11697.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
C.O. 885
Reference :-
14 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
•
No. 87.
(SOUTH AFRICA.)
LAW OFFICERS to COLONIAL OFFICE.
MY LORD,
Royal Courts of Justice, July 2, 1895. We were honoured with your Lordship's commands. signified in Mr. Fairfield's letter of the 14th June, stating that he was directed by your Lordship to request our opinion on a question which had arisen under Article No. VIII. of the Convention relative to the affairs of Swaziland concluded in December last hetween this country and the South African Republic.
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That Mr. Fairfield was to explain that, until that Convention came into force. Swaziland was, in theory, an independent native community, under the rule of a king. That by the Pretoria Convention of 1881, Article 24, and by, the London Convention of 1884, Article No. 12, this country and the South African Republic mutually promised one another to respect its independence. That by a Convention of 1890, concluded between the sanie parties. certain provisions were agreed to which in a sense curtailed that independence, and with the assent of the Swazies, expressed in an Organic Proclamation, a government for the whites within the country was estab- lished. But that the Convention of 1890 was of a temporary and terminable character, and as it was impossible to secure its maintenance in perpetuity, and as a return to a completely independent system of Native Government seemed politically inexpedient, Her Majesty's Government considered it best to bring the Swazi question to a settle- ment by concluding the Convention of 1894, by the second Article of which it was provided that "without the incorporation of Swaziland into the South African Republic the Government of the South African Republic shall have and be secured in all rights and powers of protection, legislation, and jurisdiction over Swaziland and the inhabitants thereof." subject to the conditions and provisions set forth in the succeeding sub-sections.
That the South African Republic might be regarded for present purposes as an independent self-governing State having a parliamentary and republican form of government, regulated by a written constitution which provided in a somewhat elaborate manner for the division of powers between the various constitutional authorities, such as the Executive Council, the Volksraad, the Judiciary, the Com- mandant General, the Field Cornet, &c. As to its present relations towards this country, Mr. Fairfield was to refer us to the Report of the Law Officers of the 3rd of July last year.*
Mr. Fairfield further stated that in February 1895 the officers of the Government of the South African Republic entered Swaziland, and took upon themselves the adminis tration of its affairs, recognising the young King as Paramount Chief, and that the Convention of 1894, which had been previously ratified by the Volksraad, might thus be said to have come into full force. That it was suggested that the situation thus created and now existing was as follows: Swaziland and the South African Republic remained distinct States; but whereas the latter was a parliamentary self-governing Republic in which "the Government of the South African Republic," that is, the President and Executive Council, had only limited powers, they had, as regards Swazi- land, subject to the provisions of the Convention, much the same ample powers of legislation and administration as had the British Crown in a British possession which had not received a constitution of any kind, whilst neither the Volksraad, nor the Judiciary, nor any other constituted body belonging to the Republic other than the Executive Council, had any authority under the Convention in relation to Swaziland. That, in fact, the position of the "Government of the South African Republic Swaziland was analogous to that of Her Majesty under the Anglo-Turkish Convention in Cyprus, which was still nominally Ottoman and not British territory. And that Swaziland might be regarded as a protected dependency administered by the Republic.
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That, if this was admitted to be the state of the case, the question arose what would be the effect as regards British subjects in, Swaziland who, under Article VIII. of the Convention, applied for and obtained the privileges of the burghership-or in other words the citizenship-of the South African Republic, which under certain conditions that Article accorded to all "white male persons so applying.
• No. 67.
O 85965.-13. 25.-7/95.
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