PROCLAMATION (1) [February 5, 1813. By His Excellency Lieutenant-General Sir JOHN FRANCIS WHEREAS, by the laws now in force, there is no limited time Preamble. Confinement for dollars, not more Now be it hereby declared, ordained, and enacted that no person debts, &c., not exor persons whatsoever shall be confined for any debt. fine, penalty, ceeding twenty rixor contempt of Court or other authority, not exceeding the sum of than one month. twenty rixdollars, more than one month; and every Magistrate, Fiscal, Deputy Fiscal, Landdrost, or Deputy Landdrost, or others having the care, custody, or superintendence of any prison or place of confinement, is hereby ordered and directed to discharge from such prison or place of confinement at the end of such month such person or persons, without demanding or receiving any fees or other expenses than that of their diet, at the rate of ten stivers for each day. not more than six And whereas it has occurred that a debtor or debtors have been Fifty rixdollars confined for a long and indefinite period of time for small debts months. not exceeding fifty rixdollars: Be it enacted and ordained, and it is hereby enacted and ordained, that no person shall be detained in prison for more than six calendar months, for any original debt not exceeding fifty rixdollars exclusive of all costs of suit; and the Fiscal, Deputy Fiscals, Landdrosts, Deputy Landdrosts, and all others having the care and superintendence of jails, prisons, or places of confinement are hereby directed and commanded to liberate all and every person or persons so confined at the expiration of the six calendar months, as aforesaid, and all and every person is forbidden again to arrest for such debt aforesaid, any person or persons so liberated; but nothing herein shall be construed to discharge such debt or debts, or to deprive the creditor or creditors of any and every other remedy against the goods, lands, or property of such debtor or debtors which now exists by law. And that no person may plead ignorance hereof, this shall be published and affixed as usual. 1 See Ord. 6, 1839, § 2; Acts 20, 1856, § 20 and 8, 1879, § 6. Other remedies of creditor reserved. Preamble. CONVERSION OF LOAN PLACES TO PERPETUAL QUITRENT. (1) PROCLAMATION [Aug. 6, 1813. By His Excellency Lieutenant-General Sir JOHN FRANCIS WHEREAS agriculture constitutes the chief source of prosperity in this Colony, and the full encouragement thereof must consequently have an immediate tendency to promote the real interests of its inhabitants: Whereas this encouragement chiefly depends on the certainty of tenures, and the confidence connected therewith, that all improvements of the soil, and all increase of fertility, should indisputably belong to the holder as his own, and that, in the ordinary course of things, all his arrangements, as well with respect to the produce as to the land itself, should, by the laws, be exclusively secured to him, his heirs, executors, assigns, or representatives: Whereas, although the establishment of loan leases might have been suitable to the early state of this Colony, when the wants of Government were not foreseen, it now appears from experience that the loan tenure is injurious to that certainty, so essential to the happiness and the interest of the inhabitants, and equally injurious to the public interest, by preventing the holders from appropriating as much of their means to the improvement and extension of agriculture as they would do, in case they had no right of re-assumption to apprehend, and might dispose of the ground as they please, by sub-dividing the same among their children, letting, selling, or otherwise alienating it in lots, cultivating it in the prospect of remote benefit, by the planting of timber, &c.: Whereas, notwithstanding a gradual re-assumption of loan lands and the re-granting of the same in lesser portions on a more certain tenure might considerably increase the colonial revenue; yet, having taken into consideration the great tility of no longer delaying the improved cultivation of land by giving security to title, and of making the same, as speedily as possible, a general measure, I have adopted the following determination: To grant to the holders of all lands on loan, who may regularly apply for the same, their places on perpetual quitrent, with the following rights and privileges, and on the following terms and conditious, namely. Memorial to the 1. Every holder of a loan place, on his making application by version of Loan memorial to Government for the purpose, shall have a grant of his Places to perpetual place, on perpetual quitrent, to the same extent as he has hitherto legally possessed the same on loan. Government for con quitrent. Extent of grant. 2 No loan place shall exceed three thousand morgen; every addition to that quantity of land must be particularly mentioned See Act 15, 1887. to the surveyor and commission, and appear upon the face of the Proc.-Aug. 6, 1813. application, for His Excellency's consideration. Right to hold here ditarily and to alien 3. The holder, by this grant, shall obtain the right "to hold the land hereditarily, and to do with the same as he may think ate. proper, in like manner as with other immovable property; as also, should he deem advisable, to sell or otherwise alienate it, with the usual previous knowledge of Government, either partly or wholly, as free and allodial property." vation of precious silver-and of right 4. Government reserves no other rights but those on mines of Government reserprecious stones, gold, or silver; as also the right of making and stones, old and repairing public roads, and raising materials for that purpose on of making and rethe premises other mines of iron, lead, copper, tin, coals, slate, or pairing roads. limestone, are to belong to the proprietor. (1) of places adjoining the 5. In all places adjoining to the sea, or communicating with the Reservation sea by inlets therefrom, the rights of the Crown are reserved, rights of Crown in with the power of re-assumption of any quantity of land, not sea. exceeding twenty morgen, paying the proprietor for such buildings as he may have erected, according to a fair valuation, provided such ground be wanted for public purposes; and if given up by the Crown, it shall not be transferred to another individual, but revert to the proprietor or his representatives. Laws respecting freehold 6. In all judicial decisions regarding perpetual quitrent the same lands to rights, laws, and usages shall be observed, which have hitherto govern decisions on been acted upon, or which may hereafter be established, enacted, perpetual quitrent. and followed in judicial decisions, with respect to freehold lands. exceed rixdollars 7. That for this, in the common course of things, irrevocable Yearly rent not to title, the holders shall pay to the public revenue an increased two hundred and yearly rent, to be prescribed according to the situation, fertility, fifty. and other favourable circumstances of the land; in no case, however, exceeding a sum of two hundred and fifty rixdollars. veyor. 8. For the survey of a loan place to be granted on perpetual quit- Payment of sur rent, the land surveyor, exclusive of the diagram, travelling expenses, and wagon hire, shall not charge more that one hundred rixdollars, unless he may be obliged, from local difficulties, to appropriate more than five days to make the survey, in which case he shall be allowed to charge ten rixdollars for every day over and above that time: the respective landdros's are therefore directed to pay strict attention hereto, when any account be presented to them to be paid out of the district treasury, as mentioned in the Government advertisement of the 16th July last. 9. (2) On the division of any place granted on perpetual quitrent, division of a place, each part, and its holder, shall be severally bound and responsible bound for the full for the full amount of the rent, in such manner, however, that he who makes the payment may recover from the other holders, for as far as regards their respective shares; unless at the request of the interested parties, on making the division, Government may have See § 146, Act 40, 1889. 2 See Acts 7, 1856, and 10, 1875. Each holder, on amount of the rent. Proc.—Aug. 6, 1513. been pleased to direct, that the rent shall be apportioned and registered proportionably at the time of the transfer. Transfer coram legs loci. Quitrent lands liable to same bur 10. That in order to ensure the necessary regularity, as well as the interest of the State, no alienation of any part of such place shall be considered as legal before the same shall be surveyed, a diagram made thereof, regularly transferred before Commissioners of the Court of Justice, as likewise duly registered in the office of land revenue. 11. This perpetual quitrent shall, further, not be liable to any dens only as freehold other burthens but those to which all freehold lands are already subject, or which may hereafter be further prescribed. which applications twelve months. Period within 12. All applications for the conversion of loan lands into permay be made,petual quitrent, with the privileges attached thereto by this present proclamation, must be made within twelve months from the date. hereof; after the expiration of which period the said rights, privileges, terms, and conditions, shall be subject to such alterations as circumstances shall be found to require. Issue of title deed. Right of replaces, increase of 13. The title deed (erfgrondbrief), on such application, shall be granted after the place shall have been surveyed, with the previous knowledge of, and if necessary pointed out by, the landdrost, by a sworn land surveyor, and a proper diagram of the same forwarded to Government by the landdrost, accompanied by his certificate, that the measurement was made without prejudice to any person; and also that the diagram does not contain any greater extent of ground than was legally possessed on loan by the holder. 14. By the regulations made in these presents, it is not to beassumption of loan understood that the right of re-assumption, increase of rent, or ent, &c, not cur- other arrangement regarding loan places, which undoubtedly case of change of belong to the Government of this Colony, and which have been, tailed, except 'in tenure. Right of Government as to attached places, not proclamation. from time to time, exercised by the successive Governments of the same, are in anywise curtailed, or intended to be curtailed, unless when the parties obtain an alteration in their tenure on the terms proposed. 15. In order to prevent all misunderstanding, it is hereby done specially declared, that the right which belongs to Government away with by this with respect to attached places is in nowise done away by this measure, and consequently, that those places remain subject to all such further regulations as they would have been liable to, in case this proclamation had not been issued. Loan places attached to drostdies And public property. 16. Loan places attached to the respective drost dies, deputy parsonages landdrosts, or the parsonages of the clergy, remain, as they are, public property, to be transmitted to their successors. But where Field-cornets, or other public functionaries, are excused from paying rent for a loan lease of their own as part of the remuneration for their public services,-in all such cases where the party solicits and obtains a change of tenure, for the purpose of dividing it amongst his family, or other motives, he shall not be Proc.-Aug 6, 1813. liable to the raised rent during the time he is employed in the public service, and a new rent shall commence at the expiration of such services by death or otherwise. the regulations. 17. The whole tenor of the foregoing regulations will manifest, General tenor of the paternal view His Majesty had taken of this Colony; and, in deeply considering the permanent interest of the occupiers of lands, to what extent the Crown has resolved to sacrifice its rights and prerogatives in order to place property upon that solid and secure foundation, without which fair adventure and speculation cannot arise, and even common industry and labour will lose much of its effect. Thus at length is this great measure matured and brought forward. It is the one that has long engaged the attention and anxious wish of each preceding Government, but which could not well admit of conclusion, except in times like the present--of unexampled tranquillity, uniform progress in civilization and good order, and the unbounded prospect of universal prosperity. I feel the highest gratification in giving effect to these beneficent and paternal designs of His Majesty's Government; and persuade myself that the gratitude of the inhabitants of this Colony will be equal to the value of the inestimable gift thus extended to them on the part of the Crown, which, by graciously offering to their acceptance a perfect title to lands, that enables them to provide for their children and descendants, and dispose of them as they please, grants to them, in fact, possession of an estate, and the high character and station of "a real landholder" They will thereby abandon an unworthy tenure, unfitted to the growing prosperity of the Colony, and only suited to the earliest and rudest institutions of the settlement; and being thus placed in their territorial possessions on the same footing as their fellowsubjects in Europe, the Cape of Good Hope in future may, with fair pretension, take its rank with other countries. And that no person may plead ignorance hereof, this shall be published and affixed as usual. |