Another brief interruption in the Home Rule controversy, to the temporary disadvantage of the Government, was now occasioned by the news (Jan. 28) of the deportation, by the South African Government, of ten of the Labour leaders concerned in the strike disturbances (_post_, For. and Col. Hist., chap. VII., 1). The indignation was heightened by the evasion by that Government of a legal decision on the validity of the deportation, which was carried out under martial law, and by its reliance on an Act of Indemnity. The Labour Party Congress in Glasgow at once passed a resolution protesting against the suppression of trade union action in South Africa by armed force, expressing sympathy with the deported leaders, and requesting the Labour members in the Imperial Parliament to call for a full inquiry, and demand, if necessary, Lord Gladstone's recall; and next day it passed a further resolution calling upon the Government to instruct Lord Gladstone to withhold assent to the Bill until it had been submitted to the King. Strong speeches were made by Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, Mr. Keir Hardie, and other members, the first-named declaring that if the Imperial authority could not stop this attack on the right of combination, he had rather the South African Union were a foreign Power. On the other hand, Mr. Illingworth, the chief Liberal Whip, pointed out (at Clayton, Jan. 30) that South Africa was governed by a Parliament elected on a very free and wide franchise and quite uncontrolled by the Imperial Government, and that interference with such independent assembly would wreck the Empire; Lord Gladstone had acted on the advice of his responsible Ministers, as the King would in Great Britain; and the Home Government was blameless. At Hull, on the same evening, Mr. F. E. Smith asked for a suspension of judgment, and pointed out the inconsistency of demanding that the King should veto a Bill of Indemnity and repudiating that course on Home Rule. The South African Government, he reminded his hearers, had been created with the help of the Labour party. The Liberal Press had anticipated the Chief Whip's arguments; but at the North Durham bye-election (Chron., Jan. 30) though the Liberals held the seat, which had always been regarded as safe for them, it was said that the deportations had caused the transfer from the Liberal to the Labour candidate of some 500 votes. In view of this transfer, the Postmaster-General, speaking at Harrogate, on February 2, had explained that Lord Gladstone's assent to the deportation of the Labour leaders was not required by the Constitution of South Africa, and, in fact, had not been asked. He added that the North Durham result did not support Mr. Bonar Law's prophecy of an early general election.