Johannesburg, and that in all probability a disturbance of the peace would take place if a sufficient body of the police were not present to preserve order.  To this these gentlemen answered that the police were in very bad odour since the Edgar case, that the meeting would be a very quiet one, and that the presence of the police would contribute, or give rise to, disorder, and that they would on those grounds rather have no police at all.  The State Secretary and State Attorney thereupon communicated with the head officials of the police at Johannesburg, with the result that the latter also thought that it would be better not to have any considerable number of police at the meeting.  The Government accordingly, on the advice of these officials of the League as well as their own police officials, gave instructions that the police should remain away from the meeting; they did this in perfect good faith, and with the object of letting the League have its say without let or hindrance.  The proposed meeting was however advertised far and wide.  As the feeling amongst a section of the Witwatersrand population was exceedingly bitter against the League, a considerable number of the opponents of that body also attended the meeting.  The few police who were present were powerless to quell the disorder, and when the police came on the scene in force some few minutes after the commencement of the uproar, the meeting was already broken up.  Taken by itself, this occurrence would not be of much importance, as it is an isolated instance as far as the gold fields of this Republic are concerned, and even in the best organised and best ordered communities irregularities like the above occasionally take place.

The gravity of the matter, however, lies in the unjust accusation of Her Majesty’s Government—­that the meeting was broken up by officials of this Republic, and that the Government had curtly refused to institute an enquiry.

This Government would not have refused to investigate the matter if any complaints had been lodged with it, or at any of the local Courts, and this has been clearly stated in its reply to Her Majesty’s request for an investigation.

The Government objects strongly to the systematic way in which the local authorities are ignored, and the continual complaints which are lodged with the Representatives of Her Majesty about matters which ought to be decided by the Courts of this Republic.  Instead, however, of complaining to Her Majesty’s Government after all other reasonable means of redress have been vainly invoked, they continually make themselves guilty of ignoring and treating with contempt the local Courts and authorities, by continually making all sorts of ridiculous and ex parte complaints to Her Majesty’s Government in the first instance; Her Majesty’s Government is also thereby placed in the equivocal and undesirable position of intermeddling in the internal affairs of this Republic, which is