48
22
I would, therefore, request that whenever opportunity offers, natives be informed that a person renders himself liable to punishment who-
1. Brings about the abortion of a pregnant woman or procures for her the means
to cause abortion.
2. Being pregnant, causes her own abortion.
3. Compels someone to drink or eat fetish or undertake fetish service.
4. Attempts to decide, or bring about a decision in, a matter by supplying a (Trial by poisonous drink, irrespective of whether the person who drinks it
does so voluntarily.
ordeal.)
5. In the interest of a fetish:-
•
(a) Causes bodily injury to anyone contrary to his own or his parents or guardians' wishes;
1
(b) Causes a grave public scandal by means of glaringly immoral conduct.
6. Arrogates to himself the powers, not recognised by the local authorities, of
a chief or magistrate.
7. Being a chief duly authorised to exercise judicial powers, collects fees of
court or fines in the form of spirits.
8. Being a chief, duly authorised to exercise judicial powers partakes of, or permits the parties in a suit or the witnesses summoned thereto to partake of palm wine, spirits, or other intoxicating drink during the hearing of the case.
9. Is guilty of a blood-feud.
In determining the measure of the prescribed punishment, it should be borne in mind that the criminal intent required by the Imperial Penal Code will in many cases be absent and that, therefore, the severe penalty prescribed in the relative sections of the Code can in no way apply. It is the duty of the official deciding a case to decide on a just punishment after considering all the facts of the case and, although respecting the natives' sense of justice,, gradually to vindicate more civilised ideas of equity.
At the same time it should be pointed out with respect to civil rights that marriage engagements among children are not binding and that widows may not be forced to marry nor prevented from contracting marriages desired by them. Prolonged desertion of a wife or family may be admitted as a ground for nullity of marriage.
If possible the use of a chief's oath as a means of corroboration should be done away with through education.
I would request that the appointment of punishments in the above cases be abstained from meanwhile.
Lome, 11 February 1907.
21452/8.
(Secret.) SIR,
No. 18.
UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA.
The Governor,
COUNT ZECH.
THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE.
(Received 1st May 1918.)
Governor-General's Office, Cape Town,
27th March 1918.
WITH further reference to your secret telegram of the 4th January,* I have the honour to transmit to you a Minute from my Ministers, with which is enclosed a Memorandum on the future of German South-West Africa.
* No. 1.
I have, &c.
BUXTON,
Governor-General.
23
Enclosure in No. 18.
(Secret 486.)
Prime Minister's Office, Cape Town,
26th March 1918. MINISTERS have the honour to transmit to His Excellency the Governor- General, for the information of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, a Memorandum on the question of the future of German South West Africa, now called the South- West Africa Protectorate.
Ministers have marked the Memorandum "Secret," but they leave it entirely to the discretion of the Secretary of State to make what use he thinks best of the Memorandum, and, if he thinks it necessary, to publish it.
They would add that the same applies to Ministers' Minute, Secret, of 14th Feb- ruary 1918, dealing with the position of the natives in South-West Africa.
LOUIS BOTHA.
(Secret.)
MEMORANDUM ON THE QUESTION OF THE FUTURE OF GERMAN SOUTH-WEST AFRICA.
(Now called the South-West Africa Protectorate.)
Ir is the firm conviction of the great majority of the European population of the Union that if South-West Africa were restored to the Germans, the permanent security and peace of the Union, and, indeed, of the whole of British South Africa, would be gravely imperilled.
If this conviction is well founded, it is a conclusive argument against restoration, even though there were no other. It may be well, therefore, to examine on what this conviction is based.
It appears to be based-
(I) On the history of the territory prior to the War.
(2) On events in South-West Africa and in the Union during the War. (3) On the evidence which is available as to German designs after peace
in the event of the restoration of her African colonies.
1. (a) When German pretensions in Damaraland first became known in the eighties, the Government of the Cape Colony repeatedly protested against the admission of a great European Power to territory bordering on British South Africa. They saw that Damaraland (as it was then called), geographically and ethnologically, was closely related to the rest of South Africa. The Orange River on the south did not constitute a natural barrier, while on the east it was impossible to fix any border except a line drawn arbitrarily through the middle of the desert.
The native inhabitants of the territory have close ties of race with those of the rest of South Africa.
The Cape Government further realised that a great Power such as Germany, established in South-West Africa, would constitute a permanent menace to the peace of British South Africa.
(b) When the German Colonial Party obtained the upper hand, and the territory was annexed, it was developed with enthusiasm (in the face of great natural and material difficulties, and in spite of the fact that the only safe and com- modious harbour on the coast, Walvis Bay, was in British possession), mainly for the reason that it gave the Germans a base in South Africa from which they might hope to extend their influence over the whole of this portion of the continent.
(c) In accordance with this design they jealously preserved the German character of South-West Africa. They were never a friendly nor an agreeable neighbour to the adjoining British Colonies. They sustained, by means of tariffs, a strong barrier against the products of the Union. By their laws governing land ownership, mining rights, commercial relations, and language, they discouraged and penalised the settler from the neighbouring British Colonies.
(d) It is quite clear that the up-to-date arms, guns, and war material collected in German South-West Africa before the War, and found to be there after the Occu- pation, were far in excess of those required for the European personnel available in the Protectorate territory or for protection against the natives. It is thus reasonable to assume that some very substantial accession of strength in the way of personnel more or less trained to arms was expected from oversea or from some other source.
D 3
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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Reference :-
885/26
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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