Another supposed rebel, Scheepers, when asked at the court martial if he objected to any one of the officers concerned in this trial, said "No, not one, but the whole court. I am a prisoner of war and should be treated as such." His version of it, in a letter to his mother, reads: "I have been given what may be called a trial, and I have been sentenced to death on the evidence of false witnesses, who swore lies in order to earn their dirty money. But, Mother dear, do not weep for me. What I am going to suffer is nothing. It is only what every true man has had to suffer who places his love of country before his own life. Do not cry for me, I beg you. It merely means that I am leaving a land where might is right, and going to one where right is might."

His actions at the execution were like the wording in his letter. As he walked from the ambulance waggon, which brought him there, he had to pass his grave on the way to the chair on which he was to sit. He looked into the grave, then pressed his handcuffed hands to a badge on his hat which had the word "Liefde" (love) on it, and his warders told us that he would not part with that badge when asked for it as a souvenir, as it was a gift from someone dear to him. When he sat on the chair he said, "Don't tie me, boys!"-but mili­tary orders cannot be nullified by prisoners, so his arms and legs were both tied to it and a bandage put over his eyes.

Marksmen were picked for the firing party, and every bullet splintered the flat back of the chair behind his heart. A bag of lime was the first covering, it was said, to eat up the remains. Whether it did so or not, his body could never be found afterwards. His hat and the broken chair were found after excavating the site, but they were put in by myself when the grave was half filled. Our Drum Major, "Nobbie" Higgins, evidently thought of an appropriate tune for the march back to camp, it was what was then a popular song: "More work for the undertaker, Another little job for the tombstone makers," etc.

Signaller Corporal Scheepers, of the Transvaal Artillery. About 1896

They have immortalised Scheepers at Graaff Reinet since then. I visited the town a couple of years ago, and there saw a memorial erected to him outside the house of Jurie Laubscher, whom I met there with C. L. Olivier, F. Jacobs and R. A. Jansen, all members of my squad whom I had nut seen for forty years. A book has been published since by Dr. Gustave Preller, Scheepers se Dag Boek, giving details of the whole proceedings with photographs, which include Scheepers' own personal diary, and some articles by myself about the happening at the execution.

I have given a detail of the Scheepers execution to show again that what is called "rules of legitimate war" are at the discretion of the local commandant, or the interpretation of a court martial under martial law. Scheepers was not a rebel and had no right to be tried as such. He was, as he stated, merely "a prisoner of war". He was, as the photographs show, both I believe in the Transvaal and Free State Artillery from his youth, and was born in the vicinity of Middelburg, Transvaal.

General Kritzinger, his superior officer, who dictated his actions, was captured and brought to Graaff Reinet soon afterwards, but luckily for him peace, was proclaimed about the same time. He was to have been similarly indicted as Scheepers, but his crimes then vanished and he was set free. It was said the execution of rebels" was to frighten others in the Colony from joining up. Most of the inhabitants of Graaff Reinet were allowed to witness the executions for that reason.

All these things were done under the exigencies of martial law, which shows how the atrocities of war are made possible, and no individual held responsible. If it can be said that the Commandant of the town, at that time Colonel A. H. Henniker of the Coldstream Guards, was responsible, then the position seems more remarkable, because he was of a most kindly disposition. I knew him intimately. Any service rendered him was always noticed and appreciated, even to his personal servants. Anyone who knew General Kritzinger in those days may remember that he visited England soon Anglo-Boer War. I happened to be at Colonel Henniker's Stratford Place, off Oxford Street, London, on the day that Kritzinger was invited to lunch with him and a few fellow officers-criminal only thought fit for execution a few months before.

They have both gone now, perhaps to a place where Scheepers said, "Right is might"--if the biblical Heaven admits people who fight each other in war. I wrote to Mrs. Henniker lamenting her loss-it was when I was in Pretoria in 1912. She wrote back and said she did not know who could be more deeply mourned than he.

Another incident happened which to anyone outside of the brutali­ties of the war area would seem distinctly cruel. Some of our rank and file, even for a minor offence, would be tied to the wheel of an ammunition cart by their stretched arms and legs. I saw this done when we were holding Klip Kraal Drift near, and during the battle of, Paardeberg. We had lost our convoy of rations, and were then fed on a quarter of a biscuit a day. A biscuit was approximately 4 in. square, and less than ½ in. thick. Yet these defaulters were tied to those wheels, tormented by flies and the scorching sun.

Later we had a contingent of Australians with us for trivial offences; they also tried it with them. Two men delegated of their own forces to tie the offenders refused to do it. Four more men were then brought down to tie the four, and they refused to do it. This put the Australian officers in a quandary. They feared mutiny of the whole camp. The position was then put to Colonel Henniker, the Commandant of the Column. He, either tactfully or on humanitarian grounds, admonished both the men and the cause of their protests. Lord Fisher, once Admiral of the British Fleet, said, "To talk about humanising war, we might as well talk about humanising hell!" And went on to instance a few things he would do about sinking neutral ships. I quoted his remarks at a meeting during the 1914 war. This brought me again before the court. The prosecutor said:

"Don't you think it unwise to make such remarks?" I said, "I was quoting a British Admiral-he certainly appeared very unwise."

On another occasion I was quoting from the Government Blue Book correspondence and matter that led up to the war. I was howled off the platform for "using" instead of quoting such argu­ments. Further, I now have the Blue Book with all correspondence that led up to this war, 1914 war If that could be read before a crowd they would perhaps get many surprises, and show as much hostility to the reader about "his" views on this war. I am not going to attempt the reading myself this time anyway.

In the first Great War we had a combination of forces showing opposition to it. The S.D.F., the War on War League and the Peace and Arbitration Society. The latter was a small school in Cape Town of very pious and sincere people, among whom were the Rev. Ramsden Balmforth, Mrs. Julia Solly, Dr. R. Forsyth and D. L. Dryburgh. I was delegated to them by the S.D.F. It was hardly a place for me in those days. Their pious leaflets were too mild, but one they published caused quite a controversy on our justification for publishing it. It first appeared in a weekly periodical called The Cape written by a correspondent to that paper, describing how his son had met a German soldier in "no man's land," and how they fraternised and expressed mutual feelings on the fallacies of war. Some passages read thus: "All this talk about kings and honour of country is wicked lies. . . . It's to make some men richer and others poorer," etc., etc.

The editor of The Cape afterwards thought the letter to be a hoax, and accused the P. and A.S. of being responsible for it. I delegated by them to interview the editor, whom I knew personally, and deny his allegation. He then showed me the MS. he received, signed "His Father"-he was a bachelor. It was the handwriting of J. M. Nield. I then sensed trouble, so did not admit I knew the writer, either to the editor or the P. and A.S., nor did I repeat my observation to the author then.

There were many English people who declarer themselves pro-Boer during the Anglo-Boer war; and there were, as I have indicated, many organisations and many people who opposed the last Great War; but is war becoming a habit that people now assume it in be part of our political life?

My one time pious friends of the Peace and Arbitration Society of the last war-the Rev. Balmforth, Dr. R. Forsyth and Mrs. Julia Solly, the most lovable trio of humanitarians one could find in Cape Town-even they, at least the two former, are not Pacifists in this war. They, who wrote and talked and often came to the court in my defence against the popular cry in the previous war, believe in guns, bombs and human vengence in this war.

Before his death, only a few years ago, I had considerable corres­pondence with the Rev. Balmforth on the subject. In his final reply to a letter I sent him, lamenting his illness, he said: "Many thanks for your letter of sympathy-I am feeling better already, but we all have to go through the mill.

"As to the war, it is too ghastly for words. But the murderers must be defeated. We must discriminate between the aggressive and defensive war. Don't tell me that you would not defend your wife -even with a hatchet or bayonet if needs be-against a brutal or fanatical murderer. Hitler is deliberately and unwantonly sacrificing millions of lives on that Russian front, and what for? Echo answers:

What for? -Ever yours, R.B."

With everything he has said here I agree. The only difference in us is that the Rev. Balmforth and Dr. Forsyth now discriminate between the aggressive and the defensive parties in war, whereas I cannot discriminate, so vast and so complicated has war diplomacy become. Further, I have no intention of doing so. To me the whole war machinery is too ghastly for my entertainment for one reason; another reason is that I know, as now every thinking man knows, that this war, as all wars, is the resultant outcome of the Capitalist system.

Mrs. Solly, in a letter to me as recently as the 30th November 1943, enclosed a quotation of the Rev. Dr. Haynes Holmes, who says:

"The weapons Hitler has developed and used so fearfully have come from other nations; the tanks from Britain, the bombers from America and France, the machine guns and submarines from America. This man so cruel, so revengeful, is not alien to ourselves. He is the perversion of our lusts and the poisoned distillation of our crimes. We see in him; as in a glass darkly, the image of the world we have made. Our sins have found us out, that's all."

The underlinings were made by Mrs. Solly, and that is my, as well as her, view of the whole ghastly war. But we to-day are a voice in the wilderness; most people, be they Socialists, Communists, or former supposed Pacifists, think in terms of war.

Alike are they unanimous in Germany. There are no shades of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in this war. I have it on good authority that a Nazi official went to a big factory in Berlin and asked the manager the political opinions of his employees. "Oh!" he said, "about 50 per cent. are trade unionists, 30 per cent. Socialists, and 20 per cent. more or less Communists." "What!" said the official, "then you haven't a Nazi in your employ?" "You make a mistake," said the manager, "they are all Nazis."

Equally are all shades of political opinion of the English-speaking community of South Africa, and many of the Afrikaans-speaking, outside the Nationalist Party. Some even of my old comrades won't discuss the pros and cons of this war. On one occasion a Communist paralleled my Pacifist ideology with that of a "Fascist spy." Some anonymous political wit came a little nearer the real thing. He or she sent me openly through the post a postcard photograph of Mahatma Gandhi, and printed nicely underneath it Mahatma Harrison." I am proud of the association, and I have put it in a frame.

I am proud of Gandhi because he has induced the Indians to do by peaceful means what our boasted civilisation is claiming to do by the destruction wholesale of human lives, irrespective of age or sex, for the supposed liberty of the people.

Gandhi in appearance, and his peculiar ways, appears to many as a crank, but there is method in his supposed madness. I knew a Europeanised Gandhi, who took his degree as advocate in England and practised as such in South Africa; declared himself a Socialist and spoke from out platforms. He then saw his work was needed in India, where European industry would like to establish themselves in a cheap labour market, and enlarge their profits. Gandhi saw that system working in South Africa. He threw off his European clothes, adorned himself in ancient Indian robes, and adopted as his slogan "Back to the loom" Boycott European industry, and by passive means resist their administration. A few thousand soldiers and a less number of civil servants constitute in India the British Empire. They serve their term and depart. They are the forces that extort £30,000,000 yearly in taxation. They have no other purpose; there is no white colonisation in that country.

I went into the office of Bob Stuart the other day. He had just returned from a Trade Union Mission in the North, and he brought back with him-I think he said from Pretoria-a fine bust of Gandhi. I envied him his possession. Whether some donor presented it to him for the same reason as my unknown wit sent the Gandhi card to me, I didn't ask. I had tailed in about an article I had written for the Trade Union Bulletin. Although that is title it is really the organ of the" Socialist movement in South African articles, other than the notes and reports of trade union activities, are distinctly on the principles of Socialism, and, of course, written by Socialists. They are all old men, no less than half a dozen of us are its contributors, over 70 years of age, including the editor. There are no young Socialists, all the young people are Communists, and their speeches and articles have quite a different meaning. The Socialists have a vocabulary of their own, and only they can use it.

The Communists in South Africa generally apply their propaganda work to Native grievances and the trade unions chiefly of the smaller industries. These have multiplied, owing to the increasing quantity of commodities temptingly displayed on the markets which have drawn on the purchasing powers of the poorer classes, inducing them to form trade unions to increase their wages. This permits them (if they are permitted to be registered as trade unions) to become affiliated with the Trades and Labour Council. These are the elite of the South African working class, or, as John X. Merriman used to call them, "the aristocracy of Labour." The mass of the workers in South Africa are still an illiterate people, living in squalor and filth, producing an increasing number of criminals as the inevitable result. What is known as Labour legislation does not apply to these people. Even direct representation to the extent of three members in the Union Parliament has not given any relief to their depraving circumstances. The African Natives are still deprived of trade union registration.

The perfection of factory organisation, the improved machine and efficient labour, and all the forms of new mechanism and trans­port have aided rather than retarded further exploitation by the Capitalist. Wealth accumulation has multiplied by leaps and bounds. International business and international finance have spread the world markets and made possible international wars for territorial and material gain. The remedy lies in the ownership and control of all those factors by the people, who will socialise it to the benefit and service of the community.

It is the purpose of those who call themselves Socialists to give continual evidence of what Socialism means, not obscure that purpose by attempting to improve a system that the fundamentals of Socialism will actually destroy. To achieve any purpose, or to acquire knowledge of any profession, one must continually work for that purpose or profession, not let our humanitarian instincts carry us away on side issues of immediate improvement, which are not even a means to the Socialist end, but will help to purify and maintain the Capitalist system which the Socialists are out to destroy.

Members of the Central Executive Committee of the South African Communist Party who were commited for trial in February, 1947, on a charge of sedition arising out of the African mine workers' strike in August, 1946

Now I think I have said enough to show what I mean by a Socialist propagandist. It is for that reason that I have differed with the Communists. We do not preach Socialism for any class, or against any class, therefore we cannot preach the class war. There wouldn't be a Capitalist class if the working class didn't labour to make it- hence the only people to blame are the workers themselves, who ought not to declare war on a people who are the products of their own deeds. The people who have subjected the wage system to analysis and discovered its exploiting tendencies, are not of the work­ing class, neither have the chief exponents of Socialism in all coun­tries, including Russia, been drawn from their ranks. Following the Russian revolution they had to get back to the masses to put their own house in order, but they ought to have known better than to tell other countries to get back to the masses to put the Capitalist system in order. It is our purpose to show ways and means how to destroy that system.

The headquarters of the Communist Party when in Johannes burg was composed of the dissenting elements of the Labour Party; therefore the new slogan was merely a continuation of their former activities as a reformist party. The only difference between the Com­munists and the Labour Party is that the Communists, following the Moscow slogan, give special attention to the Native community. The object of the two bodies is the same.