Lionised in London.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 45, 23 February 1914, Page 5

Lionised in London.

THE AFRBCAN DEPORTEES. DINNER AND DEMONSTRATION. [By Electric Teleguaph—Copyright] [Dnixed Press Association.] London, February 21.

The Labor section of the United Parliamentary Labor Party will entertain and provide for the needs of the deportees, and will also provide the means to test the validity of their deportation. A joint committee of three National 1 Labor Commitees has arranged for Mr Ramsay MacDonald, M.P., to preside at a. dinner to the deportees on the 26th hist., and demonstrations are arranged for the Opera House on the next day; and at Hyde Park on March 1. INDEMNITY BILL DEBATE. SHARP TONIC REQUIRED BY THE COUNTRY. NATIVE DANGER RIDICULED. Capetown, February 21. In the Indemnity Bill debate, Air Watt, Minister of Works, declared that he was proud of being a party to the deportations, because the country needed a sharp tonic. It would show the people of South Africa that physical force was not the piopei remedy for grievances, and also sho'.i the people overseas that South Africa was prepared to manage her own affairs in her own way.

Mr Andrews, chairman of the Labor Party, ridiculed the native'danger. He recalled the fact that the Transvaal Miners’ Association had passed a resolution offering' to cooperate with the authorities to guard the compounds. He deplored the Government’s non-explanation as to why the censorship of evidence was burned. *

Mr Watt replied that the refusal of explanation was due to the tone being adopted by Mr Cresswell. Sir Wools Sampson declared that the Rhodesians had been alarmed by the manner in which the strikers pandered to the natives. The Government’s responsibility in the matter extended beyond the Union. Professor Fremantle described the deportations as an appalling blunder, rousing the passionate protests of workers of the world, and the best opinion in England. The gravity of the deportations consisted of the, punishment of men not born in South Africa, thus creating feeling of insecurity such as-existed in 1898. He concluded by protesting .against Imperial interference in any form.