THE RAND RISING.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 March 1922, Page 5

THE RAND RISING.

TRIAL OF THE REBELS, CRAVE CHARGES PENDING. LOYALISTS THANKED. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyrif-rt. Received March 21, 5.5 p.m. Capetown, March 20. General Smuts (the Premier), addressing the House of Assembly, paid a very warm tribute to the police. He said it was a young force, embracing many people not in agreement with the Government, but of all the bodies engaged the police most deserved thanks. The Government had decided that those wounded and the relatives of the fallen should be dealt with on the most generous terms.

He also highly praised the Durbap Light Infantry. They were all young men, practically school boys, at the beginning of their training. On Sunday evening the centre of Johannesburg would have fallen into the hands of the revolutionaries, but for this body of brave men.

He expressed deep gratitude to the natives. He said be greatly feared they might be stampeded, but they kept their heads and. proved one of the most stable elements on the Rand. The whites owed a deep debt of gratitude to the natives in this grave crisis.

Martial law would remain in force till a formal Act of Indemnity was passed by Parliament. Dealing with the question of the trials, after reviewing different methods, General Smuts said that the Government had come to the conclusion that the best course was not to try the rebels by court-martial or special tribunal, but by the ordinary courts. Many would be tried for murder and serious offences under the Roman-Dutch law.

Referring to the appointment of an Industrial Commission to enquire into •the matters in dispute, he said the Government had abandoned the idea of nominees of the Federation and Chamber of Mines, but intended to appoint an impartial body. Messrs. Hertzog (Nationalist) and Boydell (Labor) asked for a select committee, but the Premier replied that it would lead, to grave confusion and prejudice if such a body were taking evidence at the same time as the Courts of Justice. It might be practicable f.t a later stage.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. TWO LEADERS CAPTURED. FATE OF FISHER AND SPENDIFF. DIED BY OWN HANDS. Received March 22, 12.50 a.m. Capetown, March. 21. Commando leaders Erasmus and Viljoen, who escaped when the Reds were mopped up in the Newlands area, have now been captured. The fate of Fisher and Spendiff has been finally set at rest by the finding of their last message in the safe of the Red headquarters at Fordsburg Market Hall. The text reads: “March 14—I died for what I believed to be right—“the cause.” (Signed) H. Spendiff, Percy Fisher. On the reserve side was a message from Spendiff to his wife: “Good-bye Amy. We died by our own bullets, not theirs.” Information now gathered reveals how great was the danger during the last week. A handful of mounted police was all that stood between the Reds sweeping into the town from the west. On Thursday night the men were so worn out that when the Light Horse took over on Friday evening the police dropped down where they stood and went to sleep. At Germiston, the most important railway junction in the Union, Sub-In-spector O'Connor, with six railway police, bluffed a commando of six hundred Reds and succeeded in keeping them off until Friday evening, when the military took control. THE AFTERMATH. All the unions concerned in the strike have now returned to work. Of the twenty thousand employed in the mines before the strike, upwards of five thousand remained at work. Of the remainder, half are already back, or will be absorbed in the near future. Competent opinion is that the remaining eight thousand will be absorbed in the course of twelve months, now that it is possible to adjust wages on an economic basis.