CHINESE ON THE RAND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9049, 26 March 1908, Page 5

CHINESE ON THE RAND.

CABLE NEWS.

United Press Association—Bv Electric Telegraph Copyright,

DEBATE ON CONSOLIDATED REVENUE BILLReceived March 25, 8.2 a.m. LONDON, March 24. Mr Asquith, replying to Mr Lyttelton, reprobated language calculated to add to the Transvaal difficulties of self-goverment. His pledge had been fulfilled in the letter and in the spirit. In a speech made in 1,906 he undertook to defeat any attempt to establish the permanence of Chinese labour. Mr Balfour, in a trenchant reply, while emphasising the violation of pledges, accepted the declaration that the speech meant something it did not contain. He invited Mr asquith to produce correspondence with the Transvaal relating to the assent to the re-enactment of the ordinance. Ultimately the Consolidated Revenue Bill was read a second time. AN ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY. LONDON, Mar:h 25. The "Standard" states that Mr j Lyttelton accidentally discovered that assent had been given to re-en-actment of the ordinance while examining the Transvaal's official records. In the House'of Com mans, during the debate on the second reading of the Consolidated Revenue Bill, the Right Hon. A. Lyttelton, Secretary of State for the Colonies in th« Balfour Government, caused a great commotion on the Ministerial benches by strenuously protesting against the Government sanctioning in December the re-enactment, dating from last August, for two and a half years, of every line of the late Government's ordinance and regulations regarding indentured Chinese labour. Mr Lyttelton said that for four years, from ten thousand platforms, the Liberals had held up the same ordinance to execration and scorn. He declared th&t the re-enactment was deliberately sanctioned behind the back of Parliament, and was a breach of the Government's pledges to Far-' liament.. The Government's intentions must be explained by the Government themselves, said Mr Lyttelton. Neither in the Blue Book nor in the King's Speech had the assent to the re-enactment of the ordinance been mentioned.