On the Motion for the second reading of the Consolidated
Fund Bill in the Commons on Wednesday, Mr. Chamber- lain moved an amendment demanding the appointment of a Royal Commission to report on Chinese labour in the Transvaal, both on the economic and the moral side. The prosperity of the whole of South Africa was at stake; the Transvaal was being asked by the Government to dispense with Chinese labour, and it was not right that the experiment should be made upon insufficient knowledge. He further deprecated strongly the threat of using the veto if the Colonial Legislature should adopt an attitude differing from that of the Government, and declared that a storm of indignation had already been roused in South Africa by the statements of the Under-Secretary for the Colonies. Mr. Winston Churchill contended that a Commission would create greater disturb- ance, and held that the admissions in Lord Selborne's despatches disproved the alleged need of further information. • After Mr. Balfour had strongly supported Mr. Chamberlain's demand for a Commission of Inquiry and condemned the imposing upon a self-governing Colony of our own ideas of morality as a deliberate infraction of British traditions, the Prime Minister concluded the debate. The Govern- ment, he stated, had no quarrel with the Transvaal people or the leading men in that Colony, but with the Ordinances which prescribed labour conditions which they believed to be contrary to the traditions, wishes, and ideals of the British people. The British Government had passed the Ordinances, and therefore this country was responsible for them. On a division the amendment was rejected by 378 votes to 110, or a majority of 268.
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