Since Mr. Brand returned from London in 1876 nothing material has happened in the history of the Free State. In regard to all states it is said to be well that nothing material should happen to them. This must be peculiarly so with a Republic so small, and of which the success and the happiness must depend so entirely on its tranquillity. That it should have lived through the Basuto wars is astonishing. That it should not continue to live now that it is protected on all sides from the possibility of wars by the contiguity of British territory would be as astonishing. It seems to be expected by some politicians in England that now, in the days of her prosperity, the Republic will abandon her independence and ask to be received once more under the British ægis. I cannot conceive anything to be less probable, nor can I see any cause for such a step. But I will refer again to this matter when attempting to describe the present condition of the country.
In this little sketch I have endeavoured to portray theColonial Ministers at home as actuated by every virtue which should glow within the capacious bosom of a British Statesman. I am sure that I have attributed no sinister motive, no evil idea, no blindness to honesty, no aptitude for craft to any Secretary of State. There are I think no less than eleven of them still living, all of whom the British public regards as honourable men who have deserved well of their country. I can remember almost as many more of whom the same may be said, who are now at peace beyond the troubles of the Native Question. I will endeavour to catalogue the higher public virtues by which they have endeared themselves to their country,—only remarking that those virtues have not, each of them, held the same respective places in the bosoms of all of them. A sensitiveness to the greatness and glory of England,—what we may perhaps call the Rule Britannia feeling,—which cannot endure the idea that the British foot should ever go back one inch! Is it not national ardour such as this which recommends our Statesmen to our love? And then there has been that well-weighed economy which has been acquired in the closet and used in the House of Commons, without which no minister can really be true to his country. To levy what taxes be needed, but to take care that no more is spent than is needed;—is not that the first duty of a Cabinet Minister? But it has been England’s destiny to be the arbiter of the fate of hundreds of millions of dusky human beings,—black, but still brethren,—on distant shores. The Queen has a hundred coloured subjects to one that is white. It has been the peculiar duty of the Colonial Minister to look after andto defend the weakest of these dark-skinned brothers; and this has had to be done in the teeth of much obloquy! Can any virtue rank higher than the performance of so sacred a duty? And then of how much foresight have our ministers the need? How accurately must they read the lessons which history and experience should teach them if Great Britain is to be saved from a repetition of the disgrace which she encountered before the American Colonies declared themselves independent? When we find a man who can look forward and say to himself,—“while we can hold these people, for their own content, to their own welfare, so long we will keep them; but not a moment longer for any selfish aggrandisement of our own;”—when we find a Statesman rising to that pitch, how fervently should we appreciate the greatness of the man, and how ready should we be to acknowledge that he has caught the real secret of Colonial administration.
These splendid qualities have so shone over our Colonial office that the sacred edifice is always bright with them. They scintillate on the brows of every Assistant Secretary, and sit as a coronet on the shining locks of all the clerks. But unfortunately they are always rotatory, so that no one virtue is ever long in the ascendant. Rule Britannia! and the Dutch Member of Parliament has to walk out of his Volksaal and touch his hat to an English Governor. Downing Street and the Treasury have agreed to retrench! Then the Dutch Member of Parliament walks back again. We will at any rate protect the Native! Then the Boer’s wife hides the little whip with which she is accustomed tomaintain discipline over her apprenticed nigger children. Let these people go forth and govern themselves! Then the little whip comes out again. Among all these British virtues what is a bewildered Dutch Colonist to do? If one virtue would remain always in the ascendant,—though I might differ or another,—there would be an intelligible policy. If they could be made to balance each other,—as private virtues do in private bosoms when the owners of those bosoms are possessed of judgment,—then the policy would assuredly be good. But while one virtue is ever in the ascendant, but never long there, the Dutch Colonist, and the English, are naturally bewildered by the rotation.
Sir George Grey, who was at that time Governor of the Cape of Good Hope writing to Lord John Russell on 17th November 1855,—Lord John having then been Secretary of State for the Colonies,—expresses himself in the following glowing terms as to the region of which I am now writing. “The territory of the Orange Free State forms one of the finest pastoral countries I have ever seen. There is no district of country in Australia which I have visited which throughout so great an extent of territory affords so uniformly good a pastoral country.” A short time previous to this, Sir George Clerk, when he was about to deliver the State up to the Government of the Dutch, declared,—or at any rate is popularly reported to have declared,—that the land was a “howling wilderness.” I think that the one colonial authority was quite as far astray as the other. Sir George Grey had ever a way with him of contending for his point either by strong language or by strong action. He was at one time Governor of South Australia, but perhaps never travelled as far north as the Salt Bush country of that Colony. The Colony in his time was in its infancy and was not known as far north as the pastoral district in question. Ido not know whether Sir George ever visited the Riverina in New South Wales, or the Darling Downs in Queensland. Had he done so,—and had he then become as well acquainted with the pastoral properties of land as he has since become,—he would hardly with all his energy have ventured upon such an assertion. It will be only necessary for any investigator to look at the prices of Australian and South African wool to enable him to form an opinion on the subject. The average price in London of medium Australian wool in 1877 was 1s. 6d. a pound, and that of South African wool of the same class 1s. 1d. a pound. In both countries it is common to hear that the land should be stocked at about the rate of 3 sheep to the acre; but in Australia patches of land which will bear heavier stocking occur much more numerously than in South Africa. The Orange Free State has not yet arrived at the ponderous glory of full statistics so that I cannot give the amount of the wool produced, nor can I divide her wool from that of the Cape Colony, through which it is sent to England without special record. But I feel sure that no one who knows the two countries will venture to compare the flocks of the Free State with those of either of the four great Australian Colonies, or with the flocks of New Zealand.
But if Sir George Grey spoke too loudly in one direction Sir George Clerk spoke very much too loudly in the other. He was probably struck by the desolate and unalluring appearance of the lands to the north of the Orange. They are not picturesque. They are not well-timbered. They are not even well-watered. If Sir George Clerk saw themin a drought, as I did, he certainly did not look upon a lovely country. But it is a country in which men may earn easy bread by pastoral and agricultural pursuits; in which with a certain amount of care,—which has to show itself mainly in irrigation,—the choicest fruits of the earth can be plenteously produced; in which the earth never refuses her increase if she be asked for it with many tears. A howling wilderness certainly it is not. But Sir George Clerk when he described the country was anxious to excuse the conduct of Great Britain in getting rid of it, while Sir George Grey was probably desirous of showing how wrong Great Britain had been on the occasion.
I do not know that I ever travelled across a less attractive country than the Orange Free State, or one in which there is less to gratify the visitor who goes to see things and not to see men and women. And the men and women are far between; for over an area presumed to include 70,000 square miles, a solid block of territory about 300 miles long by 120 miles broad, there are probably not more than 30,000 white people, and half that number of coloured people. The numbers I know are computed to be greater by the officials of the Free State itself,—but no census has been taken, and with customary patriotism they are perhaps disposed to overestimate their own strength. They, however, do not give much above half an inhabitant to every square mile. It must be remembered that in the Free State the land is all occupied;—but that it is occupied at the rate I have described. I altogether deny that the Free State is a howling wilderness, but I do not recommend English autumn tourists todevote their holydays to visiting the land, unless they have become very tired indeed of their usual resorts.
The farmer in the Orange Free State is generally a Dutch Boer,—but by no means always so. During my very short visit I came across various Englishmen who were holding or who had held land there,—Africanders perhaps, persons who had been born from British parents in the Gape Colony,—but altogether British as distinguished from Dutch. In the towns the shopkeepers are I think as generally English as the farmers are Dutch in the country. We hear of the Republic as an essentially Dutch country;—but I think that if a man about to live there had to choose the possession of but one of the two languages, English would be more serviceable to him of the two. In another twenty years it certainly will be so.
I travelled from the Diamond Fields to Bloemfontein and thence through Smithfield to the Orange River at Aliwal North. I also made a short excursion from Bloemfontein. In this way I did not see the best district of the country which is that which was taken from the Basutos,—where the town of Ladybrand now is,—which is good agricultural land, capable of being sown and reaped without artificial irrigation. The normal Dutch farmer of the Republic, such as I saw him, depends chiefly upon his flocks which are very small as compared with those in Australia,—three or four thousand sheep being a respectable pastoral undertaking for one man. He deals in agriculture also, not largely, but much more generally than his Australian brother. In Australia the squatter usually despises agriculture, lookingupon it as the fitting employment for a little free-selector,—who is but a mean fellow in his estimation. He grows no more than he will use about his place for his own cattle. The flour to be consumed by himself and his men he buys. And as his horses are not often corn-fed a very few acres of ploughed land suffices for his purpose. The Dutch patriarch makes his own bread from the wheat he has himself produced. The bread is not white, but it is so sweet that I am inclined to say I have never eaten better. And he sells his produce,—anything which he can grow and does not eat himself. The Australian woolgrower sells nothing but wool. The Dutch Boer will send peas twenty miles to market, and will sell a bundle of forage,—hay made out of unripened oats or barley,—to any one who will call at his place and ask for it.
A strong Boer will probably have thirty, forty or perhaps fifty acres of cultivated land round his house,—including his garden. And he will assuredly have a dam for holding and husbanding his rain water. He would almost better be without a house than without a dam. Some spot is chosen as near to his homestead as may be,—towards which there is something, be it ever so slight, of a fall of ground. Here a curved wall or stoned bank is made underlying the fall of ground, and above it the earth is hollowed out,—as is done with a haha fence, only here it is on larger and broader dimensions,—and into this artificial pond when it is so made the rain water is led by slight watercourses along the ground above. From the dam, by other watercourses, the contents are led hither and thither on to the land and garden as required,—or intothe house. It is the Boer’s great object thus to save enough water to last him through any period of drought that may come;—an object which he generally attains as far as his sheep, and cattle, and himself are concerned;—but in which he occasionally fails in reference to his ground. I saw more than one dam nearly dry as I passed through the country, and heard it asserted more than once that half a day’s rain would be worth a hundred pounds to the speaker.
The Boer’s house consists of a large middle chamber in which the family live and eat and work,—but do not cook. There is not usually even a fireplace in the room. It is very seldom floored. I do not know that I ever saw a Boer’s house floored in the Free State. As the planks would have had to be brought up four hundred miles by oxen, this is not wonderful. The Boer is contented with the natural hard earth as it has been made for him. The furniture of his room is good enough for all domestic purposes. There are probably two spacious tables, and settees along the walls of which the seats are made of ox-riems, and open cupboards in the corners filled not sparingly with crockery. And there is always a pile of books in a corner of the room,—among which there is never one not of a religious tendency. There is a large Dutch Bible, and generally half a dozen Dutch hymn-books, with a smaller Bible or two, and not improbably an English prayer-book and English hymn-book if any of the younger people are affecting the English language. The younger members of the family generally are learning English and seem to be very much better off in regard to education than are their relations in the Transvaal.
Opening out of the living room there are generally bedrooms to the right and left,—probably two at one end and one at the other,—of which the best will be surrendered to the use of any respectable stranger who may want such accommodation. It matters not who may be the normal occupant of the room. He or she,—or more probably they,—make way for the stranger, thinking no more of surrendering a bedroom than we do of giving up a chair. The bedroom is probably close and disagreeable, lacking fresh air, with dark suspicious corners of which the stranger would not on any account unravel the mysteries. Behind the centre chamber there is a kitchen to which the stranger does not probably penetrate. I have however been within the kitchen of a Dutch Boeress and have found that as I was to eat what came out of it, I had better not have penetrated so far. It will be understood that a Dutch Boer’s house never has an upper storey.
The young men are large strapping youths, and well made though awkward in their gait. The girls can hardly be said to be good-looking though there is often a healthy bloom about them. One would be inclined to say that they marry and have children too young were it not that they have so many children, and afterwards become such stout old matrons. Surely no people ever attended less to the fripperies and frivolities of dress. The old men wear strong loose brown clothes well bestained with work. The old women do the same. And so do the young men, and so do the young women. There seems to be extant among them no taste whatever for smartness. None at any rate is exhibited about their own homesteads. There are always coloured people about, living in adjacent huts,—very probably within the precincts of the same courtyard. For with the white children there are always to be seen black children playing. Nor does there seem to be any feeling of repugnance at such intercourse on the part of any one concerned. As such children grow up no doubt they are required to work, but I have never seen among the Dutch any instance of personal cruelty to a coloured person;—nor, during my travels in South Africa, did any story of such cruelty reach my ear. The Dutchman would I think fain have the black man for his slave,—and, could he have his way in this, would not probably be over tender. But the feeling that the black man is not to be personally ill-used has I think made its way so far, that at any rate in the Orange Free State such ill-usage is uncommon.
In regard to the question of work, I found that in the Free State as in all the other provinces and districts of the country so much of the work as is done for wages is invariably done by coloured people. On a farm I have seen four young men working together,—as far as I could see on equal terms,—and two have been white and two black; but the white lads were the Boer’s sons, while the others were his paid servants. Looking out of a window in a quiet dreary little town in the Free State I saw opposite to me two men engaged on the plastering of a wall. One was a Kafir and the other probably was a west coast Negro. Two or three passed by with loads on their shoulders. They were Bechuanas or Bastard Hottentots. I strolled out of thevillage to a country house where a Fingo was gardener and a Bushman was working under him. Out in the street the two men who had driven the coach were loafing round it. They were Cape Boys as they are called,—a coloured people who came from St. Helena and have white blood in their veins. I had dined lately and had been waited upon by a Coolie. Away in the square I could see bales of wool being handled by three Basutos. A couple of Korannas were pretending to drive oxen through the street but were apparently going where the oxen led them. Then came another Hottentot with a yoke and pair of buckets on his shoulder. I had little else to do and watched the while that I was there;—but I did not see a single white man at work. I heard their voices,—some Dutch, though chiefly English; but the voices were the voices of masters and not of men. Then I walked round the place with the object of seeing, and nowhere could I find a white man working as a labourer. And yet the Orange Free State is supposed to be the one South African territory from which the black man has been expelled. The independent black man who owned the land has been expelled,—but the working black man has taken his place, allured by wages and diet.
The Dutch Boer does not love to pay wages,—does not love to spend money in any way,—not believing in a return which is to come, or possibly may come, from an outlay of capital in that direction. He prefers to keep what he has and to do what can be done by family labour. He will, however, generally have a couple of black men about his place, whose services he secures at the lowest possiblerate. Every shilling so paid is grudged. He has in his heart an idea that a nigger ought to be made to work without wages.
In the Free State as in the Transvaal I found every Boer with whom I came in contact, and every member of a Boer’s family, to be courteous and kind. I never entered a house at which my hand was not grasped at going in and coming out. This may be a bore, when there are a dozen in family all shaking hands on both occasions; but it is conclusive evidence that the Boer is not a churl. He admits freedoms which in more civilized countries would be at once resented. If you are hungry or thirsty you say so, and hurry on the dinner or the cup of tea. You require to be called at four in the morning and suggest that there shall be hot coffee at that hour. And he is equally familiar. He asks your age, and is very anxious to know how many children you have and what is their condition in the world. He generally boasts that he has more than you have,—and, if you yourself be so far advanced in age, that he has had grandchildren at a younger age than you. “You won’t have a baby born to you when you are 67 years old,” an old Boer said to me exulting. When I expressed a hope that I might be saved from such a fate, he chuckled and shook his head, clearly expressing an opinion that I would fain have a dozen children if Juno and the other celestials concerned would only be so good to me. His young wife sat by and laughed as it was all explained to her by the daughter of a former marriage who understood English. This was customary Boer pleasantness intended by the host for the delectation of his guest.
I was never more convinced of anything than that those people, the Dutch Boers of the Free State, are contented with their present condition and do not desire to place themselves again under the dominion of England. The question is one of considerable importance at the present moment as the permissive bill for the suggested Confederation of the South African districts has become law, and as that Confederation can hardly take place unless the Free State will accept it. The Free State is an isolated district in South Africa, now surrounded on all sides by British territory, by no means rich, not populous, in which the Dutch and English languages prevail perhaps equally, and also Dutch and English habits of life. It would appear therefore at first sight to be natural that the large English Colonies should swallow up and assimilate the little Dutch Republic. But a close view of the place and of the people,—and of the circumstances as they now exist and would exist under Dutch rule,—have tended to convince me that such a result is improbable for at any rate some years to come.
In the Orange Free State the Volksraad or Parliament is plenipotentiary,—more so if it be possible than our Parliament is with us because there is but one Chamber and because the President has no veto upon any decision to which that Chamber may come. The Volksraad is elected almost exclusively by the rural interest. There are 54 members, who are returned, one for each chief town in a district, and one for each Field-Cornetcy,—the Field-Cornetcies being the divisions into which the rural districts are divided for police and military purposes. Of these towns, such as they are,there are 13, and from them, if from any part of the State, would come a desire for English rule. But they, with the exception of the capital, can hardly be said to be more than rural villages. It is in the towns that the English language is taught and spoken,—that English tradesmen live, and that English modes of life prevail. The visitor to Bloemfontein, the capital, will no doubt feel that Bloemfontein is more English than Dutch. But Bloemfontein returns but one member to the Yolksraad. From the rural districts there are 41 members, all of whom are either Boers or have been returned by Boers. Were the question extended to the division even of the 13 town members I do not doubt but that the present state of things would be maintained,—so general is the feeling in favour of the independence of the Republic. But seeing that the question rests in truth with the country members, that the country is essentially a farmer’s country, a country which for all purposes is in the hands of the Dutch Boers, it seems to me to be quite out of the question that the change should be voted by the legislature of the country.
An Englishman, or an Africander with an English name and an English tongue, is under the constitution as capable of being elected as a Dutchman. A very large proportion of the wealth of the country is in English hands. The large shopkeepers are generally English; and I think that I am right in saying that the Banks are supported by English, or at any rate, by Colonial capital. And yet, looking through the names of the present Volksraad, I find but two that are English,—and the owner of one of them I believe to be aDutchman. How can it be possible that such a House should vote away its own independence? It is so impossible that there can be no other way of even bringing the question before the House than that of calling upon it for a unanimous assertion of its will in answer to the demand, or request, or suggestion now made by Great Britain.
Nor can I conceive any reason why the Volksraad should consent to the proposed change. To a nationality labouring under debt, oppressed by external enemies, or unable to make the property of its citizens secure because of external disorders, the idea of annexing itself to a strong power might be acceptable. To have its debts paid, its frontiers defended, and its rebels controlled might be compensation for the loss of that self-rule which is as pleasant to communities as it is to individuals. Such I believe is felt to be the case by the most Dutch of the Dutch Boers in the Transvaal. But the Orange Free State does not owe a penny. Some years since it had been so impoverished by Basuto wars that it was reduced to the enforced use of paper money which sank to half its nominal value. Had England then talked of annexation the Boers might have listened to her offer. But the enormous trade produced by the sudden influx of population into the Diamond Fields created a wealth which has cured this evil. The bluebacks,—as the Orange Free State banknotes were called,—have been redeemed at par, and the Revenue of the country is amply sufficient for its modest wants. Enemies it has none, and from its position can have none,—unless it be England. Its own internal affairs are so quiet and easily regulated that it is hardly necessary to lock a door.No annexation could make a Boer more secure in the possession of his own land and his own chattels than he is at present.
It may of course be alleged that if the State were to join her lot with that of the Cape Colony or of a wide South African Confederation, she would increase her own wealth by sharing that of the larger nationality of which she would become a part,—and that the increase of national wealth would increase the means of the individuals forming the nation. This, however, is an argument which, even though it were believed, would have but little effect on the minds of a class of men who are peculiarly fond of self-government but are by no means desirous of a luxurious mode of life. It is often said that the Boer is fond of money. He is certainly averse to spending it and will grasp at it when it comes absolutely in his way; but he is the last man in the world to trust to its coming to him from a speculative measure of which he sees the certain immediate evil much more clearly than the possible future advantage.
There is one source of public wealth from which the Orange Free State is at present debarred by the peculiarity of its position, and of which it would enjoy its share were it annexed to the Cape Colony or joined in some federation with it. But I hope that no British or Colonial Statesman has trusted to force the Republic to sacrifice herself for the sake of obtaining justice in this respect. If, as I think, wrong is being done to the Orange Free State in this matter that wrong should be remedied for the sake of justice, and not maintained as a weapon to enforce the self-annihilationof a weak neighbour. On whatever produce from the world at large the Free State consumes, the Free State receives no Custom duties. The duties paid are levied by the Cape Colony, and are spent by it as a portion of its own revenues. The Free State has no seaboard and therefore no port.[13]Her sugar, and tea, and whisky come to her through Capetown, or Fort Elizabeth, or East London, and there the Custom duties are collected,—and retained. I need hardly point out to English readers that the Custom duties of a country form probably the greatest and perhaps the least objectionable portion of its revenue. It will be admitted, at any rate, that to such extent as a country chooses to subject its people to an increased price of goods by the addition of Custom duties to the cost of production, to that extent the revenue of the consuming country should be enriched. If I, an individual in England, have to pay a shilling on the bottle of French wine which I drink, as an Englishman I am entitled to my share of the public advantage coming from that shilling. But the Republican of the Orange Free State pays the shilling while the Colonist of the Cape has the spending of it. I hope, I say, that we on the south side of the Orange River do not cling to this prey with any notion that by doing so we can keep a whip hand over our little neighbour the Republic.
Two allegations are made in defence of the course pursued.It is said that the goods are brought to the ports of the Colony by Colonial merchants and are resold by them to the traders of the Orange Free State, so as to make it impossible for the Colony to know what is consumed within her own borders and what beyond. Goods could not therefore be passed through in bond even if the Cape Government would permit it. They go in broken parcels, and any duties collected must therefore be collected at the ports whence the goods are distributed. But this little difficulty has been got over in the intercourse between Victoria and New South Wales. A considerable portion of the latter Colony is supplied with its seaborne goods from Melbourne, which is the Capital and seaport of Victoria. Victoria collects the duties on those goods, and, having computed their annual amount, pays a certain lump sum to New South Wales in lieu of the actual duties collected. Why should not the Cape Colony settle with the Orange Republic in the same way?
The other reason put forward for withholding the amount strikes me as being—almost mean. I have heard it put forward only in conversation, and I am bringing no charge against any Statesman in the Cape Colony by saying this. I trust that the argument has had no weight with any Statesman at the Cape. The Cape Colony makes the roads over which the goods are carried up to the Free State. She does do so,—and the railroads. But she collects toll on the former, and charges for carriage on the latter. And she enjoys all the money made by the continued traffic through her territory. And she levies the port duties, which no onebegrudges her. I felt it to be a new thing to be informed that a country was so impoverished by being made the vehicle for traffic from the sea to the interior that it found itself compelled to reimburse itself by filching Custom Duties.[14]England might just as well claim the customs of the Cape Colony because she protects the seas over which the goods are carried.
But the Orange Free State can carry on her little business even without the aid of Custom Duties, and will certainly not be driven back into the arms of the mother who once repudiated her by the want of them. She can pay her modest way; and while she can do so the Boer of the Volksraad will certainly not be induced to give up the natural delight which he takes in ruling his own country. The Free State might send perhaps six members to the central Congress of a South African Federation, where they would be called upon to hear debates, which they would be unable to share or even to understand because spoken in a foreign language. They would be far from their farms and compelled to live in a manner altogether uncomfortable to them. Is it probable that for this privilege they will rob themselves of the honour and joy they now have in their own Parliament? In his own Parliament the Boer is close, phlegmatic, by no means eloquent, but very firm. The two parliamentary ideas most prominent in his mind are that hewill vote away neither his independence nor his money. It is very hard to get from him a sanction for any increased expenditure. It would I think be impossible to get from him sanction for a measure which would put all control over expenditure out of his own hands. “We will guard as our choicest privilege that independence which Her Majesty some years since was pleased to bestow upon us.” It is thus that the Boer declares himself,—somewhat sarcastically,—when he is asked whether he does not wish to avail himself of the benefit of British citizenship.
Somewhat sarcastically;—for he is well aware that when England repudiated him,—declaring that she would have nothing to do with him across the Orange River, she did so with contempt and almost with aversion. And he is as well aware that England now wants to get him back again. The double consciousness is of a nature likely to beget sarcasm. “You thought nothing of me when I came here a poor wanderer, daring all dangers in order that I might escape from your weaknesses, your absurdities, your mock philanthropies,—when I shook off from the sole of my foot the dust of a country in which the black Savage was preferred to the white Colonist; but now,—now that I have established myself successfully,—you would fain have me back again so that your broad borders may be extended, and your widened circle made complete. But, by the Providence of God, after many difficulties we are well as we are;—and therefore we are able to decline your offers.” That is the gist of what the Boer is saying when he tells us of the independence bestowed upon him by Her Majesty.
Thinking as I do that Great Britain was wrong when sherepudiated the Orange Free State in 1854, believing that there was then a lack of patience at the Colonial Office and that we should have been better advised had we borne longer with the ways of the Dutch, I must still acknowledge here that they were a provoking people, and one hard to manage. Omitting small details and some few individual instances of misrule, I feel that when the Dutch complained of us they complained of what was good in our ways and not of what was evil. It was with this conviction that we repudiated both the Transvaal and the other younger but more stable Republic. Good excuses can be made for what we did,—not the worst of which is the fact that a people whom we desired to rule themselves, have ruled themselves well. But we did repudiate them, and I do not know with what face we can ask them to return to us. If the offer came from them of course we could assent; but that offer will hardly be made.
We could certainly annex the Republic by force,—as we have done the Transvaal. If we were to send a High Commissioner to Bloemfontein with thirty policemen and an order that the country should be given up to us, I do not know that President Brand and the Volksraad could do better than comply,—with such loudest remonstrance as they might make. “The Republic cannot fight Great Britain,” President Brand might say, as President Burgers said when he apologised for the easy surrender of his Republic. But there are things which a nation can not do and hold up its head, and this would be one of them. There could be no excuse for such spoliation. It is not easy to justify what wehave done in the Transvaal. If there be any laws of right and wrong by which nations should govern themselves in their dealings with other nations it is hard to find the law in conformity with which that act was done. But for that act expediency can be pleaded. We have taken the Transvaal not that we might strengthen our own hands, not that we might round our own borders, not that we might thus be enabled to carry out the policy of our own Cabinet,—but because by doing so we have enabled Englishmen, Dutchmen! and natives to live one with another in comfort. There does seem to have been at any rate expedience to justify us in the Transvaal. But no such plea can be put forward in reference to the Free State. There a quiet people are being governed after their own fashion. There a modest people are contented with the fruition of their own moderate wealth. There a secure and well ordered people are able to live without fear. I cannot see any reason for annexing them;—or any other excuse beyond that spirit of spoliation which has so often armed the strong against the weak, but which England among the strong nations has surely repudiated.
The Legislature of the Orange Republic consists, as I have said, of a single House called the Volksraad, which is elected for four years, of which one half goes out at the end of every two years, so that the change is not made all at once as with us, half the House being dissolved at the end of one period of two years, and half at the end of another. The members are paid 20s. a day while the House is sitting. The House elects its own Speaker, at the right hand of whom the President has a chair. This he may occupy ornot as he pleases; but when he is not there it is expected that his place shall be filled by the Government Secretary. The President can speak when he likes but cannot vote. The House can, if it please, desire him to withdraw, but, I was informed, had never yet exercised its privilege in this respect.
The President is elected for a term of five years and may, under the present Constitution, be re-elected for any number of terms. The present President has now nearly served his third term, and will no doubt be re-elected next year. But there is a bill now before the Volksraad by which the renewal of the President’s term is to be confined to a single reappointment. One re-election only will be allowed. This change has received all the sanction which one Session can give it. The period of the term is also to be curtailed from five to four years. It is necessary however that such a change in the Constitution shall be passed by the House in three consecutive Sessions, and on each occasion by a three-fourth majority. It is understood also that the bill if passed will not debar the existing President from one re-election after the change. President Brand therefore will be enabled to serve for five terms, and should he live to do so will thus have been the Head of the Executive of the Free State for a period of twenty-four years,—which is much longer than the average reign of hereditary monarchs. His last term will in this case have been shortened one year by the new law. It would be I think impossible to overrate the value of his services to the country which adopted him. He was a member of Assembly in the Cape Colony when he was elected, ofwhich House his father was then Speaker. A better choice could hardly have been made. It is to his patience, his good sense, his exact appreciation of both the highness and the lowness of the place which he has been called on to occupy, that the Republic has owed its security. I have expressed an opinion as to the qualifications of President Burgers for a similar position. It is because President Brand has been exactly the reverse of President Burgers, that he is now trusted by the Volksraad and loved by the people. It would be hard to find a case in which a man has shewn himself better able to suit himself to peculiar duties than has been done by the President of this little Republic.
The right of voting in the Free State belongs to the burghers, and the burghers are as follows;—
Those however who are included in the 2nd and 3rd clauses will not be recognized as burghers unless they produce to the State President a certificate of good conduct from the authorities of their last place of abode and a written promise of allegiance to the State.
Burghers who have attained the age of 16, and all who at a later age shall have acquired citizenship are bound to enrol themselves under their respective field-cornets and tobe liable to burgher duty,—which means fighting,—till they be 60 years old.
Burghers of 18 are entitled to vote for Field Cornets and Field Commandants. To vote for a member of the Volksraad or for the President a burgher must be 21, must have been born in the State,—when no property qualification is necessary,—or must be the registered owner of property to the value of £150, or be the lessor of a property worth £36 per annum; or have a yearly income of £200, or possess moveable property worth £300.
From this it will be seen that the parliamentary system of the Republic is protected from a supposed evil by a measure of precaution which would be altogether inadmissible in any Constitution requiring the sanction of the British Crown. No coloured person can vote for a Member of Parliament. However expedient it may be thought by Englishmen to exclude Kafirs or Zulus from voting till such changes shall have been made in their habits as to make them fit for the privilege, the restrictions made for that purpose must with us be common both to the coloured and to the white population. We all feel that no class legislation as to the privilege of voting should be adopted and that in giving or withholding qualification no allusion should be made to race or colour. But the Dutch of the Free State have no such scruple. They at once proclaim that this privilege shall be confined to those in whose veins European blood runs pure. I will here say nothing as to the comparative merits of British latitude or of Dutch restraint, but I will ask my readers to consider whether it be probable that a people whohave not scrupled to make for themselves such a law of exclusion will willingly join themselves to a nationality which is absolutely and vehemently opposed to any exclusion based on colour.
In the Free State the executive power is in the hands of the President in which he is assisted by a Council of five, of whom two are official. There is now a bench of three judges who go circuit, and there is a magistrate or Landroost sitting in each of the thirteen districts and deciding both civil and criminal cases to a certain extent. The religion and education of the State will both require a few words from me, but they will come better when I am speaking of Bloemfontein, the capital.
The Revenue of the country is something over £100,000 a year, and the expenditure has for many years been kept within the Revenue. It has been very fluctuating, having sunk below £60,000 in 1859 when the war with the Basutos had crippled all the industries of the country and had forced the burghers to spend their time in fighting instead of cultivating their lands and looking after their sheep. There is nothing, however, that the Boer hates so much as debt, and the Boer of the Volksraad has been very careful to free his country from that incubus.
Land in the Orange Free State is very cheap, an evil condition of things which has been produced by the large grants of land which were made to the original claimants. The average value throughout the State may now be fixed at about 5s. an acre. It is said that in the whole State there are between six and seven thousand farms.
Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Republic, is a pleasant little town in the very centre of the country which we speak of as South Africa, about a hundred miles north of the Orange River, four hundred north of Port Elizabeth whence it draws the chief part of its supplies, and six hundred and eighty north east of Capetown. It is something above a hundred miles from Kimberley which is its nearest neighbour of any importance in point of size. It is about the same distance from Durban, the seaport of Natal, as it is from Port Elizabeth;—and again about the same distance from Pretoria the capital of the Transvaal. It may therefore be said to be a remote town offering but little temptations to its inhabitants to gad about to other markets. The smaller towns within the borders of the Republic are but villages containing at most not more than a few hundred inhabitants. I am told that Bloemfontein has three thousand; but no census has as yet been taken, and I do not know whether the number stated is intended to include or exclude the coloured population,—who as a rule do not live in Bloemfontein but at a neighbouring hamlet, devoted to the use of the natives, called Wray Hook. I found Bloemfontein a pleasant place when I was there, but one requiring much labour and trouble both in reaching and leaving. For a hundred miles on one side and a hundred on the other I saw hardly a blade of grass or a tree. It stands isolated in the plain,—without any suburb except the native location which I have named,—with as clearly defined a boundary on each side as might be a town built with a pack of cards, or one of those fortified citadels with barred gates and portcullises which we used to see in picture books. After travelling through a country ugly, dusty and treeless for many weary hours the traveller at last reaches Bloemfontein and finds himself at rest from his joltings, with his bones not quite dislocated, in the quiet little Dutch capital, wondering at the fate which has led him to a spot on the world’s surface, so far away, apparently so purposeless, and so unlike the cities which he has known.
I heard of no special industry at Bloemfontein. As far as I am aware nothing special is there manufactured. It is needful that a country should have a Capital, and therefore the Orange Free State has Bloemfontein. I was told that some original Boer named Bloem first settled there by the side of the stream in which water runs when there has been rain, and that hence has come the name. But the little town has thriven with a success peculiarly its own. Though it would seem to have no raison d’etre just there where it stands,—though it has been encouraged and fostered by no peculiar fertility, adorned with no scenic beauty, enriched by no special gifts of water or of metals, even though the population has not grown beyond that of the suburb of someEuropean town, still it carries its metropolitan honours with a good air, and shocks no one by meanness, dirt, or poverty. It certainly is not very grand, but it is grand enough. If there be no luxury, everything is decent. The members of the Volksraad are not carried about in gorgeous equipages, but when they have walked slowly to their Chamber they behave themselves there with decorum. There is nothing pretentious in Bloemfontein,—nothing to raise a laugh at the idea that a town with so small a population should call itself a capital.
It is a town, white and red, built with plastered walls or of brick,—with a large oblong square in the centre; with four main streets running parallel to each other and with perhaps double that number of cross streets. The houses are generally but one storey high, though this is not so invariably the case as at Kimberley. I do not remember, however, that I was ever required to go up-stairs,—except at the schools. The supply of water is I am assured never-failing, though in dry weather it has to be drawn from tanks. A long drought had prevailed when I reached the place, and the bed of the riverlet had been dry for many days; but the supply of water seemed to be sufficient. Fuel is very scarce and consequently dear. This is of the less importance as but little is wanted except for the purpose of cooking.
At one extreme end of the town are the public buildings in which the Volksraad is held and the judges sit. Here also are the offices of the President and the Secretary. Indeed all public business is here carried on. The edifice has but the ground floor with a clock tower rising from the centre. Itis long and roomy and to my eye handsome in its white neatness. I have heard it laughed at and described as being like a railway station. It seems to be exactly that which such a Capital and such a Republic would require. The Volksraad was not sitting when I was there and I therefore could only see the beautiful arm-chairs which have lately been imported at a considerable expense for the use of the Members;—£13 10s. a chair I think I was told! It is impossible to conceive that gentlemen who have been accommodated with such chairs should wilfully abandon any of the dignity attached to them. For a central parliament the chairs may be fitting, but would be altogether out of place in a small provincial congress. Except the churches and the schools there are not any public buildings of much note in Bloemfontein,—unless the comfortable residence of the President may be so called. This belongs to the State but is not attached to the House of Parliament.
My residence when I was at Bloemfontein was at the Free State Hotel, and I do not know that I was ever put up much better. Two circumstances militated against my own particular comfort, but they were circumstances which might probably recommend the house to the world at large. I was forced to take my meals in public at stated hours;—and I had a great deal too much put before me to eat. I am bound, however, to say that all I had given to me was good, though at that time it must have been very difficult to supply such luxuries. The butter had to be bought at 5s. 6d. a pound, but was as plentiful as though the price had been only a shilling,—and it was good which I had not found tobe the case elsewhere in South Africa. What was paid for the peas and beans and cauliflowers I don’t know; but I did know that the earth around was dry and parched and barren everywhere,—so that I was almost ashamed to eat them. These details may be of interest to some readers of my pages, as the place of which I am speaking is becoming at present the sanitorium to which many an English consumptive patient is sent. Such persons, at any rate when first reaching Bloemfontein, are obliged to find a home in an hotel, and will certainly find one well provided at the Free State. It commended itself to me especially because I found no difficulty in that very serious and often troublesome matter of a morning tub.
Bloemfontein is becoming another Madeira, another Algiers, another Egypt in regard to English sufferers with weak chests and imperfect lungs. It seems to the ignorant as though the doctors were ever seeking in increased distance that relief for their patients which they cannot find in increased skill. But a dry climate is now supposed to be necessary and one that shall be temperate without great heat. This certainly will be found at Bloemfontein, and perhaps more equably so through the entire year than at any other known place. The objection to it is the expense arising from the distance and the great fatigue to patients from the long overland journey. Taking the easiest mode of reaching the capital of the Free State the traveller must be kept going six weary days in a Cobb’s coach, being an average of about thirteen hours a day upon the road. This is gradually and very slowly becoming lightened by theopening of bits of the railway from Fort Elizabeth; but it win be some years probably before the coaching work can be done in less than five days. The road is very rough through the Catberg and Stromberg mountains,—so that he who has made the journey is apt to think that he has done something considerable. All this is so much against an invalid that I doubt whether they who are feeble should be sent here. There can I imagine be no doubt that the air of the place when reached is in the highest degree fit for weak lungs.
There is at present a difficulty felt by those who arrive suddenly at Bloemfontein in finding the accommodation they desire. The hotel, as I have said above, is very good; but an hotel must of its nature be expensive and can hardly afford the quiet which is necessary for an invalid. Nor during my sojourn there did I once see a lady sitting at table. There is no reason why she should not do so, but the practice did not seem as yet to have become common. I am led by this to imagine that a house comfortably kept for the use of patients would well repay a medical speculator at Bloemfontein. It should not be called a sanitarium, and should if possible have the name of the doctor’s wife on the brass plate on the door rather than that of the doctor. And the kitchen should be made to do more than the dispensary,—which should be kept a little out of sight. And there should be fiddles and novels and plenty of ribbons. If possible three or four particularly healthy guests should be obtained to diminish the aspect of sickness which might otherwise make the place gloomy. If this could be done,and the coach journey somewhat lightened, then I think that the dry air of Bloemfontein might be made very useful to English sufferers.
In reference to the fatigue, tedium, and expense of the coach journey,—a seat to Bloemfontein from the Fort Elizabeth railway costs £18, and half a crown a pound extra is charged for all luggage beyond a small bag,—it may be as well to say that in the treaty by which £90,000 have been given by Great Britain to the Free State to cover any damage she may have received as to the Diamond Fields, it is agreed that an extra sum of £15,000 shall be paid to the Free State if she shall have commenced a railway with the view of meeting the Colonial railway within a certain period. As no Dutchman will throw over a pecuniary advantage if it can be honestly obtained, a great effort will no doubt be made to secure this sum. It may be difficult to decide, when the time comes, what constitutes the commencement of a railway. It appears impossible that any portion of a line shall be opened in the Free State till the entire line shall have been completed from the sea to the borders of the State, as every thing necessary for the construction of a line, including wooden sleepers, must be conveyed overland. As the bulk so to be conveyed will necessarily be enormous it can only be carried up by the rail as the rail itself progresses. And there must be difficulty even in surveying the proposed line till it be known actually at what point the colonial line will pass the Orange River or which of the colonial lines will first reach it. Nevertheless I feel assured that the Dutchman will get his £15,000. When an Englishman has once talkedof paying and a Dutchman has been encouraged to think of receiving! the money will probably pass hands.
A railway completed to Bloemfontein would double the value of all property there and would very soon double the population of the town. Everything there used from a deal plank or a bar of iron down to a pair of socks or a pound of sugar, has now to be dragged four hundred miles by oxen at an average rate of £15 a ton. It is not only the sick and weakly who are prevented from seeking the succour of its climate by the hardness of the journey, but everything which the sick and weakly can require is doubled in price. If I might venture to give a little advice to the Volksraad I would counsel them to open the purse strings of the nation, even though the purse should be filled with borrowed money, so that there should be no delay on their part in joining themselves to the rest of the world. They should make their claim to the £15,000 clear and undoubted.
At present there is no telegraph to Bloemfontein, though the line of wires belonging to the Cape Colony passes through a portion of the State on its way to Kimberley,—so that there is a telegraph station at Fauresmith, a town belonging to the Republic. An extension to the capital is much wanted in order to bring it within the pale of modern civilization.
The schools at Bloemfontein are excellent, and are peculiarly interesting as showing the great steps by which the English language is elbowing out the Dutch, This is so marked that though I see no necessity for a political Confederation in South Africa I think I do see that there willsoon be a unity of language. I visited all the schools that are supported or assisted by Government, as I did also those which have been set on foot by English enterprise. In the former almost as fully as in the latter English seemed to be the medium of communication between scholar and teacher. In all the public schools the Head Teacher was either English or Scotch. The inspector of schools for the Republic is a Scotch gentleman, Mr. Brebner, who is giving himself heart and soul to the subject he has in hand and is prospering admirably. Even in the infant school I found that English was the language of the great majority of the children. In the upper schools, both of the boys and girls, I went through the whole establishment, visiting the bedrooms of the pupils. As I did so I took the opportunity of looking at the private books of the boys and girls. The books which I took off the shelves were all without exception English. When I mentioned this to one of the teachers who was with me in the compartment used by a lad who had well provided himself with a little library, he made a search to show me that I was wrong, and convicted me by finding—a Dutch dictionary. I pointed out that the dictionary joined to the fact that the other books were English would seem to indicate that the boy was learning Dutch rather than reading it. I have no hesitation in saying that in these Dutch schools,—for Dutch they are as being supported in a Dutch Republic by grants of Dutch money voted by an exclusively Dutch Volksraad,—English is the more important language of the two and the one the best understood.
I say this rather in a desire to tell the truth than in aspirit of boasting. I do not know why I should wish that the use of my own tongue should supersede that of the native language in a foreign country. And the fact as I state it will go far with some thinkers to prove the arguments to have been ill-founded with which I have endeavoured to shew that the Republic will retain her independence. Such persons will say that this preference for the English language will surely induce a preference for English Government. To such persons I would reply first that the English language was spoken in the United States when they revolted. And I would then explain that the schools of which I am speaking are all in the capital, which is undoubtedly an English town rather than Dutch. In the country, from whence come the Members of the Volksraad, the schools are probably much more Dutch, though by no means so Dutch as are the Members themselves. The same difference prevails in all things in which the urban feeling or the rural feeling is exhibited. Nothing can be more Dutch than the Volksraad. Many members, I was assured, cannot speak a word of English. The debates are all in Dutch. But the President was chosen from a British community, having been a member of the Cape House of Assembly, and the Government Secretary was imported from the same Colony,—and the Chief Justice. As I have said above the Inspector of Schools is a Scotchman. The Boers of the Orange Free State have been too wise to look among themselves for occupants for these offices. But they believe themselves to be perfectly capable of serving their country as legislators. Nothing can be better than these publicschools in Bloemfontein, giving another evidence of the great difference which existed in the internal arrangements of the two Republics. Large grants of public money have been made for the support of the Free State schools. In 1875 £18,000 was voted for this purpose, and in 1876 £10,000. Money is also set aside for a permanent educational fund which is to be continued till the amount in hand is £176,800. This it is thought will produce an income sufficient for the required purpose.
There are two thoroughly good English schools for pupils of the better, or at any rate, richer class, as to which it has to be said that they are set on foot and carried on by ladies and gentlemen devoted to High Church doctrines. I could not speak of these schools fairly without saying so. Having so liberated my conscience I may declare that their pupils are by no means drawn specially from that class and that as far as I could learn nothing is inculcated to which any Protestant parent would object. When I was at Bloemfontein the President had a daughter at the girls’ school and the President is a Member of the Dutch Reformed Church. The Government Secretary had four daughters at the same school. There was at least one Roman Catholic educated there. It is in fact a thoroughly good school and as such of infinite value in that far distant place. The cost of board and education is £60 for each girl, which with extra charges for music and other incidental expenses becomes £80 in most cases. I thought this to be somewhat high; but it must be remembered that the 400 miles and the bullock wagons affect even the price of schools. The boys’ school did not seem to havebeen so prosperous, the number educated being much less than at the other. The expense is about the same and the advantages given quite as great. At both establishments day scholars are taken as well as boarders. The result is that Bloemfontein in respect to climate and education offers peculiar advantages to its residents. It is not necessary to send a child away either for English air or for English teaching.
In church matters Bloemfontein has a footing which is peculiarly its own. The Dutch Reformed Church is the Church of the people. There are 18,—only 18,—congregations in the State, of which 16 receive Government support. The worshippers of the Free State must, it is feared, be called upon to travel long distances to their churches. As a rule those living in remote places, have themselves taken by their ox-wagons into the nearest town once in three months for the Nichtmaal,—that is for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper; and on these occasions the journey there and back, together with a little holyday-making in the town, takes a week or ten days. In this there is nothing singular, as it is the custom of the Dutch in South Africa,—but the Anglican Church in Bloemfontein is peculiar. There is a Bishop of Bloemfontein, an English Bishop, consecrated I think with the assistance of an English Archbishop, appointed at any rate with the general sanction and approval of the English Church. The arrangement has no doubt been beneficial and is regarded without disfavour by the ruling powers of the State in which it has been made;—but there is something singular in the position which we as a people have assumed.We first repudiate the country and then we take upon ourselves to appoint a high church dignitary whom we send out from England with a large accompaniment of minor ecclesiastics. In the United States they have bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church as well as of the Roman Catholic. But they are not Bishops of the Church of England. Here, in Bloemfontein, the Church is English, and prays for the Queen before the President,—for which latter it sometimes does pray and sometimes does not. I attended the Cathedral service twice and such was my experience.
This is strange to an Englishman who visits the Republic prepared to find it a nationality of itself,—what in common language we may call a foreign country. There are English bishops also among savage nations,—a bishop for instance of Central Africa who lives at present at Zanzibar. But in the Free State we are among a civilized people who are able to manage their own affairs. I am very far from finding fault. The Church in Bloemfontein has worked very well and done much good. But in acknowledging this I think we ought to acknowledge also that very much is due to the forbearance of the Boers.
The Bishop of Bloemfontein with his numerous staff gives to the town a special ecclesiastical hue. It is quite true that his presence and their presence adds to the importance of the place, and that their influence is exercised all for good. The clergymen as a set are peculiarly clerical. Were I to call them High Church it might be supposed that I were accusing them of a passion for ribbons. I did see a ribbon or two but not vehemently pronounced. There is a Home too, towhich the girls’ school is attached,—which has attracted various young ladies who have come as assistants to the good work. The Bishop too has attracted various young men in orders. There has I think been some gentle feeling of disappointment in serious clerical minds at Bloemfontein created by the natural conclusion brought about by this state of things. All the clerical young men, who were perhaps intended to be celebate, had when I was at Bloemfontein become engaged to all the clerical young ladies,—from whom also something of the same negative virtue may have been expected. There has, I think, been something of a shock! I was happy enough to meet some of the gentlemen and some of the ladies, and am not at all surprised at the happy result which has attended their joint expatriation.
The stranger looking at Bloemfontein, and forgetting for a while that it is the capital of a country or the seat of a Bishop, will behold a pretty quiet smiling village with willow trees all through it, lying in the plain,—with distinct boundaries, most pleasing to the eye. Though it lies in a plain still there are hills close to it,—a little hill on the east on which there is an old fort and a few worn-out guns which were brought there when the English occupied the country, and a higher one to the west which I used to mount when the sun was setting, because from the top I could look down upon the place and see the whole of it. The hill is rocky and somewhat steep and, with a mile of intervening ground, takes half an hour in the ascent. The view from it on an evening is peculiarly pleasing. The town is so quiet and seems to be so happy and contented, removed so far awayfrom strife and want and disorder, that the beholder as he looks down upon it is tempted to think that the peace of such an abode is better than the excitement of a Paris, a London, or a New York. I will not say that the peace and quiet can be discerned from the hill top, but he who sits there, knowing that the peace and quiet are lying beneath him, will think that he sees them.
Nor will I say that Bloemfontein is itself peculiarly beautiful. It has no rapid rivers running through it as has the capital of the Tyrol, no picturesqueness of hills to make it lovely as has Edinburgh, no glory of buildings such as belongs to Florence. It is not quaint as Nuremberg, romantic as Prague, or even embowered in foliage as are some of the Dutch villages in the western province of the Cape Colony. But it has a completeness and neatness which makes it very pleasant to the eye. One knows that no one is over-hungry there, or over-worked. The work indeed is very light. Friday is a half holyday for everybody. The banks close at one o’clock on Saturday. Three o’clock ends the day for all important business. I doubt whether any shop is open after six. At eight all the servants,—who of course are coloured people,—are at home at their own huts in Wray Hook. No coloured person is allowed to walk about Bloemfontein after eight. This, it may be said, is oppressive to them. But if they are expelled from the streets, so also are they relieved from their work. At Wray Hook they can walk about as much as they please,—or go to bed.
There is much in all this which is old-fashioned,—contrary to our ideas of civilization, contrary to our ideas of liberty. It would also be contrary to our ideas of comfort to have no one to wait upon us after eight o’clock. But there is a contentment and general prosperity about Bloemfontein which is apt to make a dweller in busy cities think that though it might not quite suit himself, it would be very good for everybody else. And then there comes upon him a question of conscience as he asks himself whether it ought not to be very good for him also.