Petition to the House of Commons, from W.P. Schreiner, A. Abdurahman, J. Tengo Jabavu, et al, July 1909
Petition to the House of Commons, from W.P. Schreiner, A. Abdurahman, J. Tengo Jabavu, et al, July 1909
(Published in Hansard)
1322. The Petition of the undersigned representatives of the coloured and native British subjects resident in the British Dominions in
.
Humbly sheweth,
Your humble Petitioners are by resolutions of five coloured and native congresses, and by resolutions passed at public meetings held at very many different centers in South Africa, empowered and authorised to approach the Imperial Parliament by Petition or otherwise.
Those whom your Petitioners represent are, according to the testimony of all leading statesmen, loyal and dutiful subjects of His Majesty.
In the colony of the Cape of Good Hope political rights have been granted to all without discrimination of race or colour by the Constitution granted to that colony by
.
Nowhere has it been suggested that those rights have ever been abused; on the contrary, the judicious manner in which they have been exercised on the whole has received the unstinted approbation of many colonial statesmen.
The original Constitution granted to Natal, and also in
has sanctioned no discrimination in obtaining or exercising political rights sanctioned, though in Natal subsequent local legislation has introduced such discrimination on the grounds of race or colour.
Your humble Petitioners respectfully submit that the only practical and efficient means whereby fair and just administration and legislation can be attained, peace, harmony, and contentment secured, is by granting equal political rights to qualified men irrespective of race, colour, or creed.
Your Petitioners fully approve of union of the self-governing Colonies of British South Africa.
The Bill now before the Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland for the purpose of enacting a Constitution to unite the self-governing British Colonies of South Africa into a legislative union under the Crown would for the first time in the history of the legislation of that Parliament by virtue of the phrase "of European descent" in Clauses 26 and 44 create a political discrimination against non-European subjects of His Majesty, and thus introduce for the first time since the establishment of representative institutions in the year 1852 into the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope a colour line in respect of political rights and privileges.
Your Petitioners are deeply disappointed at the non-extension of political and civil rights and privileges to the coloured people and the natives in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony.
Your Petitioners feel aggrieved that solely on account of differences in race or colour it is contemplated by the proposed Constitution to deprive the coloured and native inhabitants of the colony of the Cape of Good Hope of their existing political rights and privileges.
Your Petitioners fear that the franchise rights of the coloured people and natives of the Cape Colony are not adequately protected under the provisions of the proposed Constitution, but are indeed threatened by the provisions of Clause 35.
Your Petitioners apprehend that by the racial discrimination proposed in the aforesaid Bill as regards the qualification of members of the Union Parliament, the prejudice already existing in the Transvaal, Orange River Colony, and Natal, will be accentuated and increased; that the status of the coloured people and natives will be lowered, and that an injustice will be done to those who are the majority of the people in British South Africa, who have in the past shown their unswerving loyalty to the Crown, their attachment to British institutions, their submission to the laws of the land, and their capacity for exercising full civil and political rights.
Wherefore your Petitioners humbly beseech your Honorable House so to amend the aforesaid Bill as to protect the existing political rights of His Majesty's coloured and native subjects and to ensure permanently to them the continuance thereof.
Your Petitioners further respectfully and earnestly pray that your Honorable House would hear them either through the Hon. W. P. Schreiner or through one other of your Petitioners at the Bar of your Honorable House, or for such other relief as to your Honorable House might seem fit.
Your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
W. P. SCHREINER.
A. ABDURAHMAN.
J. TENGO JABAVU
&c. &c. &c.
Source:
Karis, T & Carter G. M. (1972). From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, 1882-1964, Volume 1: Protest and Hope, 1882-1934. Stanford University: Hanover Press.
