THE MATSHANA INQUIRY AND COLONEL COLLEY.
In consequence of the threatened action for libel against the
Bishop of Natal on account of statements made in his defence of
Langalibalele, which Mr. John Shepstone considered to be “of a most
libellous and malicious nature,” the Bishop had laid the matter
before the Lieut.-Governor, Sir B. Pine, requesting him to direct an
inquiry to be made into the truth of the said statements. This was
refused by His Excellency through the acting Colonial Secretary in
the following terms: “Your lordship has thought it right to make the
most serious charges against an important and long-tried officer of
this Government—charges, too, relating to a matter which occurred
sixteen years ago.[47] That officer has, in His Excellency’s opinion,
very properly called upon your lordship to retract those charges.
Instead of doing this, you have appealed to the Lieut.-Governor to
institute an inquiry as to the truth of the charges you have made.
This the Lieut.-Governor has no hesitation in declining to do.”
Thereby prejudging the case without inquiry.
The Bishop’s next action was an appeal to the Secretary of State for
the Colonies, which he requested the Lieut.-Governor to forward with
a copy of the correspondence which had already taken place on the
subject, in order that His Excellency might be fully aware of what
steps he was taking.
This appeal contained a short account of the facts which had led to
his making the statements complained of—the trial of Langalibalele,
and the “fear of treachery” perpetually pleaded by many witnesses
in excuse of the chiefs conduct, but treated with contempt both by
the court below and the council, each including the Secretary for
Native Affairs, and presided over by His Excellency. The statements
made by the Bishop—not mere “charges” unsupported by evidence, but
the deposition of four eye-witnesses who might be cross-examined
at will—would, if proved to be true, greatly tend to palliate the
offences imputed to the chief, and should therefore not have been
suppressed by the officer concerned, who had kept silence when a
word from his mouth would have cleared a prisoner on trial for his
life from a very serious part of the charge against him. The Bishop
therefore submitted that the fact of the events in question having
taken place sixteen years before was no reason why they should not be
brought to light when required for the prisoner’s defence.
The correspondence which ensued—including a very curious circumstance
relating to a missing despatch, recorded in the despatch-book
at Pietermaritzburg, but apparently never received in Downing
Street—will be found by those interested in the subject in the
Bishop’s pamphlet, “The History of the Matshana Inquiry.” For our
present purpose it is sufficient to remark that on the 22nd of April,
1875, Lord Carnarvon directed Sir Garnet Wolseley to institute a
careful inquiry into the matter, and suggested that under all the
circumstances this inquiry might be best conducted by one or more
of the senior officers of Sir Garnet’s staff, who had accompanied
him on special service to Natal. The correspondence which followed
between the parties concerned, with arrangements for the summoning
of witnesses and for the management of the trial, are also all to be
found in the above-mentioned pamphlet. The inquiry was to be of a
private nature, no reporters to be admitted, nor counsel on either
side permitted.[48] The Bishop and Mr. Shepstone were each to be
allowed the presence of one friend during the inquiry, who, however,
was not to speak to the witnesses, or to address the officer holding
the inquiry. In addition the Bishop asked, and received, permission
to bring with him the native interpreter, through whom he was in the
habit of conducting important conversations with natives, as his
own Zulu, although sufficient for ordinary purposes, was not, in
his opinion, equal to the requirements of the case, while Mr. J.
Shepstone was familiar from childhood with colloquial Kafir.
In the Bishop’s pamphlet he points out that the course which Lord
Carnarvon had thought proper to adopt in this case was wholly his
own, and proceeds as follows:—a passage which we will quote entire:—
“And I apprehend that this inquiry, though of necessity directed
mainly to the question whether Mr. John Shepstone fired at Matshana
or not, is not chiefly concerned with the character of the act
imputed to him, described by the Secretary for Native Affairs as of
a treacherous murderous nature, but involves the far more serious
question whether that act, if really committed, was suppressed by
Mr. John Shepstone at the time in his official report, was further
suppressed by him when he appeared last year as Government prosecutor
against a prisoner on trial for his life—who pleaded it as a very
important part of his defence, but found his plea treated by the
court, through Mr. John Shepstone’s silence, as a mere impudent
‘pretext’—and has been finally denied by him to the Secretary of
State himself, and is still denied down to the present moment. Such
an act as that ascribed to him, if duly reported at the time, might,
I am well aware, have been justified by some, or at least excused, on
grounds of public policy under the circumstances; though I, for my
part, should utterly dissent from such a view. In that case, however,
it would have been unfair and unwarrantable to have reproached Mr.
Shepstone at the present time for an act which had been brought
properly under the cognizance of his superiors. But the present
inquiry, as I conceive, has chiefly in view the question whether
the facts really occurred as Mr. John Shepstone reported at first
officially, and has since reaffirmed officially, or not.”
Colonel Colley, C.B., was the officer appointed to conduct the
inquiry, the commencement of which was fixed for August 2nd, 1875.
The intervening period granted for the purpose was employed by the
Bishop in summoning witnesses from all parts of the land; from
Zululand, from the Free State, and distant parts of the colony.
Matshana himself was summoned as a witness under an offer of safe
conduct from the Government. He, however, did not find it convenient,
or was afraid, to trust himself in person; but Cetshwayo sent some
of his men in his place. The Bishop’s object was to summon as many
“indunas,” or messengers, or otherwise prominent persons in the
affair of 1858; men who were thoroughly trustworthy, and “had a
backbone,” and would not be afraid to speak the truth; his desire
being to get at that truth, whatever it might be. Thirty-one men
responded to his call, of whom, however, only twenty were examined
in court, the Bishop giving way to Colonel Colley’s wish in the
matter, and to save the court’s time. Four other witnesses summoned
by _both_ the Bishop and Mr. Shepstone were examined, and nine more
on Mr. Shepstone’s behalf, called by him. The Bishop had considerable
difficulty in procuring the attendance of the witnesses he required.
The simple order of Mr. John Shepstone would suffice, by the mere
lifting up of his finger, to bring down to Pietermaritzburg at
once any natives whom he desired as witnesses, invested as he was
in the native mind with all the weight and all the terrors of the
magisterial office; and with the additional influence derived from
the fact of his having only recently filled, during his brother’s
absence in England, the office of Secretary for Native Affairs,
with such great—almost despotic—authority over all the natives in
the colony. The Bishop, on the contrary, had no such influence. He
had no power at all to insist upon the attendance of witnesses. He
could only _ask_ them to come, and if they came at his request, they
would know that they were coming, as it were, with a rope around
their necks; and if they were proved to have borne false witness,
calumniating foully so high an official, they had every reason to
fear that their punishment would be severe, from which the Bishop
would have had no power—even if, in such a case, he had the will—to
save them.
When, upon the 2nd August, the inquiry began, out of the many
witnesses called by the Bishop, upon whom lay the _onus probandi_,
only three were at hand; and two of these, as will be seen, were
present merely through the wise forethought of _the_ intelligent
Zulu, William Ngidi. But for this last, the inquiry would have
begun, and—as the Commissioner was pressed for time, having other
important duties on his hands in consequence of Sir Garnet Wolseley
and staff being about immediately to leave the colony—might even
(as it seemed) have ended, with only a single witness being heard
in support of the Bishop’s story. No others were seen or even heard
of for some days, and then by accident only. The Secretary for
Native Affairs, it is true, by direction of Sir Garnet Wolseley,
had desired Cetshwayo to send down Matshana, and the Bishop fully
expected that this intervention of the Government with a promise
of safe conduct for him, would have sufficed to bring him. But Mr.
John Dunn, “Immigration Agent” of the Government in Zululand, and
Cetshwayo’s confidential adviser, whom the Bishop met in Durban on
July 8th, told him at once that he did not think there was the least
chance of Matshana’s coming, as the Secretary for Native Affairs’
words in 1873, when he went up to crown Cetshwayo (who asked very
earnestly that Matshana might be forgiven and allowed to return
to Natal) were so severe—“He had injured the Secretary for Native
Affairs’ own body;” that is, one of his men had wounded his brother
(Mr. John Shepstone) fifteen years previously, when thirty or forty
of Matshana’s men had been killed—that he would be afraid to come at
a mere summons like this, notwithstanding the promise of safety, the
value of which he would naturally appreciate by his own experience
in former days. Mr. Dunn promised to do his best to persuade him to
go down, but did not expect to succeed. And, in point of fact, he
never came, alleging the usual “pain in the leg;” and the discussion
in Zululand about his coming had only the result of delaying for
some days the starting of the other witnesses whom the Bishop had
asked Cetshwayo to send. On August 4th, however, Zulu messengers
arrived, reporting to the Secretary for Native Affairs the sickness
of Matshana, and to the Bishop the fact that six witnesses from
Zululand were on the way, and they themselves had pushed on ahead
to announce their coming, as they knew they were wanted for August
2nd. Accordingly five of them arrived on August 8th, and the sixth,
Maboyi, on August 5th, under somewhat singular circumstances, as
will presently appear. Meanwhile most important witnesses in support
of the Bishop’s story were expected by him from Matshana’s old
location—Kwa’ Jobe (at the place of “Jobe”)—partly in consequence of
a letter written by Magema to William Ngidi, partly in compliance
with the Bishop’s request sent through Cetshwayo to Matshana himself
in Zululand. William Ngidi replied to Magema, as follows: “Your
letter reached me all right, and just in the very nick of time, for
it came on Saturday, and the day before Mr. John arrived here (Kwa’
Jobe), and called the men to come to him on Monday, that they might
talk together about Matshana’s affair. On Sunday my friend Mlingane
came, and we took counsel together; for by this time it was well
known that Mr. John had come to speak with the people about that
matter of Matshana. So we put our heads together, and I got up very
early on Monday morning and hurried off to Deke, and told him that
he was called by Sobantu (the Bishop) to go before the Governor. He
readily agreed to go, and went down at once, on the very day when
Matshana’s people came together to Mr. John, so that he never went to
him; but, when I arrived, there had just come already the messenger
to call him to go to Mr. John, and another came just as he was about
to set off for ’Maritzburg. I told him to call for Mpupama on his
way, and take him on with him. I see that you have done well and
wisely in sending that letter without delay to me.”
Accordingly these two men, Deke and Mpupuma, reached Bishopstowe
safely in good time. Also Ntambama, Langalibalele’s brother, of whom
the Bishop had heard as having been present on the occasion, readily
came at his summons, though he was not asked to give his evidence,
nor did the Bishop know what it would be before he made his statement
in court. But for the prudent action of William Ngidi, Ntambama would
have been the only witness whose testimony would have sustained
the Bishop’s statements during the first days of the inquiry; and
his evidence, unsupported, might have been suspected, as that of
Langalibalele’s brother, of not being disinterested, and would have
been contradicted at once (see below) by Ncamane’s.
On Saturday, July 31st, the inquiry being about to begin on the
Monday, Magema received a doleful letter from William Ngidi to the
effect that the ’Inkos Sobantu must take care what he was about,
for that all the people were afraid, and would not venture to come
forward and give evidence against a high government official. He
spoke, however, of one man “whom I trust most of all the people
here,” and who had the scar upon his neck of a wound received upon
the day of Matshana’s arrest.
Discouraging, indeed, as it was to find on the very eve of the
inquiry that all his efforts through William Ngidi had failed to
procure witnesses, except the two sent down by him at the first,
the Bishop was utterly at a loss to understand how his message to
Cetshwayo had, to all appearance, also entirely failed with respect
to those men of Matshana still living Kwa’ Jobe, as well as (it
seemed) those living in Zululand.
On August 5th the mystery with respect to the witnesses Kwa’ Jobe
was explained. Deke, Mpupuma, Ntambama, and Njuba, who had come
from Zululand, had all been examined, as well as Ncamane, who,
when called by the Bishop, had replied that he would only come if
called by the Government; and when summoned through the Secretary
for Native Affairs, at the Bishop’s request, withdrew or modified
important parts of his printed statement. The Bishop had actually
no other witness to call, and all his efforts to obtain a number
of well-informed and trustworthy eye-witnesses from Zululand, Kwa’
Jobe, and Basutoland, seemed likely to end in a complete fiasco. But
on the evening of Thursday, August 5th, a native came to him in the
street and said that his name was Maboyi, son of Tole (Matshana’s
chief induna, who was killed on the occasion in question), and that
he had been sent by Matshana to Mr. Fynn, the superintendent, and
Lutshungu, son of Ngoza, the present chief, of the remnant of his
former tribe living Kwa’ Jobe, to ask to be allowed to take down to
’Maritzburg as witnesses those men of his who were present on the
day of the attempt to seize Matshana. Mr. Fynn said that “He did not
refuse the men, but wished to hear a word by a letter coming from the
Secretary for Native Affairs—it was not proper that he should hear
it from a man of Matshana coming from Zululand,” and sent him off
under charge of a policeman to ’Maritzburg, where he was taken to the
Secretary for Native Affairs, who said to him: “If Matshana himself
had come, this matter might have been properly settled; it won’t be
without him!” But the Secretary for Native Affairs said nothing to
Maboyi about his going to call the witnesses Kwa’ Jobe; he only asked
by whom he had been sent, and when informed, he told him to go home
to Zululand, as he had not been summoned and had nothing to do with
this affair. Maboyi had reached ’Maritzburg on Monday, August 2nd,
the day on which the inquiry began. He saw the Secretary for Native
Affairs on Tuesday, and on that day was dismissed as above. Not a
word was said to the Bishop about his being brought down in this way
under arrest, which fully explained the non-arrival of his witnesses
from the location; since, first, their fear of giving witness against
a government official, and now the arrest of Maboyi, had spread a
kind of panic among them all, and deterred them from coming to give
evidence against Mr. John Shepstone—himself a resident magistrate,
only lately acting as Secretary for Native Affairs, and the brother
of the Secretary for Native Affairs himself—merely in answer to the
Bishop’s unofficial summons. Hearing, however, on Thursday from
natives that the case was then going on at Government House, Maboyi
went up to speak with the Bishop, but arrived when the court had
adjourned. He found him out in town, however, just as he was on the
point of leaving for Bishopstowe, and was, of course, told to wait
and give his evidence. Accordingly, he went to Bishopstowe, and
Magema was charged to bring him in for examination on Saturday, the
next day of the inquiry. On the way into town for that purpose, Mr.
Fynn’s policeman most positively refused to let him stay, and went
off ultimately in great wrath, as Maboyi and Magema insisted that he
must give his evidence before leaving town to return to Zululand.
On that day, Saturday, August 7th, the Bishop explained the whole
affair to the Commissioner, and, having obtained a list of names
from Maboyi, requested that a Government messenger might be sent for
the men at once, and the Secretary for Native Affairs was instructed
to summon them. On Monday, August 9th, the Secretary for Native
Affairs replied that he had summoned all these men, except seven,
who were already in town, having been called by Mr. John Shepstone,
and having been, in fact, under his hands—in charge of his induna
Nozitshina—from the very first day of the inquiry. It seemed as if
William Ngidi’s statement was really to be verified, and that these
men had all succumbed to their fears. On the other hand, among these
seven was Matendeyeka, whom William Ngidi “trusted most of all;” and
there might be amongst them some who would have the courage to speak
out and to describe the facts connected with the arrest of Matshana
to the best of their ability. At all events the Bishop resolved to
call them, and do his best to bring the truth out of them; and Magema
afterwards whispered that he had heard from one of Mr. John’s men,
who was present when he spoke with the people (Kwa’ Jobe), that the
men there had said: “It was of no use to discuss it beforehand;
they would say nothing about what they remembered now; but before
the Governor they would speak the plain truth as they knew it.”
Accordingly the Bishop called four of these men—Matendeyeka, Faku
(son of Tole), Magwaza, Gwazizulu—and they all confirmed the story as
told by his other witnesses. He left the other three to be called by
Mr. John Shepstone, but he never called them. That these witnesses
should have been called by Mr. John Shepstone, as well as by the
Bishop, was satisfactory, showing that they were witnesses to whom
no objection could be made on the score of character or position in
the tribe, or as having been in any way, directly or indirectly,
influenced by the Bishop.
But the result was that, as these men were in the hands of the other
side from the time they reached until they left ’Maritzburg, the
Bishop had never even seen them, or had any communication with them,
until they appeared to give their evidence. He was wholly ignorant
beforehand of what they _would_ say or what they _could_ say; he knew
not whether they would confirm or contradict the story told by his
other witnesses; and he knew not on what particular points, if any,
they could give special evidence, and was therefore unable to ask the
questions which might have elicited such evidence.
By this time (August 8th) the witnesses from Zululand had arrived,
from whom the Bishop learned the names of other important witnesses
living Kwa’ Jobe, and at his request these also were sent for by
Government messengers. Unfortunately, through Maboyi’s arrest, some
of the Bishop’s witnesses summoned by the Secretary for Native
Affairs arrived too late on the very day (August 21st) on which the
evidence was closed, and others a day or two afterwards—twelve
altogether—of whom only one could be heard, whom the Bishop had
expressly named as a man whose testimony he especially desired to
take. Upon the whole, Sir Garnet Wolseley, who began by “leaving
entirely in the Bishop’s hands” the difficult and not inexpensive
business of “obtaining his witnesses,” summoned ultimately twenty-two
of them, of whom, however, four only could be heard by the
Commissioner; two (Matshana and Ngijimi) did not come at all; and
three, including a most important witness, were called too late to be
able to arrive till all was over; while four more out of the seven
who had been called by Mr. John Shepstone gave their evidence in
support of the Bishop, as doubtless the three others would have done,
if Mr. John Shepstone had called them.
In the despatch to the Earl of Carnarvon, already quoted from (note
to p. 91), Sir B. Pine remarks: “I think it further my duty to
point out to your lordship that much of the evidence adduced by the
Bishop in this case has been taken in this way (_ex parte_, without
the safety of publicity, and the opportunity of cross-examination);
evidence so taken is peculiarly untrustworthy, for everyone
moderately acquainted with the native character is aware that when a
question is put to a native, he will intuitively perceive what answer
is required, and answer accordingly.” The above is a common but
insufficiently supported accusation against the natives, denied by
many who are more than “moderately acquainted” with their character;
although of course it is the natural tendency of a subservient race
in its dealings with its masters, and possible tyrants. But granting
for the nonce its truth, it would, in the case of the Matshana
inquiry, tell heavily on the Bishop’s side. Sir B. Pine was not
present at the private investigation made by the Bishop, to which he
alludes in the above sentence, and therefore can be no judge of the
“cross-examination,” which the four original witnesses underwent; and
they, if they did “intuitively perceive” what answer was required,
and “answer accordingly,” must merely have spoken the truth; a truth
which, at that early period of his investigations, the Bishop was
_most reluctantly_ receiving, and would gladly have had disproved.
The evidence before the court, however, was given under circumstances
which, if Sir B. Pine’s account of native witnesses be correct, adds
enormously to the value of the fact that out of these twenty-four
witnesses, summoned from various quarters, many of them without
opportunity of communicating either with the Bishop or with each
other, but one[49] failed when it came to the point; and he, a feeble
old man, just released from prison (one of the captured tribe), was
manifestly in a state of abject alarm at finding himself brought
up to witness against the Government whose tender mercies he had
so lately experienced, and contradicted before Colonel Colley the
greater part of the story which he had originally told the Bishop.
This poor creature had been intimidated and threatened by a certain
man named Adam, under whose surveillance he lived after being
released from gaol, and who actually turned him and his family
out at night as a punishment for his having obeyed a summons to
Bishopstowe. He was manifestly ready to say anything which would
relieve him from the fear of the gaol, which he pleaded to Mr.
Shepstone a day or two later; on which occasion he unsaid all he had
previously said, having, as he afterwards confessed, been warned by
Mr. Shepstone’s policeman Ratsha, who asked him for what purpose he
had been summoned by the Bishop, _not to speak a word about_ “Mr.
John’s” treatment of Matshana. But, with the best intentions, the man
did not succeed in making his story tally entirely with that of Mr.
Shepstone’s other witnesses, nor with Mr. Shepstone’s own.
With this one exception the Bishop’s witnesses told the same story in
all essential respects. They were men arriving from many different
and distant parts of the colony, from Zululand, and from the Free
State, who could not possibly have combined to tell the same story
in all its details, which, if false, would have been torn to pieces
when so many men of different ages and characters were cross-examined
by one so thoroughly acquainted with all the real facts of the case
as Mr. Shepstone—men who had nothing to expect from the Bishop, but
had everything to dread from the Government if proved to have brought
a false and foul charge against an officer so highly placed and so
powerfully protected; _yet not the least impression was made upon the
strength of their united evidence_.
The case, however, is very different when we turn to Mr. Shepstone’s
witnesses. Of these, nine in number (besides the four natives called
by both the Bishop and Mr. Shepstone), seven were natives; the other
two being the Secretary for Native Affairs and Mr. John Taylor—a
son of Mr. John Shepstone’s first wife by her former husband. Mr.
Taylor was a lad of nine at the time, but, having been present with
his mother and little sister on the occasion of the attack upon
Matshana, was summoned as a witness by Mr. Shepstone. His evidence
was chiefly important as helping to prove that Matshana’s party had
not the concealed weapons which Mr. Shepstone’s chief native witness
Nozitshina said were left by them in immense numbers upon the ground;
as he stated that he and his sister went over the ground, after the
affair was over, and picked up the assegais, “about eight or nine” in
number.
But it is important to remark that the very fact of the presence
at this meeting of Mrs. Shepstone with her two children, goes
far to disprove the account given by Mr. Shepstone in his second
“statement,” prepared by him on the occasion of this trial, but
which is greatly at variance on some vital points with the narrative
written by him on the day after the event, dated March 17th, 1858,
for the information of His Excellency the Lieut.-Governor. It
seems almost incredible that Mr. John. Shepstone should have, as
he says in his second statement, “made up his mind to face almost
certain” death, not only for himself and all his men, but for _his
wife and her two young children_, on the grounds that it was “too
late to withdraw at this stage” (same report), when at any time
since the “day or two previous” (_ibid._), when the information in
question[50] reached him; according to his account he might have
put off the meeting, or at all events have sent his wife and her
children to a place of safety. The Secretary for Native Affairs’
evidence could of course be of a merely official character, as he
was not present on the occasion. He stated that Mr. John Shepstone’s
letters of February 16th and 24th, 1858, asked for by the Bishop, on
the subject of the approaching interview with Matshana, could not be
found, although they “must have been recently mislaid,” as he himself
(the Secretary for Native Affairs) had quoted from one of them in his
minute for the Secretary of State in June, 1874. Of Mr. Shepstone’s
native witnesses it can only be said that, amongst the seven called
by him only, six contradicted themselves and each other to so great
an extent as to make their evidence of no value, while the evidence
of the seventh was unimportant, and the four witnesses called by both
Mr. Shepstone and the Bishop told the same story as did the witnesses
of the latter, most unexpectedly to him.
Nevertheless Colonel Colley’s judgment, although convicting Mr. John
Shepstone of having enticed the chief Matshana to an interview with
the intention of seizing him, was received and acted upon in Natal
as an acquittal of that officer. So far was this the case, that,
although Lord Carnarvon directed that the Bishop’s costs should be
placed upon the colonial estimates, the Legislative Council of the
colony refused to pay them on the grounds that they were the costs of
the losing party. In his report Colonel Colley gives his opinions as
follows:
“That Matyana was enticed to an interview, as stated by the Bishop,
and was induced to come unarmed, under the belief that it was a
friendly meeting, such as he had already had with Mr. Shepstone,
for the purpose of discussing the accusations against him and the
question of his return to his location.
“That Matyana, though very suspicious and unwilling, came there in
good faith; and that the accusations against him—of meditating the
assassination of Mr. Shepstone and his party, of a prearranged plan
and signal for the purpose, and of carrying concealed arms to the
meeting—which are made in Mr. J. Shepstone’s statements, are entirely
without foundation.
“That Mr. Shepstone at that time held no magisterial position, but
was simply the commander of a small armed force charged with the
execution of a warrant; and that the manner in which he proposed to
effect the seizure, viz. at a supposed friendly meeting, was known
to and sanctioned by, if not the Government, at least the immediate
representative of the Government and Mr. Shepstone’s superior, Dr.
Kelly, the resident magistrate of the district.
“That Mr. Shepstone did not attempt to shoot Matyana, as described
by the Bishop, but fired into the air after the attempt to seize
Matyana had failed, and in consequence of the attempt made almost
simultaneously by some of Matyana’s men to reach the huts and seize
the arms of Mr. Shepstone’s men.
“The concealment of the gun,” he continues, “and the fact that a
number of Matyana’s men were killed in the pursuit, is not disputed
by Mr. Shepstone.
“I confess that I have had the greatest difficulty in forming my
opinion on this latter point, and especially as to whether Mr.
Shepstone fired into the air as he states. _The weight of direct
evidence adduced at the inquiry lay altogether on the other
side._”[51]
Colonel Colley then proceeds to give the considerations by which he
has been influenced in coming to a conclusion directly opposed to the
side on which, as he himself says, lay the weight of direct evidence.
These considerations were threefold. The first is an opinion of
his own, considerably at variance with most people’s experience,
namely, that a story handed down by oral tradition “crystallises
into an accepted form,” by which he explains away the fact that so
many witnesses told the same story, and one which stood the test of
cross-examination, without any important variations.
The second consideration was even more singular, namely, that
allowance must be made on Mr. John Shepstone’s side for the greater
ability with which the Bishop conducted his case; and the third lay
in the statement that “Mr. J. W. Shepstone is a man of known courage,
and a noted sportsman and shot,” and “was not likely to have missed”
Matyana if he had fired at him; “and, if driven to fire into the
crowd in self-defence, it is more probable that he would have shot
one of the men on the right.” The Bishop’s opponents from the very
first persistently put forward the notion that he had “brought a
charge against Mr. J. W. Shepstone,” and this was countenanced by the
Government when they threw upon him the serious task of prosecuting
before a Court of Enquiry, whereas in point of fact the real question
at issue was not whether or no a certain shot was actually fired, but
whether, on a certain occasion, a Government official had acted in
a treacherous manner towards a native chief, thereby giving reason
for the excuse of fear on the part of Langalibalele, treated as a
false pretence by the court, some members of which were fully aware
of the facts, and the prosecutor himself the official concerned. And,
further, whether the said facts had been concealed by high Government
officers, and denied by them repeatedly to their superiors in England.
On the former questions Colonel Colley’s report leaves no doubt,
and Lord Carnarvon’s comments upon it are of a very decided nature.
After signifying his acceptance of the decision as a “sound and
just conclusion,” and complimenting Colonel Colley on the “able
and conscientious manner in which” he “has acquitted himself of an
arduous and delicate task,” he continues: “On the other hand, I must,
even after the lapse of so many years, record my disapprobation of
the artifices by which it is admitted Matyana was entrapped into the
meeting with a view to his forcible arrest. Such underhand manœuvres
are opposed to the morality of a civilised administration; they lower
English rule in the eyes of the natives; and they even defeat their
own object, as is abundantly illustrated by the present case.”
Mr. J. W. Shepstone, however, was a subordinate officer, and if
his mode of executing the warrant was approved by the superior
authorities in the colony, the blame which may attach to the
transaction must be borne by them at least in equal proportion.
The gist of Colonel Colley’s decision is altogether condemnatory of
Mr. J. Shepstone, some of whose statements, he says, “are entirely
without foundation,” and, by implication, also of his brother, the
Secretary for Native Affairs; yet virtually, and in the eyes of
the world, the decision was in their favour. To quote from _The
Natal Mercury_ of November 2nd, 1875: “It is still understood that
Mr. Shepstone, in the minds of impartial judges, stands more than
exonerated from the Bishop’s charges.” Mr. John Shepstone was
retained in his responsible position, and received further promotion;
and his brother was immediately appointed to the high office of
Administrator of Government, and sent out with power to annex the
Transvaal if he thought proper.
We have dwelt at some length upon the inquiry into the Matshana
case; for, since the annexation of the Transvaal was one of the
direct and immediate causes of the Zulu War, and since it seems
improbable that any other man than Sir Theophilus Shepstone could at
the moment have been found equally able to undertake the task, it
becomes a serious question to what extent an inquiry which had no
practical effect whatsoever upon the position of men whose conduct
had been stigmatised by the Secretary of State himself as “underhand
manœuvres, opposed to the morality of a civilised administration,”
may not be considered chargeable with the disastrous results. And,
further, we must protest against the spirit of the last sentence of
Lord Carnarvon’s despatch on the subject, in which he expresses his
“earnest hope that his (Colonel Colley’s) report will be received
by all parties to this controversy in the spirit which is to be
desired, and be accepted as a final settlement of a dispute which
cannot be prolonged without serious prejudice to public interests,
and without a renewal of those resentments which, for the good of the
community—English as well as native—had best be put to rest.”
A dislocated joint must be replaced, or the limb cannot otherwise be
pressed down into shape and “put to rest;” a thorn must be extracted,
not skinned over and left in the flesh; and as, with the dislocation
unreduced or the thorn unextracted, the human frame can never recover
its healthful condition, so it is with the state with an unrighted
wrong, an unexposed injustice.
The act of treason towards Matshana, hidden for many years, looked
upon by its perpetrators as a matter past and gone, has tainted all
our native policy since—unknown to most English people in Natal or
at home—and has finally borne bitter fruit in the present unhappy
condition of native affairs.