the con¬sequence of this being that when a native was obliged to bring a case into Court it cost him as much as £5, and sometimes even went as high as £10.' The Attorneys and Law Agents objected most strenuously to his enrolment. ' Some of the grounds of their objection are most amusing. For example, they say, ' So far as the appli¬cant is concerned we desire to express our disapproval of the admission of such a person whose presence in a Court of Law in the character ol a legal adviser and pleader will neither give dignity to the Court, nor be of a nature agreeable to the practitioners who have the honour to be under its control.' MR. E. GARCIA, R.M. and C.C. of Queen's Town, thus treated the applica¬tion :—' The 36th section, which says ' It shall and may be lawful for every court of resident magistrate to admit and enroll as agents so many persons of full age and good fame and character as it shall be desirable to so enroll, and shall pay the prescribed fee for such enrollment.' He should be very glad indeed to see educated respectable natives of good character take up the position which the applicant in the present instance was seeking to take up, for he could find no just ground in the mere fact of possessing a black skin to exclude such men from pursuing any profession or calling that their attainments and ability qualified them for. If a native became a civilized and orderly member of society why should he be debarred from entering a profession in the exercise of which so many of his white brethren make a living? He' was thoroughly convinced from the testimonials given 'him by the Rev. Mr. Jones and Mr. Jeffries that Mr. Mtombeni was a young man of excep¬tional good character. The only matter that he saw at all deserving of consider¬ation in deciding his case was the point raised both by Mr. Webb and Mr. Bell as to the changes that are about to be made by the legislature regarding the qualifica¬tions and terms upon which parties are to be permitted to practice as agents in the Magistrate's Court for the future. As this question would be settled in the course of a few weeks he considered that the Court would act wisely in adjourning the appli¬cation until the proposed changes had been effected. Then, if Mr. Mtombeni chose to again come forward and renew his application, he would be prepared to consider it upon its own merits. He wished applicant to understand that he was not rejected. His application was simply held over until he (court) saw what Parliament intended doing.' MR. GARCIA is one of the fairest and efficient Magistrates in the service of the Colony, who cannot be distrusted even in a case in which a black man may be at issue with a whiteman. We unreservedly accept his views in respect of the educated natives and learned professions. That he should, however, have yielded to the arguments of the opponents of Mr. Mtom¬beni in regard to changes likely to be made by the Legislature in the status of Law Agents, cannot but be regarded as an error of judgement. Our view is that Mr. Garcia ought to have administered the Parliamentary Statute before him, and not allowed himself to be led out of the true judicial path by what the Legislature was about to do. It is, we take it, for Parlia¬ment on finding that its necessarily slow action is being taken advantage of to hurry on so as to get rid of such attempts. If Mr. Garcia's reasoning in this case were sound, why don't the law officers in Cape Town deal with the diamond thieves, who are said to be carrying on a brisk trade under the very eyes of the members, simply because they know that a Bill is passing through the Houses ? Mr. Mtombeni, too, should be allowed to make hay while the sun shines. THIS matter opens up a wide practical question as to what fields educated Natives are to fill seeing that there is so much prejudice against them. The Somerset East Advertiser takes up this aspect of the question in the following :—' The Attorneys and Law Agents of Queen's Town are hardly to be complimented either on the good taste or the wisdom of their strong protest against the admission of a Native to practise there. We have the educated Native on hand, a pretty large stock, and if he is not allowed some lawful and suitable field in which to exercise his polished, or partly polished energies, he will transfer them to a suit-able and unlawful one.' WE are asked to put in the following:— Tembuland, June 22nd, 1885. SIR,—Your paper of the 10th of June pub¬lished a resolution of the Tembu teachers passed at their meeting on the 28th of March, and also a letter acknowledging the same from the General Superintendent of Education. The remark which you made that the said teachers' meeting was interfering with Dr. Dale's duties, and dictating to him what he ought to do is misleading and altogether uncalled for. Surely teachers can make known their grievances to Dr. Dale without it being said they were dictating to him—and that we have a grievance I still maintain. For it ia well known that there is a great difference of opinion as to the best way of educating the Natives, and Inspectors, being like other men, must have their own opinions, and naturally lean one way or the other. For example, one Inspector visits the school, and although he may say nothing directly, yet it is evident he looks more to English teaching in the school. Another one comes, and if he finds the children are not well up in Kafir reading, &c., he finds fault, and the children don't even get their full number of marks. Now, I say this is not fair to the teachers and can be avoided by the appointment of the same Inspector from year to year. My belief and hope is that Dr. Dale will never discourage teachers from expressing their opinions as regards the work in which they are engaged.—D. THOS. MALASI. WE are still of opinion the teachers assumed a dictatorial attitude in binding Dr. Dale to sending them one and the same Inspector. Reasoning on the same premises that Mr. Malasi has advanced we come to the conclusion that the teachers should have, for their own good, avoided even the appearance of tampering with the inspectorate. They should, how¬ever, have asked Dr. Dale to fix the standards in the subjects in which teachers and Inspectors came into collision. Mr. Malasi may not know that to outsiders this covenanting about Inspectors suggests the impression that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. THE Cape Town Evening Express re¬cords the following opinion in regard to Mr. Advocate Rose-Innes, Senior Member for Victoria East; and no doubt his very many friends among the natives will be pleased to hear it. THE ' KNOBKERRIE.'—An excellent num- her thia week, and a capital subject for its portrait gallery is Mr. Innes, M.L.A. The artists has caught his expression to a line— that intensity of demeanour which ever characterises earnest men, and which is so marked in one of the ablest lawyers and deservedly popular member of Parliament in the colony. A CORRESPONDENT sends us the follow - lowing in regard to the Transkeian Repre-sentation Bill:— DEAR SIR,—As the Transkeian Bill is now before the House, I should like to say a few words about it. I have been living in Native territory for the last five years, and can assure you that there are lots of Natives in these territories who would like to vote for a Member of Parliament, and who will not be contented with voting for a Native Council. One educated Native suggested to me that if a poll-tax were levied on all residents in the Transkeian Territories who were possessed of a certain amount of pro¬perty and could speak English it would not only satisfy them, but would cause a good deal of emulation amongst others not so far advanced. Yours, &c., TRANSKEI. We do not personally believe in a poll- tax. To make English speaking a quali¬fication for the franchise would be unfair. THE South African Methodist remarks: 'We have often wondered that no attempt is made in this country to emeliorate the condition of the natives who are industrious and of good character. How much good might be effected, for example in our towns if there were a Native Help Society, in which Europeans as well as respectable natives would take an interest ? Such a Society would labour for the improvement of the condition of native dwellings, and offer inducements for cleanliness, cultivation, and good service. It would also supply a good character for deserving natives who wished to enter service; and once their system of registering characters was adopted, those who held such a testimonial would be eagerly sought after by masters and mistresses, while the rogues and slatterns who now plague us would find no occupation, and would have to depart. The Society could also act as a benefit, and a Temperance Association ; it might settle disputes and promote the interest of our poorer classes in many ways. The dying words of Judge Dalfourd, that the want of sympathy between rich and poor is the danger of society, were never truer than amongst us to-day.' This is a sensible suggestion, and coming from a Missionary journal is easy of putting into practice. It is still in the power of the Missionary, as it has been all along, to set the native's feet in whatsoever course he would have him go; and no more useful and practical question could the United Conference, about to assemble, take up and decide.