Then came the fifth Kafir war, which of all these wars was the bloodiest. It began in 1850, and seems to have been instigated by a Kafir prophet. It would be impossiblein a short sketch such as this to give any individual interest to these struggles of the natives against their invaders. Through them all we see an attempt, made at any rate by the British rulers of the land, to bind these people by the joint strength of treaties and good offices. “If you will only do as we bid you, you shall be better off than ever you were. We will not hurt you, and the land will be enough for both of us.” That is what we have said all along with a clear intention of keeping our word. But it has been necessary, if we were to live in the land at all, that we should bind them to keep their word whether they did or did not understand what it was to which they pledged themselves. Lord Glenelg’s theory required that the British holders of the land should recognise and respect the weakness of the Savage without using the strength of his own civilization. Colonization in such a country on such terms is impossible. He may have had abstract justice on his side. On that point I say nothing here. But if so, and if Great Britain is bound to reconcile her conduct to the rules which such justice requires, then she must abandon the peculiar task which seems to have been allotted to her, of peopling the world with a civilized race. In 1850 the fifth Kafir war arose, and the inhabitants of one advanced military village after another were murdered. This went on for nearly two years and a half, but was at last suppressed by dint of hard fighting. It cost Great Britain upwards of two millions of money, with the lives of about four hundred fighting men. This was the last of the Kafir wars,—up to that of 1877, if that is to be called a Kafir war.
After that, in 1857, occurred what seems to be the most remarkable and most unintelligible of all the events known to us in Kafir history. At this time Sir George Grey was Governor of the Colony,—a most remarkable man, who had been Governor of South Australia and of New Zealand, who had been once recalled from his office of Governor at the Cape and then restored, who was sent back to New Zealand as Governor in the hottest of the Maori warfare, and who now lives in that Colony and is at this moment,—the beginning of 1878,—singularly enough Prime Minister in the dependency in which he has twice been the Queen’s vicegerent. Whatever he may be, or may have been, in New Zealand, he certainly left behind him at the Cape of Good Hope a very great reputation. There can be no doubt that of all our South African Governors he was the most popular,—and probably the most high-handed. In his time there came up a prophecy among the Kafirs that they were to be restored to all their pristine glories and possessions not by living aid, but by the dead. Their old warriors would return to them from the distant world, and they themselves would all become young, beautiful, and invincible. But great faith was needed. They would find fat cattle in large caves numerous as their hearts might desire; and rich fields of flowing corn would spring up for them as food was required. Only they must kill all their own cattle, and destroy all their own grain, and must refrain from sowing a seed. This they did with perfect faith, and all Kafirdom was well nigh starved to death. The English and Dutch around them did what they could for theirrelief;—had indeed done what they could to prevent the self-immolation; but the more that the white men interfered the more confirmed were the black men in their faith. It is said that 50,000 of them perished of hunger. Since that day there has been no considerable Kafir war, and the spirit of the race has been broken.
Whence came the prophecy? There is a maxim among lawyers that the criminal is to be looked for among those who have profited by the crime. That we the British holders of the South African soil, and we only, were helped on in our work by this catastrophe is certain. No such prophecy,—nothing like to it,—ever came up among the Kafirs before. They have ever been a superstitious people, given to witchcraft and much afraid of witches. But till this fatal day they were never tempted to believe that the dead would come back to them, or to look for other food than what the earth gave them by its natural increase. It is more than probable that the prophecy ripened in the brain of an imaginative and strong-minded Anglo-Saxon. This occurred in 1857 when the terrible exigences of the Indian Mutiny had taken almost every redcoat from the Cape to the Peninsula. Had the Kafirs tried their old method of warfare at such a period it might have gone very hard indeed with the Dutch and English farmers of the Eastern Province.
During the last twenty years of our government there have been but two incidents in Colonial life to which I need refer in this summary,—and both of them will receive their own share of separate attention in the following chapters. These two are the finding of the Diamond Fields, and the commencement of responsible government at the Cape Colony.
In 1867 a diamond was found in the hands of a child at the south side of the Orange River. Near to this place the Vaal runs into the Orange, and it is in the angle between the two that the diamonds have been found. This particular diamond went through various hands and was at last sold to Sir Philip Wodehouse, the Governor, for £500. As was natural, a stream of seekers after precious stones soon flowed in upon the country, some to enrich themselves, and many to become utterly ruined in the struggle. The most manifest effect on the Colony, as it has always been in regions in which gold has been found, has been the great increase in consumption. It is not the diamonds or the gold which enrich the country in which the workings of Nature have placed her hidden treasures, but the food which the diggers eat, and the clothes which the diggers wear, and, I fear, the brandy which the diggers drink. Houses are built; and a population which flows in for a temporary purpose gradually becomes permanent.
In 1872 responsible government was commenced at Capetown with a Legislative Council and House of Assembly, with full powers of passing laws and ruling the country by its majorities;—or at any rate with as full powers as belong to any other Colony. In all Colonies the Secretary of State at home has a veto; but such as is the nature of the constitution in Canada or Victoria, such is it now in the Cape Colony. For twenty years previous to this there had been a Parliament in which the sucking legislators of the country were learning how to perform their duties. But during those twenty years the Ministers were responsible to the Governors. Now they are responsible to Parliament.
Ina former chapter I endeavoured to give a rough idea of the geographical districts into which has been divided that portion of South Africa which Europeans have as yet made their own. I will now attempt to explain how they are at present ruled and will indulge in some speculations as to their future condition.
How the Cape Colony became a Colony I have already described. The Dutch came and gradually spread themselves, and then the English becoming owners of the Dutch possessions spread themselves further. With the natives,—Hottentots as they came to be called,—there was some trouble but not very much. They were easily subjected,—very easily as compared with the Kafirs,—and then gradually dispersed. As a race they are no longer troublesome;—nor are they very profitable to the Cape Colony. The labour of the Colony is chiefly done by coloured people, but by people who have mainly been immigrants,—the descendants of those whom the Dutch brought, and bastard Hottentots as they are called, with a sprinkling of Kafirs and Fingos who have come from the East in quest of wages. The Colony is divided into a Western and Eastern Province, and theseremarks refer to the whole of the former and to the western portion of the latter district. In this large portion of the Colony there is not now nor has there been for many years anything to be feared from pugnacious natives. It is in the eastern half of the Eastern Province that Kafirs have been and still are troublesome.
The division into Provinces is imaginary rather than real. There are indeed at this moment twenty-one members of the Legislative Council of which eleven are supposed to have been sent to Parliament by the Western District, and ten by the Eastern;—but even this has now been altered, and the members of the next Council will be elected for separate districts,—so that no such demarcation will remain. I think that I am justified in saying that the constitution knows no division. In men’s minds, however, the division is sharp enough, and the political feeling thus engendered is very keen. The Eastern Province desires to be separated and formed into a distinct Colony, as Victoria was separated from New South Wales, and afterwards Queensland. The reasons for separation which it puts forward are as follows. Capetown, the capital, is in a corner and out of the way. Members from the East have to make long and disagreeable journeys to Parliament, and, when there, are always in a minority. Capetown and the West with its mongrel population is perfectly safe, whereas a large portion of the Eastern Province is always subject to Kafir “scares” and possibly to Kafir wars. And yet the Ministry in power is, and has been, and must be a Western Ministry, spending the public money for Western objects and ruling the East according to itspleasure. It was by arguments such as these that the British Government was induced to sanction the happy separation of Queensland from New South Wales. Then why not separate the Eastern from the Western Province in the Cape Colony? But the western people, as a matter of course, do not wish to see a diminution of their own authority. Capetown would lose half its glory and more than half its importance if it were put simply on a par with Grahamstown, which is the capital of the East. And the western politicians have their arguments which have hitherto prevailed. As to the expenditure of public money they point to the fact that two railway enterprises have been initiated in the East,—one up the country from Port Elizabeth, and the other from East London,—whereas there is but the one in the West which starts from Capetown. Of course it must be understood that in the Colonies railways are always or very nearly always made by Government money. The western people also say that the feeling produced by Kafir aggression in the Eastern Province is still too bitter to admit of calm legislation. The prosperity of South Africa must depend on the manner in which the Kafir and cognate races, Fingos and Basutos, Pondos, Zulus and others are amalgamated and brought together as subjects of the British Crown; and if every unnecessary scare is to produce a mixture of fear and oppression then the doing of the work will be much protracted. If the Eastern Province were left alone to arrange its affairs with the natives the chances of continual Kafir wars would be very much increased.
Arguments and feelings such as these have hitherto availedto prevent a separation of the Provinces; but though a belief in this measure is still the eastern political creed, action in that direction is no longer taken. No eastern politician thinks that he will see simple separation by a division of the Colony into two Colonies. But another action has taken place in lieu of simple separation which, if successful, would imply something like separation, and which is called Federation. Here there has been ample ground for hope because it has been understood that Federation is popular with the authorities of the Colonial Office at home.
It will hardly be necessary for me to explain here what Federation means. We have various Groups of Colonies and the question has arisen whether it may not be well that each group should be bound together under one chief or Federal Government, as the different States of the American Union are bound. It has been tried, as we all believe successfully, with British North America. It has been recommended in regard to the Australian Colonies. It has been attempted, not as yet successfully, in the West Indies. It has been talked of and become the cause of very hot feeling in reference to Her Majesty’s possessions in South Africa.
I myself have been in favour of such Federation since I have known anything of our colonial possessions. The one fact that at present the produce of a Colony, going into an adjacent district as closely connected with it as Yorkshire is with Lancashire, should be subjected to Custom duties as though it came from a foreign land, is a strong reason for such union. And then the mind foresees that there will atsome future time be a great Australia, and probably a great South Africa, in which a division into different governments will, if continued, be as would be a Heptarchy restored in England. But it is this very feeling,—the feeling which experience and foresight produce among us in England,—which renders the idea of Federation unpalatable in the Colonies generally. The binding together of a colonial group into one great whole is regarded as a preparation for separation from the mother country. It is as though we at home in England were saying to our children about the world;—“We have paid for your infantine bread and butter; we have educated you and given you good trades; now you must go and do for yourselves.” There is perhaps no such feeling in the bosom of the special Colonial Minister at home who may at this or the other time be advocating this measure; but there must be an idea that some preparation for such a possible future event is expedient. We do not want to see such another colonial crisis as the American war of last century between ourselves and an English-speaking people. But in the Colonies there is a sort of loyalty of which we at home know nothing. It may be exemplified to any man’s mind by thinking of the feeling as to home which is engendered by absence. The boy or girl who lives always on the paternal homestead does not care very much for the kitchen with its dressers, or for the farmyard with its ricks, or the parlour with its neat array. But let the boy or girl be banished for a year or two and every little detail becomes matter for a fond regret. Hence I think has sprung that colonial anger which has been entertained against Ministersat home who have seemed to prepare the way for final separation from the mother country.
Federation, though generally unpopular in the Colonies, has been welcomed in the Eastern Province of South Africa, because it would be a means of giving if not entire at any rate partial independence from Capetown domination. If Federation were once sanctioned and carried out, the Eastern Province thinks that it would enter the union as a separate state, and that it would have such dominion as to its own affairs as New York and Massachusetts have in the United States.
But there would be various other States in such a Federation besides the two into which the Cape Colony might be divided, and in order that my readers may have some idea of what would or might be the component parts of such a union, I will endeavour to describe the different territories which would be included, with some regard to their population.
At present that South African district of which the South African politician speaks when he discusses the question of South African Federation, contains by a rough but fairly accurate computation,[4]2,276,000 souls, of whom 340,000 may be classed as white men and 1,936,000 as coloured men. There is not therefore one white to five coloured men. And these coloured people are a strong and increasing people,—by no means prone to die out and cease to beeither useless or useful, as are the Maoris in New Zealand and the Indians in North America. Such as they are we have got to bring them into order, and to rule them and teach them to earn their bread,—a duty which has not fallen upon us in any other Colony. The population above stated may be divided as follows:—
Estimated Population of European South Africa.
I must first remark in reference to this table that the district named first,—the one containing by far the smallest number of native inhabitants, called the Orange Free State—is not a British possession nor, as far as I am aware, is it subject to British influences. It is a Dutch Republic, well ruled as regards its white inhabitants, untroubled by the native question and content with its own position. It is manifest, however, that it has succeeded in making the natives understand that they can live better outside its borders, and it has continued by its practice to banish the black man and to rid itself of trouble on that score. My reader if he will refer to the map will see that now, since the annexation of the Transvaal by Great Britain, the Free State is surrounded by British territory,—for Basuto land, which lies to the westof the Free State between the Cape Colony and Natal, is a portion of the Cape Colony. This being so I cannot understand how the Orange Free State can be comprised in any political Confederation. The nature of such a Confederation seems to require one Head, one flag, and one common nationality. I cannot conceive that the Savoyards should confederate with the Swiss,—let their interests be ever so identical,—unless Savoy were to become a Swiss Canton. The Dutch Republic is no doubt free to do as she pleases, which Savoy is not; but the idea of Confederation presumes that she would give herself up to the English flag. There may no doubt be a Confederation without the Orange Free State, and that Confederation might offer advantages so great that the Dutchmen of the Free State should ultimately feel disposed to give themselves up to Great Britain; but the question for the present must be considered as subject to considerable disturbance from the existence of the Republic. The roads from the Cape Colony to the Transvaal and the Diamond Fields lie through the Free State, and there would necessarily arise questions of transit and of Custom duties which would make it expedient that the districts should be united under one flag; but I can foresee no pretext for compulsion.
In the annexation of the Transvaal there was at any rate an assignable cause,—of which we were not slow to take advantage. In regard to the Orange Free State nothing of the kind is to be expected. The population is chiefly Dutch. The political influence is altogether Dutch. A reference to the above table will show how the Dutchman succeeds,—whether for good or ill,—in ridding himself of the colouredman. The Free State is a large district; but it contains altogether only 45,000 inhabitants,—and there are on the soil no more than 15,000 natives.
I will next say a word as to the Transkeian districts, which also have been supposed to be outside the dominion of the British Crown and which therefore it would seem to be just to exclude were we to effect a Confederation of our British South African Colonies.[5]But all these districts would certainly be included in any Confederation, with great advantage to the British Colonies, and with greater advantages to the Kafirs themselves who live beyond the Kei. I must again refer my readers to the map. They will see on the South Eastern Coast of the continent a district called Kafraria,—as distinct from British Kafraria further west,—the independence of which is signified by its name. Here they will find the river Kei, which till lately was supposed to be the boundary of the British territories,—beyond which the Kafir was supposed to live according to his own customs, and in undisturbed possession of independent rule. But this, even before the late Kafir outbreak, was by no means the case. A good deal of British annexation goes on in different parts of the world of which but little mention is made in the British Parliament, and but little notice taken even by the British press. It will be seen that in this territory there live 501,000 natives, and it is here, no doubt, that Kafir habits are to be found in their fullest perfection. The red Kafir ishere,—the man who dyes himself and his blanket and his wives with red clay, who eschews breeches and Christianity, and meditates on the coming happy day in which the pestilent interfering European may be driven at length into the sea. It is here that Kreli till lately reigned the acknowledged king of Kafirdom as being the chief of the Galekas. Kreli had foughten and been conquered and been punished by the loss of much of his territory;—but still was allowed to rule over a curtailed empire. His population is now not above 66,000. Among even these,—among the Pondos, who are much more numerous than the Galekas, our influence is maintained by European magistrates, and the Kafirs, though allowed to do much according to their pleasures, are not allowed to do everything. The Pondos number, I believe, as many as 200,000. In the remainder of Kafraria British rule is nearly as dominant to the east as to the west of the Kei. Adam Kok’s land,—or no man’s land, as it has been called,—running up north into Natal, we have already annexed to the Cape Colony, and no parliamentary critic at home is at all the wiser. The Fingos hold much of the remainder, and wherever there is a Fingo there is a British subject. There would now be no difficulty in sweeping Kafraria into a general South African Confederation.
I will now deal with those enumerated in the above table who are at present undoubtedly subjects of Her Majesty, and who are bound to comply with British laws. The Cape Colony contains nearly three-quarters of a million of people, and is the only portion of South Africa which has what may be called a large white population; but that population,though comparatively large,—something over a quarter of a million,—is less in number than the inhabitants of the single city of Melbourne. One colonial town in Australia, and that a town not more than a quarter of a century old, gives a home to more white people than the whole of the Cape Colony, which was colonized with white people two hundred years before Melbourne was founded. And on looking at the white population of the Cape Colony a further division must be made in order to give the English reader a true idea of the Colony in reference to England. A British colony to the British mind is a land away from home to which the swarming multitudes of Great Britain may go and earn a comfortable sustenance, denied to them in the land of their birth by the narrowness of its limits and the greatness of its population, and may do so with the use of their own language, and in subjection to their own laws. We have other senses of the word Colony,—for we call military garrisons Colonies,—such as Malta, and Gibraltar, and Bermuda. But the true Colony has, I think, above been truly described; and thus the United States of America have answered to us the purpose of a Colony as well as though they had remained under British rule. We should, therefore, endeavour to see how far the Cape Colony has answered the desired purpose.
The settlement was Dutch in its origin, and was peopled by Dutchmen,—with a salutary sprinkling of Protestant French who assimilated themselves after a time to the Dutch in language and religion. It is only by their religion that we can now divide the Dutch and the English;and on enquiry I find that about 150,000 souls belong to the Dutch Reformed and Lutheran Churches,—leaving 85,000 of English descent in the Colony. If to these we add the 20,000 white persons inhabiting Natal, and 15,000 at the Diamond Fields, we shall have the total English population of South Africa;—for the Europeans of the Transvaal, as of the Orange Free State, are a Dutch people. There are therefore about 120,000 persons of British descent in these South African districts,—the number being little more than that of the people of the small unobtrusive Colony which we call Tasmania.
I hope that nobody will suppose from this that I regard a Dutch subject of the British Crown as being less worthy of regard than an English subject. My remarks are not intended to point in that direction, but to show what is the nature of our duties in South Africa. Thus are there about 220,000[6]persons of Dutch descent, though the emigrants from Holland to that land during the present century have been but few;—so few that I have found no trace of any batch of such emigrants; and there are but 120,000 of English descent although the country has belonged to England for three-quarters of a century! The enquirer is thus driven to the conclusion that South Africa has hardly answered the purpose of a British Colony.
And I hope that nobody will suppose from this that I regard the coloured population of Africa as being unworthyof consideration. My remarks, on the other hand, are made with the object of showing that in dealing with South Africa the British Parliament and the British Ministers should think,—not indeed exclusively,—but chiefly of the coloured people. When we speak of Confederation among these Colonies and districts we should enquire whether such Confederation will be good for those races whom at home we lump under the name of Kafirs. As a Colony, in the proper sense of the word, the Cape Colony has not been successful. Englishmen have not flocked there in proportion to its area or to its capabilities for producing the things necessary for life. The working Englishman,—and it is he who populates the new lands,—prefers a country in which he shall not have to compete with a black man or a red man. He learns from some only partially correct source that in one country the natives will interfere with him and that in another they will not; and he prefers the country in which their presence will not annoy him.
But then neither have Englishmen flocked to India, which of all our possessions is the most important,—or to Ceylon, which as being called a Colony and governed from the Colonial Office at home may afford us the nearest parallel we can find to South Africa. No doubt they are in many things unlike. No English workman takes his family to Ceylon because the tropical sun is too hot for a European to work beneath it. South Africa is often hot, but it is not tropical, and an Englishman can work there. And again in Ceylon the coloured population have from the first British occupation of the island been recognised as “the people,”—an interesting and submissive but still foreign and coloured people, whom she should not dream of inviting to govern themselves. It is a matter of course that Ceylon should be governed as a Crown Colony,—with edicts and laws from Downing Street, administered by the hand of a Governor. A Cingalee Parliament would be an absurdity in our eyes. But in the Cape Colony we have, as I shall explain in another chapter, all the circumstances of parliamentary government. The real Governor is the Colonial Prime Minister for the time, with just such restraints as control our Prime Minister at home. Therefore Ceylon and the Cape Colony are very unlike in their circumstances.
But the likeness is much more potential than the unlikeness. In each country there is a vast coloured population subject to British rule,—and a population which is menaced by no danger of coming extermination. It must always be remembered that the Kafirs are not as the Maoris. They are increasing now more quickly than ever because, under our rule, they do not kill each other off in tribal wars. No doubt the white men are increasing too,—but very slowly; so that it is impossible not to accept the fact a few white men have to rule a great number of coloured men, and that that proportion must remain.
A coloured subject of the Queen in the Cape Colony has all the privileges possessed by a white subject,—all the political privileges. The elective franchise under which the constituencies elect their members of Parliament is given under a certain low property qualification. A labourer who for a year shall have earned £25 in wages and his diet maybe registered as a voter, or if a man shall have held for a year a house, or land, or land and house conjointly, worth £50, he may be registered. It is certainly the case that even at present a very large number of Kafirs might be registered. It has already been threatened in more than one case that a crowd of Kafirs should be taken to the poll to carry an election in this or that direction. The Kafirs themselves understand but little about it,—as yet; but they will come to understand. The franchise is one which easily admits of a simulated qualification. It depends on the value of land,—and who is to value it? If one Kafir were now to swear that he paid another Kafir 10s. a week and fed him; no registrar would perhaps believe the oath. But it will not be long before such oath might probably be true, or at any rate impossible of rejection. The Registrar may himself be a Kafir,—as may also be the member of Parliament. We have only to look at the Southern States of the American Union to see how quickly the thing may run when once it shall have begun to move. With two million and a quarter of coloured people as against 340,000 white, all endowed with equal political privileges, why should we not have a Kafir Prime Minister at Capetown, and a Kafir Parliament refusing to pay salary to any but a Kafir Governor?
There may be those who think that a Kafir Parliament and a Kafir Governor would be very good for a Kafir country. I own that I am not one of them. I look to the civilization of these people, and think that I see it now being effected by the creation of those wants the desire for supplying which has since the creation of the world beenthe one undeviating path towards material and intellectual progress. I see them habituating their shoulders to the yoke of daily labour,—as we have all habituated ours in Europe, and I do not doubt the happiness of the result. Nor do I care at present to go into the question of a far distant future. I will not say but that in coming ages a Kafir may make as good a Prime Minister as Lord Beaconsfield. But he cannot do so now,—nor in this age,—nor for many ages to come. It will be sufficient for us if we can make up our minds that at least for the next hundred years we shall not choose to be ruled by him. But if so, seeing how greatly preponderating is his number, how are we to deal with him when he shall have come to understand the meaning of his electoral privileges, but shall not yet have reached that intellectual equality with the white man which the more ardent of his friends anticipate for him? Such are the perils and such the political quagmire among which the Southern States of the Union are now floundering. In arranging for the future government of South Africa, whether with, or without, a Confederation, we should I think be on the alert to guard against similar perils and a similar quagmire there.
I have now spoken of the Queen’s subjects in the Cape Colony. Then come on my list as given above the inhabitants of native districts which are subject to the Cape Colony, either by conquest or by annexation in accordance with their own wishes. These are so various and scattered that I can hardly hope to interest my reader in the tribes individually. The Basutos are probably the most prominent. They are governed by British magistrates, pay direct and indirect taxes,—are a quiet orderly people, not given to fighting since the days of their great King Moshesh, and are about 127,000 in number. Then there are the Damaras and Namaquas of the Western coast, people allied to the Hottentots, races of whom no great notice is taken because their land has not yet been good enough to tempt colonists. But a small proportion of these people as yet live within electoral districts and therefore at present they have no votes for members of Parliament. But were any scheme of Confederation carried out their position would have to be assimilated to that of the other natives.
The Diamond Fields are in a condition very little like that of South Africa generally. They are now, so to say, in the act of being made a portion of the Cape Colony, the bill for this purpose having been passed only during the last Session. They were annexed to the British Dominions in 1871, and have been governed since that time by a resident Sub-Governor under the Governor and High Commissioner of the Cape Colony. The district will now have a certain allotment of members of Parliament, but it has not any strong bearing on the question we are considering. The population of the district is of a shifting nature, the greater portion of even the coloured people having been drawn there by the wages offered by capitalists in search of diamonds. The English have got into the way of calling this territory the Diamond Fields, but its present proper geographical name is Griqualand West.
We then come to Natal with its little handful of whitepeople,—20,000 Europeans among 320,000 Kafirs and Zulus. Natal at present is under a separate Governor of its own and a separate form of government. There is not a Parliament in our sense of the word, but a Legislative Council. The Executive Officers are responsible to the Governor and not to the Council. Natal is therefore a Crown Colony, and is not yet afflicted with any danger from voting natives. I can understand that it should be brought into a Confederation with other Colonies or Territories under the same flag without any alteration in its own Constitution,—but in doing so it must consent to take a very subordinate part. Where there is a Parliament, and the clamour and energy and strife of parliamentary life, there will be the power. If there be a Confederation with a central Congress,—and I presume that such an arrangement is always intended when Confederation is mentioned,—Natal would demand the right to elect members. It would choose its own franchise, and might perhaps continue to shut out the coloured man; but it would be subjected to and dominated by the Institutions of the Cape Colony, which, as I have endeavoured to show, are altogether different from its own. The smaller States are generally those most unwilling to confederate, fearing that they will be driven to the wall. The founders of the American Constitution had to give Rhode Island as many Senators as New York before she would consent to Federation.
There remains the Transvaal, which we have just annexed with its 40,000 Dutchmen and its quarter of a million of native population,—a number which can only be taken as a rough average and one which will certainly be greatlyexceeded as our borders stretch themselves in their accustomed fashion. Here again we have for the moment a Crown Colony, and one which can hardly get itself into working order for Confederation within the period allowed by the Permissive Bill of last Session. The other day there was a Dutch Parliament,—or Volksraad,—in which the Dutchman had protected himself altogether from any voting interference on the part of the native. Downing Street can make the Transvaal confederate if she so please, but can hardly do so without causing Dutch members to be sent up to the general Parliament. Now these Dutchmen do not talk English, and are supposed to be unwilling to mix with Englishmen. I fear that many years must pass by before the Transvaal can become an operative part of an Anglo-South African Confederation.
I have here simply endeavoured to point at the condition of things as they may affect the question of Confederation;—not as intending to express an opinion against Confederation generally. I am in doubt whether a Confederation of the South African States can be carried in the manner proposed by the Bill. But I feel sure that if such a measure be carried the chief object in view should be the amelioration of the coloured races, and that that object cannot be effected by inviting the coloured races to come to the polls. Voting under a low suffrage would be quite as appropriate to the people of the Indian Provinces and of Ceylon as it is at the present moment to the people of South Africa. The same evil arose in Jamaica and we know what came from it there.
I hadalways heard that the entrance into Capetown, which is the capital of the Cape Colony, was one of the most picturesque things to be seen on the face of the earth. It is a town lying close down on the seashore, within the circumference of Table Bay so that it has the advantage of an opposite shore which is always necessary to the beauty of a seashore town; and it is backed by the Table Mountain with its grand upright cliffs and the Lion with its head and rump, as a certain hill is called which runs from the Table Mountain round with a semicircular curve back towards the sea. The “Lion” certainly put me in mind of Landseer’s lions, only that Landseer’s lions lie straight. All this has given to Capetown a character for landscape beauty, which I had been told was to be seen at its best as you enter the harbour. But as we entered it early on one Sunday morning neither could the Table Mountain nor the Lion be seen because of the mist, and the opposite shore, with its hills towards The Paarl and Stellenbosch, was equally invisible. Seen as I first saw it Capetown was not an attractive port, and when I found myself standing at the gate of the dockyard for an hour and a quarter waiting for a Custom Houseofficer to tell me that my things did not need examination,—waiting because it was Sunday morning,—I began to think that it was a very disagreeable place indeed. Twelve days afterwards I steamed out of the docks on my way eastward on a clear day, and then I could see what was then to be seen, and I am bound to say that the amphitheatre behind the place is very grand. But by that time the hospitality of the citizens had put me in good humour with the city and had enabled me to forget the iniquity of that sabbatical Custom House official.
But Capetown in truth is not of itself a prepossessing town. It is hard to say what is the combination which gives to some cities their peculiar attraction, and the absence of which makes others unattractive. Neither cleanliness, nor fine buildings, nor scenery, nor even a look of prosperity will effect this,—nor will all of them combined always do so. Capetown is not specially dirty,—but it is somewhat ragged. The buildings are not grand, but there is no special deficiency in that respect. The scenery around is really fine, and the multiplicity of Banks and of Members of Parliament,—which may be regarded as the two most important institutions the Colonies produce,—seemed to argue prosperity. But the town is not pleasing to a stranger. It is as I have said ragged, the roadways are uneven and the pavements are so little continuous that the walker by night had better even keep the road. I did not make special enquiry as to the municipality, but it appeared to me that the officers of that body were not alert. I saw a market out in the open street which seemed to be rather amusing thanserviceable. To this criticism I do not doubt but that my friends at the Cape will object;—but when they do so I would ask whether their own opinion of their own town is not the same as mine. “It is a beastly place you know,” one Capetown gentleman said to me.
“Oh no!” said I in that tone which a guest is obliged to use when the mistress of a house speaks ill of anything at her own table. “No, no; not that.”
But he persisted. “A beastly place,”—he repeated. “But we have plenty to eat and plenty to drink, and manage to make out life very well. The girls are as pretty as they are any where else, and as kind;—and the brandy and water as plentiful.” To the truth of all these praises I bear my willing testimony,—always setting aside the kindness of the young ladies of which it becomes no man to boast.
The same thing may be said of so many colonial towns. There seems to be a keener relish of life than among our steadier and more fastidious folk at home, with much less to give the relish. So that one is driven to ask oneself whether advanced Art, mechanical ingenuity, and luxurious modes of living do after all add to the happiness of mankind. He who has once possessed them wants to return to them,—and if unable to do so is in a far worse position than his neighbours. I am therefore disposed to say that though Capetown as a city is not lovely, the Capetowners have as good a time of it as the inhabitants of more beautiful capitals.
The population is something over 30,000,—which when we remember that the place is more than two centuries oldand that it is the capital of an enormous country, and the seat of the colonial legislature, is not great. Melbourne which is just two hundred years younger than Capetown contains above a quarter of a million of inhabitants. Melbourne was of course made what it is by gold;—but then so have there been diamonds to enhance the growth of Capetown. But the truth, I take it, is that a white working population will not settle itself at any place where it will have to measure itself against coloured labour. A walk through the streets of Capetown is sufficient to show the stranger that he has reached a place not inhabited by white men,—and a very little conversation will show him further that he is not speaking with an English-speaking population. The gentry no doubt are white and speak English. At any rate the members of Parliament do so, and the clergymen, and the editors—for the most part, and the good-looking young ladies;—but they are not the population. He will find that everything about him is done by coloured persons of various races, who among themselves speak a language which I am told the Dutch in Holland will hardly condescend to recognise as their own. Perhaps, as regards labour, the most valuable race is that of the Malays, and these are the descendants of slaves whom the early Dutch settlers introduced from Java. The Malays are so-called Mahommidans, and some are to be seen flaunting about the town in turbans and flowing robes. These, I understand, are allowed so to dress themselves as a privilege in reward for some pious work done,—a journey to Mecca probably. Then there is a Hottentot admixture, a sprinkling of the Guinea-coast negro,and a small but no doubt increasing Kafir element. But all this is leavened and brought into some agreement with European modes of action and thought by the preponderating influence of Dutch blood. So that the people, though idle, are not apathetic as savages, nor quite so indifferent as Orientals. But yet there is so much of the savage and so much of the oriental that the ordinary Englishman does not come out and work among them. Wages are high and living, though the prices of provisions are apt to vary, is not costly. Nor is the climate averse to European labourers, who can generally work without detriment in regions outside the tropics. But forty years ago slave labour was the labour of the country, and the stains, the apathy, the unprofitableness of slave labour still remain. It had a curse about it which fifty years have not been able to remove.
The most striking building in Capetown is the Castle, which lies down close to the sea and which was built by the Dutch,—in mud when they first landed, and in stone afterwards, though not probably as we see it now. It is a low edifice, surrounded by a wall and a ditch, and divided within into two courts in which are kept a small number of British troops. The barracks are without, at a small distance from the walls. In architecture it has nothing to be remarked, and as a defence would be now of no avail whatever. It belongs to the imperial Government, who thus still keep a foot on the soil as though to show that as long as British troops are sent to the Cape whether for colonial or imperial purposes, the place is not to be considered free from imperialinterference. Round the coast at Simon’s Bay, which is at the back or eastern side of the little promontory which constitutes the Cape of Good Hope, Great Britain possesses a naval station, and this is another imperial possession and supposed to need imperial troops for its defence. And from this possession of a naval station there arises the fiction that for its need the British troops are retained in South Africa when they have been withdrawn from all our other self-governing Colonies. But we have also a station for ships of war at Sydney, and generally a larger floating force there than at Simon’s Bay. But the protection of our ships at Sydney has not been made an excuse for having British troops in New South Wales. I will, however, recur again to this subject of soldiers in the Colony,—which is one that has to be treated with great delicacy in the presence of South African Colonists.
There was lately a question of selling the Castle to the Colony,—the price named having been, I was told, something over £60,000. If purchased by the municipality it would I think be pulled down. Thus would be lost the most conspicuous relic of the Dutch Government;—but an ugly and almost useless building would be made to give way to better purposes.
About thirty years ago Dr. Gray was appointed the first bishop of Capetown and remained there as bishop till he died,—serving in his Episcopacy over a quarter of a century. He has been succeeded by Bishop Jones, who is now Metropolitan of South Africa to the entire satisfaction of all the members of the Church. Bishop Gray inaugurated thebuilding of a Cathedral, which is a large and serviceable church, containing a proper ecclesiastical throne for the Bishop and a stall for the Dean; but it is not otherwise an imposing building and certainly is anything but beautiful. That erected for the use of the Roman Catholics has been built with better taste. Near to the Cathedral,—behind it, and to be reached by a shady walk which is one of the greatest charms of Capetown, is the Museum, a handsome building standing on your right as you go up from the Cathedral. This is under the care of Mr. Trimen who is well known to the zoologically scientific world as a man specially competent for such work and whose services and society are in high esteem at Capetown. But I did not think much of his African wild beasts. There was a lion and there were two lionesses,—stuffed of course. The stuffing no doubt was all there; but the hair had disappeared, and with the hair all that look of martial ardour which makes such animals agreeable to us. There was, too, a hippopotamus who seemed to be moulting,—if a hippopotamus can moult,—very sad to look at, and a long since deceased elephant, with a ricketty giraffe whose neck was sadly out of joint. I must however do Mr. Trimen the justice to say that when I remarked that his animals seemed to have needed Macassar oil, he acknowledged that they were a “poor lot,” and that it was not by their merits that the Capetown Museum could hope to be remembered. His South African birds and South African butterflies, with a snake or two here and there, were his strong points. I am but a bad sightseer in a museum, being able to detect the deficiencies of a mangylion, but unable from want of sight and want of education to recognise the wonders of a humming bird. But I saw a hideous vulture, and an eagle, and some buzzards, with a grand albatross or two, all of which were as glossy and natural as glass eyes and well brushed feathers could make them. A skeleton of a boa-constrictor with another skeleton of a little animal just going to be swallowed interested me perhaps more than anything else.
Under the same roof with the Museum is the public library which is of its nature very peculiar and valuable. It would be invidious to say that there are volumes there so rare that one begrudges them to a distant Colony which might be served as well by ordinary editions as by scarce and perhaps unreadable specimens. But such is the feeling which comes up first in the mind of a lover of books when he takes out and handles some of the treasures of Sir George Grey’s gift. For it has to be told that a considerable portion of the Capetown library,—or rather a small separate library itself numbering about 5,000 volumes,—was given to the Colony by that eccentric but most popular and munificent Governor. But why a MS. of Livy, or of Dante, should not be as serviceable at Capetown as in some gentleman’s country house in England it would be hard to say; and the Shakespeare folio of 1623 of which the library possesses a copy,—with a singularly close cut margin,—is no doubt as often looked at, and as much petted and loved and cherished in the capital of South Africa, as it is when in the possession of a British Duke. There is also a wonderful collection in these shelves of the native literature of Africa and NewZealand. Perhaps libraries of greater value have been left by individuals to their country or to special institutions, but I do not remember another instance of a man giving away such a treasure in his lifetime and leaving it where in all human probability he could never see it again.
The remaining, or outer library, contains over thirty thousand volumes, of which about 5,000 were left by a Mr. Dessin more than a hundred years ago to the Dutch Reformed Church in Capetown. These seem to have been buried for many years, and to have been disinterred and brought into use when the present public library was established in 1818. The public are admitted free, and ample comforts are supplied for reading,—such as warmth, seats, tables and a handsome reading-room. A subscription of £1 per annum enables the subscriber to take a set of books home. This seems to us to be a munificent arrangement; but it should always be remembered that at Boston in the United States any inhabitant of the city may take books home from the public library without any deposit and without paying anything. Among all the philanthropical marvels of public libraries that is the most marvellous. I was told that the readers in Capetown are not very numerous. When I visited the place there were but two or three.
A little further up along the same shady avenue, and still on the right hand side is the entrance to the Botanic Gardens. These, I was told, were valuable in a scientific point of view, but were, as regards beauty and arrangement, somewhat deficient, because funds were lacking. There is a Government grant and there are subscriptions, but the Governmentis stingy,—what Good Government ever was not stingy?—and the subscriptions are slender. I walked round the garden and can imagine that if I were an inhabitant of Capetown and if, as would probably be the case, I made frequent use of that avenue, I might prolong my exercise by a little turn round the garden. But this could only be three times a week unless my means enabled me to subscribe, for on three days the place is shut against the world at large. As a public pleasure ground the Capetown gardens are not remarkable. As I walked up and down this somewhat dreary length I thought of the glory and the beauty and the perfect grace of the gardens at Sydney.
Opposite to the Museum and the Gardens is the Government House in which Sir Bartle Frere with his family had lately come to reside. In many Colonies, nay in most that I have visited, I have heard complaints that Government Houses have been too small. Seeing such hospitality as I have seen in them I could have fancied that Governors, unless with long private purses, must have found them too large. They are always full. At Melbourne, in Victoria, an evil-natured Government has lately built an enormous palace which must ruin any Governor who uses the rooms placed at his disposal. When I was there the pleasant house at Tourac sufficed, and Lord Canterbury, who has now gone from us, was the most genial of hosts and the most sage of potentates. At Capetown the house was larger than Tourac, and yet not palatial. It seemed to me to be all that such a house should be;—but I heard regrets that there were not more rooms. I know no office in which itcan be less possible for a man to make money than in administering the government of a constitutional Colony. In a Colony that has no constitution of its own,—in which the Governor really governs,—the thing is very different. In the one there is the salary and the house, and that is all. In a Crown Colony there is no House of Commons to interfere when this and the other little addition is made. We all know what coals and candles mean at home. The constitutional Governor has no coals and candles.
Wherever I go I visit the post-office, feeling certain that I may be able to give a little good advice. Having looked after post-offices for thirty years at home I fancy that I could do very good service among the Colonies if I could have arbitrary power given to me to make what changes I pleased. My advice is always received with attention and respect, and I have generally been able to flatter myself that I have convinced my auditors. But I never knew an instance yet in which any improvement recommended by me was carried out. I have come back a year or two after my first visit and have seen that the things have been just as they were before. I did not therefore say much at Capetown;—but I thought it would have been well if they had not driven the public to buy stamps at a store opposite, seeing that as the Colony pays salaries the persons taking the salaries ought to do the work;—and that it would be well also if they could bring themselves to cease to look at the public as enemies from whom it is necessary that the officials inside should be protected by fortifications in the shape of barred windows and closed walls. Bankers do theirwork over open counters, knowing that no one would deal with them were they to shut their desks up behind barricades.
But I am bound to say that my letters were sent after me with that despatch and regularity which are the two first and greatest of post-official virtues. And the services in the Colony generally are very well performed, and performed well under great difficulties. The roads are bad, and the distances long, and the transit is necessarily rough. I was taken out to see such a cart as I should have to travel on for many a weary day before I had accomplished my task in South Africa. My spirit groaned within me as I saw it,—and for many a long and weary hour it has since expanded itself with external groanings though not quite on such a cart as I saw then. But the task has been done, and I can speak of the South African cart with gratitude. It is very rough,—very rough indeed for old bones. But it is sure.
I should weary my reader were I to tell him of all the civilized institutions,—one by one,—which are in daily use in Capetown. There is a Custom House, and a Sailors’ Home, and there are hospitals, and an observatory,—very notable I believe as being well placed in reference to the Southern hemisphere,—and a Government Herbarium and a lunatic asylum at Robben Island. Of Mr. Stone, the Astronomer Royal and lord of the Observatory, I must say one word in special praise. “Do you care for the stars?” he asked me. In truth I do not care for the stars. I care, I think, only for men and women, and so I told him. “Then,” said he, “I won’t bother you to come to theObservatory. But if you wish to see stars I will show them to you.” I took him at his word and did not then go to the Observatory. This I had said with some fear and trembling as I remembered well the disgust which Agazziz once expressed when I asked permission not to be shown his museum at Cambridge, Massachusetts. But Mr. Stone seemed to understand my deficiency, and if he pitied me he abstained from expressing his pity. Afterwards I did make a special visit to the Observatory,—which is maintained by the imperial Government and not by the Colony,—and was shown all the wonders of the Southern Heavens. They were very beautiful, but I did not understand much about them.
There is a comfortable and hospitable club at Capetown, to which, as at all colonial clubs, admission is given to strangers presumed to be of the same social standing as the members. The hour of lunch seems to be the hour of the day at which these institutions are most in request. This is provided in the form of a table d’hôte, as is also a dinner later on in the day. This is less numerously attended, but men of heroic mould are thus enabled to dine twice daily.
Capetown would be no city without a railway. The Colony at present has three starting-points for railways from the coast, one of which runs out of Capetown, with a branch to Wynberg which is hardly more than a suburb and is but eight miles distant, and a second branch to Worcester which is intended to be carried up the country to the distant town of Graaf Reynet and so on through the worldof Africa. The line to Wynberg is of infinite importance to the city as giving to the inhabitants easy means of access to a charming locality. Capetown itself is not a lovely spot on which to reside, but the district at the back of the Table Mountain where are Mowbray, Rondebusch, Wynberg and Constantia,—which district is reached by the railway,—supplies beautiful sites for houses and gardens. There are bits of scenery which it would be hard to beat either in form or colour, so grand are the outlines of the mountain, and so rich and bountiful the verdure of the shrubs and timbers. It would be difficult to find a site for a house more charming than that occupied by the bishop, which is only six miles from town and hardly more than a mile distant from a railway station. Beyond Wynberg lies the grape district of Constantia so well known in England by the name of its wine;—better known, I think, forty years ago than it is now.
All these places, Rondebusch, Wynberg, Constantia and the rest lie on that promontory which when we look at the map we regard as the Cape of Good Hope. The Dutch had once an idea of piercing a canal across the isthmus from sea to sea, from Table Bay to False Bay,—in which lies Simon’s Bay where is our naval station,—and maintaining only the island so formed for its own purposes, leaving the rest of South Africa to its savagery. And, since the time of the Dutch, it has been suggested that if England were thus to cut off the Table Mountain with its adjacent land, England would have all of South Africa that it wants. The idea is altogether antagonistic to the British notion of colonization,which looks to a happy home for colonists or the protection natives, rather than the benefit or glory of the Mother Country. But were such a cutting off to be effected, the morsel of land so severed would be very charming, and would demand I think a prettier town than Capetown.
Beyond and around Wynberg there is a little world of lovely scenery. Simonstown is about twelve miles from Wynberg, the road passing by the now growing bathing-place of Kalk bay. It is to Kalk bay that the ladies of Capetown go with their children when in summer they are in search of fresh air, and sea breezes, and generally improved sanitary arrangements. A most delightful spot it would be if only there were sufficient accommodation. The accommodation of course will come as years roll on. Beyond Kalk bay are Simonstown and Simon’s Bay, where lives the British Commodore who has the command of these waters. The road, the whole way down, lies between the mountain and the sea. Beyond Simonstown I rode out for six or seven miles with the Commodore along the side of the hill and through the rocks till we could see the lighthouse at the extremity of the Cape. It is impossible to imagine finer sea scenery or a bolder coast than is here to be seen. There is not a yard of it that would not be the delight of tourists if it were in some accessible part of Europe,—not a quarter of a mile that would not have its marine villa if it were in England.
Before I returned home I stayed for a week or two at an Inn, a mile or two beyond Wynberg, called Rathfelders. I suppose some original Dutchman of that name once kept the house. It is of itself an excellent place of resort, coolin summer, being on the cool side of the Table Mountains and well kept;—a comfortable refuge to sojourners who do not object to take their meals at a public table; but peculiarly pleasant as being in the midst of mountain scenery. From here there is a ride through the mountains to Hout’s Bay,—a little inlet on the other side of the Cape promontory,—which cannot be beaten for beauty of the kind. The distance to be ridden may be about ten miles each way, and good riding horses are kept at Rathfelders. But I did not find that very many had crossed the pass. I should say that in the neighbourhood of Wynberg there are various hotels and boarding houses so that accommodation may always be had. The best known of these is Cogill’s Hotel close to the Wynberg Railway Station. I did not stay there myself, but I heard it well spoken of.
Altogether the scenery of the Promontory on which the Dutch landed, the southern point of which is the Cape of Good Hope, and on which stands Capetown, is hardly to be beaten for picturesque beauty by any landskip charms elsewhere within the same area.
I was taken down to Constantia where I visited one of the few grape growers among whom the vineyards of this district are divided. I found him with his family living in a fine old Dutch residence,—which had been built I was told by one of the old Dutch Governors when a Governor at the Cape was a very aristocratic personage. Here he keeps a few ostriches, makes a great deal of wine, and has around him as lovely scenery as the eye of man can desire. But he complained bitterly as to the regulations,—or want of regulations,—prevailing in regard to labour. “If an idle people could only be made to work for reasonable wages the place would become a very Paradise!” This is the opinion as to labour which is left behind in all lands in which slavery has prevailed. The man of means, who has capital either in soil or money, does not actually wish for a return to slavery. The feelings which abolished slavery have probably reached his bosom also. But he regrets the control over his fellow creatures which slavery formerly gave him, and he does not see that whether a man be good or bad, idle by nature and habits or industrious, the only compulsion to work should come from hunger and necessity,—and the desire of those good things which industry and industry alone will provide.
On the other side of Capetown,—the other side from the direction towards Wynberg,—there is another and the only other road out of Capetown which leads down to Sea Point, where there is a second pleasant suburb and a second clustering together of villa residences. Here the inhabitants look direct on to Table Bay and have the surges of the Atlantic close to their front doors. The houses at Sea Point are very nice, but they have nothing of the Elysian scenery of Wynberg. Continuing the road from Sea Point the equestrian, or energetic walker, may return by the Kloof,—anglice Cleft,—which brings him back to town by a very picturesque route between the Lion and Table Mountains. This is almost too steep for wheels, or it would claim to be called a third road out of the town.
I was taken to see two schools, the high school at Rondebusch, and a school in the town for coloured lads. At thehigh school the boys were away for their holidays and therefore I could see nothing but the outside material. I do not doubt but that lads are educated there quite as well as at similar institutions in England. It is under the guidance of a clergyman of the Church of England, and is thoroughly English in all its habits. I found a perfect menagery of interesting animals attached to it, which is an advantage which English schools seldom possess. The animals, which, though wild by nature, were at this place remarkably tame, had, fortunately for me, not gone home for their holidays,—so that, wanting the boys, I could amuse myself with them. I will not speak here of the coloured school, as I must, as I progress, devote a short chapter to the question of Kafir education.
In speaking of the Capital of the Colony I need only further remark that it possesses a completed and adequate dock for the reception of large ships, and a breakwater for the protection of the harbour. The traffic from England to the Cape of Good Hope is now mainly conducted by two Steam Ship Companies, the Union and Donald Currie & Co., which carry the mails with passengers and cargo each way weekly. Many of these vessels are of nearly 3,000 tons burden, some even of more, and at Capetown they are brought into the dock so that passengers walk in and out from the quay without the disagreeable aid of boats. The same comfort has not as yet been afforded at any other port along the coast.
Ithas come to be understood that the appropriate mode of governing a Colony is to have a King, Lords and Commons as we do at home. And if a Colony be a Colony in the fashion described by me when endeavouring to define the nature of a Colony proper, there cannot be a doubt that this is the best mode. Where Englishmen,—or white men whether they be of English or other descent,—have gone to labour and have thus raised a community in a distant land under the British flag, the old constitutional mode of arranging things seems always to act well, though it may sometimes be rough at first, and sometimes at starting may be subject to difficulties. It has been set on foot by us, or by our Colonists, with a population perhaps not sufficient to give two members to an English borough,—and has then started with a full-fledged appanage of Governor, aide-de-camps, private secretaries, Legislative Council, Legislative Assembly, Prime Minister and Cabinet,—with a surrounding which one would have thought must have swamped so small a boat;—but the boat has become almost at once a ship and has ridden safely upon the waves. The little State has borrowed money like a proud Empire and has at once had its stocksquoted in the share lists. There have been causes for doubt, but I do not remember an instance of failure. This has been so universally the result that the British Government at home have become averse to Crown Colonies, and has of late invited her children to go out alone into the world, to enjoy their own earnings, and pay their own bills, and do as may seem good to them each in his own sight. I find that there are many in the Cape Colony who say that she undertook to govern herself in the proper parliamentary way not because she especially desired the independence to be thus obtained, but because the Colonial Office at home was anxious on the subject and put pressure on the Colony.
At any rate in 1872 the Cape began to rule itself. The process of ruling themselves rarely begins with Colonies all at once. The acme of independence is reached when a Colony levies and spends its own taxes and when the country is ruled by Ministers who are appointed because they have a parliamentary majority at their back and who go out of office when they are no longer so supported. There are various preliminary steps before this state of perfection be reached and in no Colony, I think, have these various steps been more elaborated than at the Cape. In 1825 the Governor ruled almost as a despot. He was of course subject to the Secretary of State at home,—by whom he might be dismissed or, if competent, would be promoted; but he was expected to be autocratic and imperious. I may say that he rarely fell short of the expectation. Lord Charles Somerset, who was the last of those Governors at the Cape, did and said things which are charming in the simplicity of theirtyranny. In 1825 an Executive Council was appointed. These were, of course, nominees of the Government; but they divided the responsibility with the Governor, and were a check upon the exercise of his individual powers. The next step, in 1834, was to a Legislative Council. These were to be the lawmakers, but all of them were elected by the Governor. Six of the Council were the Governor’s executive ministers, and the other six,—for the Council consisted of twelve,—were unofficial nominees.
But the existence of such a Council—a little Parliament elected by the Crown—created a desire for a popular Parliament and the people of the Colony petitioned for a representative House of Assembly. Then there was much hesitation, one Secretary of State after another and one Governor after another, struggling to produce a measure which should be both popular and satisfactory. For the element of colour,—the question as to white men and black men, which has been inoperative in Canada, in the Australias, and even in New Zealand,—was as early as in those days felt to create a peculiar difficulty in South Africa. But at length the question was decided in favour of the black man and a low franchise. Sir Harry Smith the then Governor expressed an opinion that “by showing to all classes that no man’s station was in this free country,”—meaning South Africa,—“determined by the accident of his colour, all ranks of men might be stimulated to improve and maintain their relative position.” The principle enunciated is broad and seems, at the first hearing of it, to be excellent; but it would appear on examination to be almost as correctto declare to candidates for the household cavalry that the accident of height should have nothing to do with their chances. It may be open to argument whether the Queen would not be as well defended by men five feet high as by those who are six,—but the six-feet men are wanted. There may be those who think that a Kafir Parliament would be a blessing;—but the white men in the Colony are determined not to be ruled by black men.[7]It was intended, no doubt, simply to admit a few superior Kafirs to the franchise,—a select body whose appearance at the hustings would do good to the philanthropic heart; but it has led to the question whether there may not be more Kafirs than European voters. When it leads to the question whether there shall be Kafir members of Parliament, then there will be a revolution in the Colony. One or two the House might stand, as the House in New Zealand endures four or five Maoris who sit there to comfort the philanthropic heart; but should the number increase materially then there would be revolution in the Cape Colony. In New Zealand the number is prescribed and, as the Maoris are coming to an end, will never be increased. In the Cape Colony every electoral district might return a Kafir; but I think those who know the Colony will agree with me when I say that the European would not consent to be so represented.
After much discussion, both at the Cape and in England, two Houses of Parliament both elective were established and met together for the first time in July 1854. The franchise was then established on the basis which still prevails. To vote either for a member of the Legislative Council, or of the House of Assembly, a man must occupy land or a building alleged to be worth £25; or he must earn £50 per annum; or he must earn £25 per annum,—about 10s. a week,—and his diet. The English reader must understand that wages are very much higher in the Colony than in England, and that the labouring Kafir who works for wages frequently earns as much as the required sum. And the pastoral Kafir who pays rent for his land, does very often occupy a tract worth more than £25. There are already districts in which the Kafirs who might be registered as voters exceed in number the European voters. And the number of such Kafirs is increasing from day to day.