indictment winch would have been drawn up by a successful enemy in occupation of Rhodesia and Bechuanaland, desirous of demonstrating our iniquities to the world in order to make out a case for retaining those territories for himself. The treatment of the Matabele and the Mashonas by the Chartered Company would certainly not have appeared less black if it had been supported by affidavits of individual Matabele and Mashonas eager to curry favour with their new masters. Nor would the so-called Bechuana Rebellion of 1895, some of the incidents which distinguished it, the wholesale confiscation of native lands which followed it, and the fate which overtook the 3,000 odd "rebels" who surrendered, make other than excellent reading for a world audience sitting in judgment upon our sins. Between the decrees of a von Lindequist or a Leutwein, the brayings of a Schlettwein et hoc genus omne, and the pompous pronouncements of certain leading South African statesmen there is fundamentally little difference.
After the Bechuanaland Rebellion, Sir Gordon Sprigg, then Premier of Cape Colony, referred in a public despatch to the warning he had addressed to the people of Pondoland: "If they were disobedient and raised their hand in rebellion, they would be swept from the country and other people would be planted upon the land." He went on to say that it was the intention of his Government to introduce a Bill "providing for a disposal of this land (the land of the 'rebels') with a view to settling upon it a European population." Mr. Chamberlain having assented in principle, the Bill was duly introduced, its avowed object being "to appropriate lands contained in certain native reserves, the previous occupants having gone into rebellion." It was, he went on to say, "very valuable land, and probably would be cut up into very small farms, so that there might be a considerable European population established in that part of the country." As regards the Langeberg portion of the disaffected districts, he wrote that, "it would be necessary, of course, before anything could be done, that the rebellion should be crushed, and that the natives now occupying it should be destroyed or driven out of the country." It was the same South African statesman, who declared that "The policy of the Government with regard to disloyal, rebellious natives
