Times' Pitso :: Mmegi Online

In our last episode, we left off in July of 1909 with the arrival in London of what came to be labelled as the Coloured and Native People’s Delegation along with the simultaneous disembarking of a 19-member “official” delegation made up of leading white South African politicians. Amongst those in the former delegation was Joseph Gerrans, who had been recruited by Kgosi Sebele I, on behalf of the Southern Protectorate dikgosi in general, to lobby the British Parliament that it “not to give us and our country over to the South African Government. We are still happy and well contented under the Imperial government and we have no desire to be under any other.”

On July 20-21 of 1909, Colonial Secretary Lord Crewe held secret talks with the official South African delegates. In his opening remarks, he made it clear that members of the government “were prepared to see the Bill through both as to franchise and as to representation.”

Thereafter, most of the discussions at the meeting centred around proposed amendments to, and clarifications about, the Schedule for the future incorporation of Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland. A guarantee against the partitioning of the territories after their incorporation was accepted, but amendments proposed by the Resident Commissioners of Basutoland and Bechuanaland, which sought to institutionalise the status of the Chiefs and the Basutoland National Council were ruled out.

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