IsiXhosa Intellectual Traditions (IsiXIT) Digital Archive

WE learn from the Frontier Guardian, printed at Dordrecht, that steps will soon be taken to start a branch of the Empire League in the Tembu Location, and many hundreds of Natives are expected to join as members. In regard to the furtherance of the objects of the Empire League among the Natives, Mr. Advocate Innes, M.L.A., who had been communicated with, writes, ' With regard to these objects I will only say this,—that I can imagine no class of men more interested in strengthening British influence in this Colony than the Natives of South Africa, and I hope to see many Native members joining the League.' All moderate men cannot but agree with the learned gentle¬ man. WE are glad to find that the eyes of the trading community are beginning to be opened to the fact that Natives are deter- mined not to rest satisfied with the articles of trade which are generally known as ' Kafir Truck,' but that they are ever going in for such things as are required by enlightened people. A correspondent of the Dispatch in Tembuland informs the merchants that 'the Natives are improv- ing. I have an order to execute for wall paper and lace curtains, and also a double bedstead. If they go on like this you will soon have to open a branch up this way.' We may supplement this information by saying the Natives are going on, it only remains that the merchants should take them into their confidence. IN reply to the strictures on Native Interpreters which appeared in our last, the Free Press writes:—' The experience here has been that in many instances the native interpreter has given a wrong in- terpretation with the view of wilfully misleading. Apart from this there are few natives sufficiently educated in Eng- lish to give a correct interpretation either from Kafir to English or vice versa. It is far more important that a fair and un- garbled statement should reach the magis- trate through a white interpreter than ! that the delicacies of the Kafir language should be incorrectly explained by a native who is possibly playing into the hands of the prisoner—or favouring one side at the expense of the other. There is again a political danger in admitting i natives as interpreters. Were they all I like Tiyo Soga, C. Palma, or John Tengo- , Jabavu we should have nothing to say upon the subject, but unfortunately there is another side to the picture. Take Middle Drift Court fox instance with Edmund Sandili as the interpreter and his treachery in the Amatolas. Or nearer home still. A few years ago, there tvas attached to the King William s Town Magistrate's Court as interpreter a certain Umahalah, and during the war of B78-9 this precious scoundrel was found in- triguing with the rebels and was hunted out by the police. We had a similar case in Queen's Town. A man hailing from Kamastone, and acting as native in¬terpreter, was detected intriguing with Stock Charley by Mr. Hemming, now Resident Magistrate at King William's Town, but then Resident Magistrate at Queen's Town. Had it not been for Mr. Hemming's prompt action, the plausible vagabond would have done more mischief than he did. Naturally after these experiments we object to the employment of natives who may be loyal under' ordinary circumstances, but who are not to be trusted too lightly in times of disturbance. Queen's Town is too near the borders of possible hot bods of rebellion to trust secrets, which must inevitably leak out in every office, in the hands of semi-educated natives. We do not for one moment attribute every virtue to the white man but we would much prefer seeing these responsible posts tilled by men who have no interest to serve in misleading the Court, or who in times of temptation and disturbance might be led to betray the workings of the offices in which they are employed.' NOT in the least unconscious of the ' soft sawder' that our gentle contemporary sprinkles upon the guiding spirit of this journal and two others of his countrymen, we venture to ask the Free Press whether it seriously thinks the discussion worth continuing at all if the only competent natives that education and Christianity has ever produced are the three individuals mentioned in its article ? then, the Free Press does not look at the ability of the interpreter, but on political considerations which are at present, we are happy to say, imaginary. What we are advocating is that competent men, who have passed a prescribed examination in the Kafir language, should do the interpreting so that justice may be meted out in its purity to the Kafir as well, We con- fess we can see no connection between Edmund Sandile's taking to the bush and interpreting at Middle Drift. As our Queen's Town contemporary has -wandered out of his way to introduce Mr. Nathanael Cyrill Umhalla into this ques- tion, and made use of foul language res- pecting him, we cannot do better than quote Sir Bartle Frere, against whom no charge of negrophilism can fairly be made, respecting the incident on which the Free Press professes to speak with authority. Said the late Governor : ' Nathaniel Um- halla, a cousin of Sandilli's, was a man of very different stamp [from Edmund San- dile. He inherited considerable in- tellectual ability from his father, the in- triguing and ' influential chief of the Dlambe's in former Kafir wars and cattle killing. He had received a very good education, and was interpreter in the Court of the Civil Commissioner and Resi- dent Magistrate of King William's Town, an ill-paid office of great responsibility. When his half brother, MacKinnon Umhalla, refused to go back into Gcaleka- land with Mapassa and fled into the Gaika location, Nathaniel went into the bush to endeavour to bring him back [the italics are our own, and his letters, of one of which a copy was enclosed in a former despatch on Mackinnon's proceedings, will show that his English education was more than superficial. Some of his tribe were implicated in the murder of the Messrs. Tainton, and some of Nathaniel's letters in Kafir were found in the bouse of the headman of a Location where some of the men suspected of being accomplices took refuge. There was apparently noth¬ing treasonable in the letters, though in speaking of the disturbances of the day he expressed himself rather as a Kafir chief than as a Government servant, but from that time Nathaniel became an object of suspicion to many of his former friends, and gave up his appointment.'