the accusations of Her Majesty's Government.

With reference to the Lombard incident, this Government wishes to point
out that no complaint was lodged with any official in this Republic for
a full month after the illtreatment of Cape coloured people was alleged
to have taken place, and that neither the Government nor the public was
aware that anything had taken place. The whole case was so insignificant
that some of the people who were alleged to have been illtreated
declared under oath at a later period before a court of investigation
that they would never have made any complaint on their own initiative.
What happened, however?

About a month after the occurrence the South African League came to hear
of it; some of its officials sent round to collect evidence from the
parties who were alleged to have been illtreated, and some sworn
declarations were obtained by the help of Her Majesty's Vice-Consul at
Johannesburg (between whom and this League a continual and conspicuous
co-operation has existed). Even then no charge was lodged against the
implicated officials with the judicial authorities of the country, but
the case was put in the hands of the Acting British Agent at Pretoria.

When the allegations were brought under the notice of this Government,
they at once appointed a commission of enquiry consisting of three
members, namely, Landdrost Van der Berg, of Johannesburg, Mr Andries
Stockenstrom, barrister-at-law of the Middle Temple, head of the
Criminal Section of the State Attorney's Department, and Mr. Van der
Merwe, mining commissioner, of Johannesburg; gentlemen against whose
ability and impartiality the Uitlander population of the Republic have
never harboured the slightest suspicion, and with whose appointment the
Acting British Agent also expressed his entire satisfaction. The
instructions given to these officials were to thoroughly investigate the
whole case, and to report the result to the Government; and they
fulfilled these instructions by sitting for days at a time, and
carefully hearing and sifting the evidence of both sides. Every
right-minded person readily acknowledges that far greater weight ought
to be attached to the finding of this Commission than to the
declarations of the complainants, who contradicted one another in nearly
every particular, and who caused the whole enquiry to degenerate into a
farce.

According to the report, nothing was proved as to the so-called
illtreatment; the special