The Manchester Guardian of Monday publishes the official Report on
the flogging in Natal of Mabeketshiya, a cousin of Dinuzulu. Mabeketshiya was in prison at the end of December, 1907, awaiting his trial on a charge of sedition. He was therefore an innocent man by presumption. The charge against him was that he refused to perform the convict labour which the gaoler required of him, and he was sentenced in consequence to twenty lashes. Englishmen in most parts of the Empire, we are sure, will read this Report with pain. It cannot be pretended that it was legal to exact convict labour of a-man still presumably innocent, and to flog him when' he refused to d6 it. We are Well aware of the difficulties and dangers of the white population in Natal; numbering about ninety thousand persons, and surrounded by a hundred thousand Asiatics and nearly a million natives. But it is impossible that acts like the flogging of Mabeketshiya should increase their security. We trust that the union of South Africa will before long make such incidents impossible.
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