IsiXhosa Intellectual Traditions (IsiXIT) Digital Archive

A EUROPEAN friend of ours, and of whose friendship to the Natives we can assure our people, remarks in a private note: ' I am pleased at your calling on your countrymen to offer their assistance to the Imperial Government, and I only hope in their own interest they will do so. The people of England would appreciate such an offer and pay it back with interest. It must be besides remembered that the only protection the Natives can have under our present regime is from the Imperial Government and the people of England. I saw in a cutting from a Home paper, ' All the colonies have offered help except the Cape.' Would it not be a fine thing if this scandalous disgrace were wiped out by the Natives?' We are convinced for our parts that the Imperial Government would pay the Natives back with interest at par. OUR good contemporary, the Journal, may rest assured that we are very sensible of the remarks of Mr. Theron, M.L. A. for Richmond, who has been indiscreet enough to show the cloven foot in regard to what the Bondmen are aiming at so far as the Native people are concerned. We cull the following from the Journal:— ' ' It would be bad policy if Colonists,' (viz. Bondists) 'showed their cards in regard to what they intended doing with the natives before they were actually their masters.' So says Mr. Theron, M.L.A., the Bond Secretary; but we fancy the natives know what the Bond's cards are without any more showing. Imvo Zabantsundu can doubtless give a shrewd guess at the Bond's policy as to native lands, franchise, education, & tc., from the indiscreet revelations which Bondists have made every now and then, as well as from the condition of natives in Bechuanaland, Transvaal and elsewhere.' A CORRESPONDENT in the Fields sent us for publication a very harrowing account of the condition of the Natives there. There are hundreds of Natives without work, and such is the rigidity of the Pass system that anyone found out of employment is at once marched to durance vile. The goals are full, but, our correspondent tells us, not so much with I.D.B.'s, or other criminals as with wretched Natives arrested when going about for work, of which there is an unparalleled dearth. These people it must be remembered are always taunted, and with some reason, that they are lazy, and it must be discouraging and disheartening to them when they find themselves in circumstances such as those depicted by our correspondent. Can't anything be done to ameliorate the position of the Natives at the Diamond Fields? THE following occurs in the Report of the proceedings of the Bondmen in Beaufort West:—' It was proposed by Mr. Pietersen, and seconded by Mr. Moolman: ' That the Provincial Committee is of opinion that it is urgently necessary that a more stringent pass-law should be framed, and recommends the introduction of a stamped-pass system.' This was carried, after a division called for, by the casting vote of the President.' We note the diversity of opinion among the Bondmen on the necessity of a stringent pass-law. It is to be regretted the report has omitted to state the arguments pro and con as we have a notion that they would have been a study.