Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/615

 1899.] STATE PAPEES— TEANSVAAL. 191

22. Immediately it become known that the petition would not go forward to your Majesty, the Government ordered the arrest of Messrs. Clement Davies Webb and Thomas Robery Dodd, respectively the vice- president and secretary of the Transvaal Province of the South African League, under whose auspices the petition had been presented, on a charge of contravening the Public Meetings Act by convening a meeting in the open air. They were admitted to bail of 1,000*. each, five times the amount required from the man charged with culpable homicide.

23. Thereupon your Majesty's subjects, considering the arrest of these two gentlemen a gross violation of the rights of British subjects, and an attempt to strain unduly against them a law which had already been represented to the Government as pressing most heavily upon the Outlander population, decided to call a public meeting in an enclosed place, as permitted by the law, for the purpose of ventilating their grievances and endorsing a fresh petition to your Majesty.

24. Prior to holding the meeting, the South African League ascer- tained from the Government, through the State Attorney, that, as in their opinion the meeting was perfectly legal ia its objects, the Govern- ment had no intention of prohibiting it.

25. The meeting took place on January 14, 1899, at the Amphi- theatre, a large iron building capable of holding from 3,000 to 4,000 people. Prior to the advertised hour of opening an overwhelmingly large body of Boers, many of whom were police in plain clothes and other employees of the Government, forced an entrance by a side door, and practically took complete possession of the building. They were all more or less armed, some with sticks, some with police batons, some with iron bars and some with revolvers.

26. The mere appearance of the speakers was the signal for disorder to commence ; the Boers would not allow the meeting to proceed, but at once commenced to wreck the place, break up the chairs, and utilise the broken portions of them as weapons of offence against any single unarmed Englishman they could find.

27. There were present several Government officials, justices of the peace, and lieutenants of police in uniform, and the commandant of police, but they were appealed to in vain, and the work of destruction proceeded, apparently with their concurrence. Several Englishmen were severely injured by the attacks of the rioters, but in no case was an arrest effected, although offenders were pointed out and their arrest demanded ; nor, indeed, was any attempt made by the police to quell the riot. Up to the present time no steps have been taken by the Government towards prosecuting the ringleaders of the disturbance, nor has a single arrest been made, notwithstanding the fact that the police officials who were present at the meeting admitted that some of the rioters were well known to them.

28. Those of your Majesty's subjects who were present at the meet- ing were unarmed and defenceless, and seeing that the rioters had the support of the police and of some of the higher officials of the State, they refrained from any attempt at retaliation, preferring to rely upon more constitutional methods, and to lay a full statement of their grievances before your Most Gracious Majesty. C