RAND STRIKE RIOTS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1802, 15 July 1913, Page 5

RAND STRIKE RIOTS.

EVIDENCE SIFTED. THE PRINCIPAL AGENTS. > • . ■ ■ . JOHANNESBURG HOOLIGANS. GENERAL BOTHA'S STATEMENT By Teleffraph—Press Association— Copyright Cape Town, July 13. General Botha, the Prime Minister, addressing his constituents! said tliafc the Government deplored the necessity for the uso of force during the strike. However, it was the Government, not Viscount Gladstone (the Governor-General), who was responsible for tho employment of troops. All the happenings at Johannesburg must not ho attributed to the strikers. There was a large hooligan element, and this was blameable for a good deal of the trouble. As a matter of fact, the strikers were in a minority* According to Mr. J. W. Sauer, Minister for Agriculture, half a million pounds ha 9 been paid to the railwaymen in increaees of pay since tho Union Government was established. Reuter's Lisbon ogent states that an agreement has been reached between the Minister for the Colonies and the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association, for the recruitment of Mozambique natives.

"A REAL BATTLE." TRYING ORDEAL FOR THE TROOPS. PERIL OF BAND CLUB. London, July 13. The "Daily Telegraph's" Cape Town correspondence 6tates that the older officials, even those belonging to the Railway Society, are keeping their heads. They say they will refuse to bo stampeded, but the Labour leaders at Pretoria believe that they have-only to raise a finger and the whole of the Tailway systems will be paralysed. Mr. Meyler, a -unionist and a member of the Union Parliament, was a witness of the rioting. Ho considers tho Government was seriously to blame for tactless handling of the whole situation. He confirms tho tributes to the behaviour of the Dragoons, a small detachment of which, under tho Earl of Airlie, held back a demented mob thirsting to destroy the Rand Club. The club and its, inmates were in a most dangerous situation. Tho crowd was armed, and the troops were potted at from all sides. It was not a riot, but a real battle. A difficulty was that numbers of men and women were looking on or abetting tho rioters, regardless of risks. Armed rioters took cover behind the crowd, and in some instances fired from round corners and from housetops; Mr. Meyler avera that tho military never once fired without giving full warning or until they had been fired at. Mr.' Meyler served in tho South African war, and never saw a hotter corner, or troops behave bettor.. The rioters included low class Dutchmen, foreign illicit liquor-sellers, oifd dangerous criminals. Thoy did not respect the ambulance, -and doctors and attendants were fired at. ENDORSED BY,THE PRESS,.. LOUD GLADSTONE'S ACTION, CR-ec. July 14, D.55 p.m.) Cape Town, July 14. The whole of the South African press, irrespective of party, strenuously defends Viscount Gladstone in connection with the employment of-Imperial troops during the Johannesburg riots. "De Volkstein,"- published at Pretoria, emphasises tho peril which had been' threatening tho community for some hours, when the natives were being encouraged to make common cause with the whites.