NATIVE ATTACKS ON WOMEN.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1073, 11 March 1911, Page 10

NATIVE ATTACKS ON WOMEN.

NO RECRUDESCENCE. Bj Telejraph-Press .Wsoeintion-Cnnyrisli!.' London, March 9. The Secretary of Statu for the Colonies, Mr. Lcivis Hareourt, replying to a question in the .House of Commons, said the South. African Ministers had

informed Lord Gladstone, GovernorGeneral of South Africa, that there had been .no recrudescence of offences by

natives against white women since the commutation of tho death sentence passed on blacks at Umtali, Rhodesia.

RHODESIA INDIGNANT.

The following cablegram was recently received from tho Buiawayo correspondent of the London "Daily Mail":—

There is a strong agitation throughout Rhodesia' as tho result of the action of Lord Gladstone, tho Governor-General, in reprieving a native sentenced .to ; death for assault on a white.woman. Tho

whole adult male poptilation of Buiawayo attended a meeting of. protest,. at. which the angriest speeches were made. One speaker pointed out that if Lord Gladstone believed South African condi-

tions were the same as English conditions he must be brought! to .'a proper ; appreciation of tho facts. Otherwise the':wliites would take the law. into their .own. hands.

Remarkable enthusiasm and determination were shown at the: meeting, and!'a resolution of indignant protest was unanimously passed and forwarded'' to Lord Gladstone and the Colonial Secretary.

There is much alarm in outlying districts. Politicians' and, the entire community are absolutely agreed that tho matter is being discussed in all the kraals, and that the natives will consider that the whites value -the - honour of their women less than the natives themselves value that of their • own womenfolk. Moreover, as the whites inflicted the death penalty, its commutation will tie considered as a premium upon that class of crimo. Mr. R. N. Hall, the Bantu ethnologist, states that the . position 'is most serious.

The women of Rhodesia are sending a memorial to the Imperial Government.

They declare that stringent laws are necessary for their protection, and that their only safety lies in tho administration of those laws, which arc not tho result of mob justice,, .but of the- deliberations of a Legislature • ratified'.by tho British Government.

Mrs. Robert Crawford Hawkin, a sister of General Botha, described the feelings with which South African women received the news of the reprieve. "If this man is not dealt with with tho full severity of tho law," she said, "the women of South Africa 'will tremble in fear of. the consequences. Such crimes are much more common in the South African States than the English public knows. • Often, for various reasons, they are hushed up. I have often heard strangers to South Africa express wonderment at the rigour of our authority over tho blacks. They do not realise that if white men with their women aro to live in a. black country they can do so only as masters. To understand the menace

with which oTeryTraraan in South Africa is confronted it is necessary that you should be a South African. Perhaps, too, to understand fully you must be a woman. Let me give you just one instance of this. I have never known a South African woman, be slip Boer or English bred, allow a black manservant to brush her coat, wherf it is on heivback. Something, call it instinct if'you will;-tenches her to know that never for the slightest moment must she over allow tho black to touch her. The ugly. expression of gloating triumph which leaps into their eyes at the slightest or'imagined provocation is such that a -'woman never forgets it. If you wgrp a settler, in Rhodesia! would you dflTe to leave your wife for days at a time at the mercy of hundreds of blacks unless you knew that they were absolutely iu awe of your every word and every'act? Yet this •,is what Rhodesians and other .South' Africans have to do. Do you imagine for . one moment that they will relish anything

which to the blacks will appear like a slackening of authority?"