15 JUNE 1951, Page 5

One passage from Mr. Amery's new volume of the Life

of Joseph Chamberlain has a certain relevance today. When Chamberlain visited South Africa in 1903, just after the end of the war, he attended a great Indaba of Bechuana chiefs at Mafeking. " Among them were his old friends, Khania, Sebele and Bathoen, who had come to London to plead for the Queen's protection in the anxious months before the Jameson Raid, when Rhodes had sought to annex the whole of Bechuanaland." The Colonial Secretary. recognising the loyalty of the Chiefs and their people to the King (then Edward VII), declared "They have been friends of the English, and the English do not forget friends." Khama was father of Tshekedi Khama, and grand- father of Seretse Khama, both friends of the English, and both banished from their ancestral territories by the English for reasons that carry singularly little conviction. Do we forget ?