Photo: Elliott & Fry, London.SIR HENRY M’CALLUM, K.C.M.G.Governor of Natal.
Photo: Elliott & Fry, London.
But fully as important as the emigration of adults will be the placing of children in well-selected places in South Africa. The object to be attained is to let children grow up in the country so that they may regard it as their own, and that their early home affection may be largely connected with their adopted land. The difficulty of the selection of children is as nothing compared with the difficulty of the selection of adults. Nor are the objections often raised in a new community against the importation of the last, heard against the first. A wide experience has shown that children are eagerly sought by farmers, and are “placed out” with ease. The remarkable success Dr. Barnardo has had in Canada, to which country he has sent between twelve and thirteen thousand children, has proved this. The number of failures has been only about 1 per cent. Nor is this a haphazard statement. Watch and ward have been kept over the fortunes of the youngsters. They have been carefully placed after due negotiation and correspondence, and each has been reported upon after settlement. The success obtained is best gauged by the ever-increasing number of applications for just such boys and girls as have been previously “located.” Every year of late years there have been three great parties sent across the Atlantic, and the cry is ever for more to come. In spring, in midsummer, and in “the fall,” the children have been taken out. Entrained on arriving in Canada, the farmers have come down to meet them at the various stations, and they have been at once taken to their new homes, where they have almost uniformly given satisfaction to their employers. They are growing up hearty, happy Canadians, and many hundred letters arrive from them at Stepney where they were trained, telling how they are “getting on.” Every penny spent on their teaching in England has had a double return in making room when they go for another boy or girl to be similarlybrought up, and in providing Canada and Britain with a small citizen “cut out of whole cloth,” as the Americans say, ready to fight for the Empire whether in Canada, in Europe, or in Africa.
Now though the East End philanthropist has the greatest number from which to draw his recruits, he does not stand alone. There is Mr. Quarrier, near Alloa in Scotland, who is doing similar work. In London no child who knocks at the door of the many institutions is refused. Each is admitted, and the change in a year is marvellous. The child has already become a good little mechanic or workman of some kind or other. He is cleanly, disciplined, and has many an example ahead of him and around him, to make him follow in the good road on which he has been set. In London £5000 is now asked for by Dr. Barnardo for the African scheme. The greatest care is to be taken to watch over the children sent out. They are to be carefully placed where climate and water is good, and there, after a course of instruction in all that is most useful in South Africa, they will be placed out as in Canada with farmers, with miners, with mechanics, and with any who want them, if the employers can only show that a good home is provided. But until a good home is provided by the Colonists, they are to have a good home out there of their own. There are opportunities of education in the local farming pursuits that “make the mouth water,” to have children thus placed. The pastoral work of dairying, as well as the healthy occupations of gardening and produce-raising will all be studied and taught on the spot. What a happy change from the crowded thoroughfares of the east of London! And if these children succeed, as they assuredly will, why should not the Government do a little useful work of the same kind as that undertaken by Dr. Barnardo and by Mr. Quarrier on its own account? Why not utilise for Africa some of the industrial school children? They, if settled together, and sent to English-speaking farmers, will not forget that they are English. They will not make their farms when they get them, after their useful school career, resound only with the expressive but illiterate “Taal” tongue. Good Saxon (even if shorn of a few h’s) will be heard in their homesteads in the future. They will add a good reinforcement to those who know that freedom is not to be got by racial separation, and the condemnation of everything British. They will permeate the districts where they grow up to manhood and womanhood with the British idea and practice of common obedience to law and justice as the best security for freedom.
FOOTNOTES:[1]The generosity of Mr. Rhodes and of the De Beers Company has made it possible to the influential South African Immigration Committee which has been formed at Cape Town to open a Hostel there already.
[1]The generosity of Mr. Rhodes and of the De Beers Company has made it possible to the influential South African Immigration Committee which has been formed at Cape Town to open a Hostel there already.
[1]The generosity of Mr. Rhodes and of the De Beers Company has made it possible to the influential South African Immigration Committee which has been formed at Cape Town to open a Hostel there already.
VIEWS OF COLONIAL PREMIERS
ByE. B. OSBORN
Author of “Greater Canada”
I
Unification has always been an ideal of South African statesmen, and twice, at least, it has been within measurable distance of realisation. In 1858 Sir George Grey, who had federated the New Zealand settlements despite the intensity of their local jealousies, promulgated the first practical scheme of South African Federation. So well had he ruled the Kaffir tribes on the eastern border of Cape Colony, that the Free State, weary of warfare with the Basutos, made overtures for a federal alliance, and the proposition of the Volksraad was actually laid before the Cape Parliament by Sir George Grey, before the opinion of the British Ministry in regard to his scheme of federation on New Zealand lines and their sanction for the course actually pursued had been received. Sir George Grey was recalled; though on his arrival off the British coast he found that he had been reinstated by a new Secretary of State, the delay led to the loss of an excellent opportunity for carrying through a measure comparable in importance with the Act which brought about the legislative union of Upper and Lower Canada.
Photo: Elliott & Fry, London.HON. SIR W. F. HELY HUTCHINSON,Governor of Cape Colony.
Photo: Elliott & Fry, London.
For many years after the failure of Sir George Grey’s attempt, unification was a little-regarded counsel of perfection. It is true that the Duke of Buckingham, Secretary of State for the Colonies in the Disraeli Ministry of 1868, admitted that it would be politic to consider seriously any further overtures for a federal alliance from the Boers, but the Free State was no longer in the mood to make them, our annexation of Basutoland being resented, and the discovery of diamonds on its western border in 1867 having created fresh causes of irritation. When the second Disraeli Ministry came into power, and Lord Carnarvon, who had collaborated with the Canadian Fathers of Federation (he himself may be described as the Godfather of the Dominion), undertook the charge of colonial affairs, the plan proposed by Sir Henry Barkly for a confederation of SouthAfrica, which should be the logical consequence of the grant of autonomy to Cape Colony, was cordially received. Unfortunately the Free State held aloof, the Cape Ministry remembered only too well the object lessons in anti-Imperialism received from Lord Carnarvon’s predecessors, and agrain de sable—the tactlessness of Mr. Froude—caused a vast amount of friction. Even then, but for the revival at home of the belief that political quietism and a policy of non-interference with Colonial affairs would enable Great Britain to retain the commercial hegemony of the world, Lord Carnarvon’s hopes might have been realised; for he had grasped the all-important fact that South Africa was, and must always remain, a single-minded community, whenever the native question was discussed, and that this unity of opinion was a stronger motive for unification than any or all of those political or commercial considerations which had already led to the making of the Dominion, and seemed certain, sooner or later, to bring about the federation of the Australian Colonies.
In more recent years three men of commanding influence have, each in his own way, attempted to realise the ideal of unity. Mr. Kruger’s attempt to lay the foundation of a Dutch confederacy, the future greatness of which would have been based (can we doubt it?) on some form of slavery, may be dismissed as an instance of the adage,corruptio optimi pessima. Mr. Cecil Rhodes worked for a federation on the model of the United States; since the Cape was half Dutch, the Transvaal was to be made half British, and the settlement of Rhodesia was to insure the preponderance of Imperial ideas in the Union of the future. He saw that the Boers must be persuaded to co-operate, and for that reason he allied himself to Mr. Hofmeyr, the unofficial leader of the Boer party in Cape Colony, who also had his federal scheme. Had the two Boer leaders agreed to work loyally together in their disloyalty, it is conceivable that they might have brought about an act of federation in the Boer interest, and have constitutionally demanded from Great Britain the removal of her garrisons from South Africa, a naval station at Simon’s Bay being conceded in order to retain the essential measure of Imperial protection. Such, at any rate, seems to have been Mr. Hofmeyr’s dream. But, instead of being content to widen and deepen the influence of the Afrikander Bond until such time as the term “suzerainty” should have been interpreted by the heirs to Mr. Gladstone’s South African policy, Mr. Kruger decided to make use of his hoarded armaments, and the future of his great raid involved the failure of Mr. Hofmeyr’s long-meditated plan of—shall we call it?—constitutional disloyalty. Nevertheless the twofold ideal of unity, which inspired the acts both of those who deserved and those who did not deserve to succeed, has survivedall these vicissitudes, and was never more strong than at the present moment. Indeed it is obvious that not only the British and Dutch inhabitants of South Africa, but also all responsible politicians and competent publicists in Canada and Australia, are now of opinion that complete solutions of the three South African problems of primary importance—the settlement of the native question, agricultural development, and railway administration—can only be obtained through a Federal Parliament, a body which would combine a detailed knowledge of local conditions with the power of seeing each problem as a whole, and devising a general solution.
II
The foregoing contains the gist of many conversations with those who have a special knowledge of South Africa and South African affairs. The opinions of Sir Albert Hime, the Prime Minister of Natal, who may certainly claim to speak in this matter on behalf of the South African loyalists, were expressed as follows in an interview with the writer:—
“I am convinced that the majority of South Africans are anxious to see a ‘United South Africa,’ and I believe they will see it before long. I cannot, of course, speak for the Dutch; but I am sure that every ‘Britisher’ in Natal and in Rhodesia, and nine out of every ten ‘Britishers’ in the rest of South Africa, are in favour of federation. The great problems of South African development can only be completely solved by a central authority. The native problem, for example, which is the most serious of all, is a case in point. The difficulty of obtaining a sufficient supply of native labour—a difficulty only to be overcome by increasing the wants of the natives—is only one phase of this problem, but it will supply an illustration of the necessity of considering the interests of the whole country in dealing with such matters. As things are arranged at present, the planters and farmers of Natal have a reasonable cause of complaint in the fact that all their available supply of native labour is drawn away to the Rand mines. I may add that the solidarity of South African opinion in regard to the treatment of the natives—all white men in South Africa are agreed, for example, that they must never have the franchise, and that no attempt should be made to create a navvy class in South Africa to compete with the natives in the unskilled labour market—is a great unifying influence. The matter of agricultural settlement is another problem which should be considered with reference to the general interests of the whole country. There is an impression current in certain quarters that immigration should be diverted into the new Colonies. But oncethe conception of a United South Africa is grasped, it is obvious that a new British settler in Natal will do as much for the maintenance of British supremacy as a new British settler in the Transvaal. If South Africa is not to become a country of two or three large cities in a huge, sparsely settled territory, the problem of agricultural development should be dealt with on the broadest lines, and in the interest of the whole country. Natal has no intention whatever of pursuing a selfish policy in regard to the work of procuring settlers or of obtaining a share of the Transvaal traffic.”
Asked to express his opinion as to when the “United South Africa” of his hopes would come into being, Sir Albert Hime naturally enough refused to suggest a date. “But I am strongly of opinion that federation should take place before the new Colonies receive self-government, or, at any rate, concurrently with that event. That would be the safest course; for it is quite possible that the new Colonies, after they had received autonomy, would refuse to join. Once they have attained the privileges of self-government as part and parcel of a ‘United South Africa,’ I do not think there would be any special friction; if there was, it would gradually disappear as local jealousies grew less.”
“Though I do not regard the question of South African Federation as a matter of merely academic interest,” continued Sir Albert Hime, “yet I think it would serve no useful purpose to discuss the details of a federal scheme at the present moment. But, for my own part, I do not regard the arguments of Mr. Cecil Rhodes in favour of making Cape Town the federal capital as conclusive. In a speech at Bulawayo, Mr. Cecil Rhodes summed up those arguments in a forcible manner, and his bequest of Groote Schuur as a residence for the Premier of the United South Africa that is to be, is an additional argument of considerable weight. But I am inclined to think that the fact that the Cape Peninsula is, as Mr. Rhodes said, the seaside sanatorium of South Africa, would not compensate for the remoteness of Cape Town from the centre of the new federation. And, again, if Cape Town were chosen there would be a tendency to make too much of Cape politics, and the spirit of Cape politicians might tend to dominate the Federal Parliament. Johannesburg would be a bad choice. Living will always be costly there, and the influence of cosmopolitan capitalists might be exerted with bad results. Of course we should be glad to have the capital in Natal, but I do not expect we shall have that honour. All things considered, Bloemfontein would perhaps be the best choice. Or we might follow the example of the United States, Canada, and Australia, and settle the claims of the existing capitals by creating a new city for our federal capital.”
III
Sir Edward Barton was at first unwilling to express an opinion on a subject “in which many with better knowledge have a deep interest.” “But I am confident,” he continued, “that before many years have passed away we shall see a Federated South Africa, and that no South African will wish to return to the old order of things once that federation has come into being. I still believe that the form chosen for the constitution of the Australian Commonwealth was the best available, and I think that it would be better suited to South Africa than the Canadian form. But whichever form is chosen, the whole community will benefit by federation.
“We in Australia have had great difficulties to overcome, and a certain amount of friction has necessarily arisen between the States and the federal authority, but the history of the United States and of the Dominion shows that such difficulties and friction cannot be avoided, but can always be surmounted. With the exception of a few discontented persons, I think nobody in Australia would be in favour of a return to the old order of things, and it is already clear that the local jealousies which hampered Australian progress are vanishing. When I was in British Columbia nine years ago, I tried hard to find a man who believed that the act of confederation should be undone; but I could not discover such a person. There may be a few ‘Blue Noses’ in Nova Scotia who would like to see confederation abolished, but I never met one. In either case, the fact that Annexationists are few—too few to be counted—in Canada, explains my failure. And once South African Federation is an accomplished fact—and though the racial antithesis, as was the case in Canada, renders the accomplishment more difficult than in Australia, where a difference in opinion as to fiscal policy was the chief obstacle—I am very sure that the vast majority of South Africans, whether British or Dutch, will refuse to contemplate a change to the old state of local jealousies. The sooner South African Federation comes, the better for South Africa.”
CHURCH STREET, PRETORIA THE APPROACH TO THE TOWN.Drawn by Donald E. M’Cracken.
Asked to answer the question: Should federation come before the new Colonies receive self-government, or concurrently with that event? Sir Edward Barton replied that in his opinion either course would create difficulties for the future.
“Australian Federation,” he continued, “came out of the will of the people. The result of a referendum proved that a majority of the people was in favour of federation, and all the States consented to the terms thereof. Now if the Transvaal and the Orange River Colonies, communities that have enjoyed a form of self-government in the past, had not free choice of assent or refusal, and joined the South African Federation under compulsion (no matter how slight a measure of compulsion), constitutional difficulties might spring up in the hereafter. Disputes might arise between the federal authority and these two States, and they would say, ‘We were not asked for our consent, we had not complete freedom of choice.’ In any case, representation must be given to them, and it would be awkward if two out of the five Federal States or Provinces were trying to overthrow the federation. I do not say this would happen, but the possibility of such an emergency should be seriously considered. It would be safe, I think, to work and wait for a majority in favour of federation; more especially as there has existed and still exists, as I am informed, a strong feeling that the interests of both peoples in South Africa would be furthered by such a measure.”
IV
Neither Mr. Seddon nor Sir Wilfrid Laurier granted the writer’s request for an expression of opinion in regard to the possibility or probability of South African Federation. Mr. Seddon, though he is always ready to advise the various Provinces of the Empire in commercial matters, is averse to interfering in other people’s politics. Moreover the word “federation” has a discomfortable sound in the ears of his New Zealand constituents; to a few it suggests Rossetti’s “might-have-been,” to most its echo is a more or less decided “certainly not.”
Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who has suffered much from the too imaginative interviewer, both in the United States and in France, makes it a principle not to be interviewed. But a day or two after he had courteously declined to grant the writer’s request, he was good enough to allude to the subject of South African Federation in a speech at Edinburgh, from which the following excerpt is taken: “In my humble opinion,” said the Canadian Premier, with reference to the attempt of Mr. Rhodes to secure the unification of South Africa, “Mr. Rhodes made one mistake. He made the mistake of being too impatient. Had he allowed time for development, had he allowed the Dutch population to get reconciled to the idea of British citizenship, they would have had much sooner than will be the case the federation of South Africa,which is the only future of that great country.”
To judge from the spirit of his utterances in Canada on the subject of South Africa, it would appear that Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s opinions as to the best means of working towards the end of SouthAfrican Federation do not materially differ from those of Sir Edmund Barton. He believes that the free consent of the new Colonies should be obtained, and that the policy pursued with regard to Manitoba by the “Fathers of Confederation”—a policy of which he disapproved at the time, a policy which led to a long series of disputes between Manitoba and the Dominion Government—should not be pursued in the case of the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies. It will be remembered that the “Red River Settlement” received Provincial status on condition of becoming a member of confederation, and that the terms of membership were accepted under compulsion, and in the hope that they could be bettered.
By Mr. M. J. FARRELLY, LL.D.
Barrister-at-Law; Advocate of the Supreme Court of Cape Colony
I.—THE ROMAN DUTCH LAW AND THE LAW OF ENGLAND
The Roman Dutch Law—the body of legal principles and enactments codified under the later Roman Empire by the Emperor Justinian, as modified by legislation of the States-General and decisions of the tribunals of Holland up to the end of the eighteenth century—the date of the British occupation of Cape Colony—constitutes the Common Law of all British South Africa from the Zambesi to the sea. Indeed its sway stretches farther north, if we include the province of Northern Rhodesia.
The recent annexation to the Empire of the territories of the two Boer Republics must necessarily have many effects not alone in the sphere of politics, but also in that of law. But no unsettling of the general principles of private law, regulating the rights and duties of the citizens in private relations, can be the result. The invariable practice of the Imperial Government—the only possible one to prevent inextricable confusion of personal status and property rights—has always been to enforce, as the unaltered law of the land, any system of European Law already in operation in territories annexed or ceded to the Empire, being already a portion of the dominion of any State of the European Family of Nations. In this respect the Imperial Government but follows the general practice of other European States: a practice so uniform that it may almost be regarded as a portion of the Law of Nations, of that custom of the European race which for a century we are accustomed to speak of as International Law. The committee of the Privy Council, which, as regards the Empire outside of Europe, may be viewed as the Imperial Court of Appeal, has therefore to adjudicate on systems of law more numerous than these that come before any other tribunal in the world. Not alone questions to be determined under the Common Law of England, but suits to be decided under that law, as modified by the legislation of the self-governing Colonies, come under the cognisance of that unique tribunal. Fromthe Channel Islands, whose people boast that they were never conquered by England, are heard appeals, based on theGrand Coutumier de Normandie, unknown in France since the French Revolution. The French Law of Lower Canada, still administered under British authority, is lifeless and unknown in the Paris which gave it birth. Similarly the Roman Dutch Law of the United Provinces, now enforced in the former over-sea possessions of Holland, has long ago been swept away in Low Countries, surviving as the law of the land only in the British possessions, in South America, in Ceylon, and in South Africa. With one result, arresting the attention of the historical student, that in our own day British tribunals accept, as of the highest authority—in many matters most vitally affecting the status and property of British citizens from the Lion’s Head to the Line, the recorded opinions of a Pretorian prefect of the Roman Empire in York—the brightest of the five stars of theLoi des Citations.
The tribunals of the Empire constitute a museum of former systems of law, flourishing far from their parent springs. But every change is not necessarily progress. The marked liking of British colonists, born in the United Kingdom, for the Roman Law under whose sway they have passed is a very instructive phenomenon. Wisdom, they seem to think, did not die with the fashioners of that “codeless myriad of precedents, that wilderness of single instances” which, evolved according to imperturbable theory from the bosom of the English judiciary, is known as the Law of England.
This preference is the more impressive, seeing that on many vital matters, not mere abstractions of jurisprudence, the Roman Dutch Law differs from the English systemless system.
The personal status of all residents in the new British Colonies falls under rules quite different from the English rules as to capacity to enter into and to perform contracts, as to property rights, and as to family relations. Results of some importance may chiefly be expected from the fact that, since the annexation and the transformation of the Republics into British Colonies, the presumption in law that British immigrants intend to adopt a new domicile, and subject themselves and their property to a new legal system, must necessarily be stronger than when residence was being taken up in the territory, then foreign, of two Boer Republics. In the future, not alone, as hitherto, contracts of service and contracts as regards property, but the relationship, personal and as affecting property, of marriage and succession, will fall under the jurisdiction of a High Court administering primarily the Law of Rome. The Court will apply the Law of England to those latter conditions only in cases in which they consider that, in accordance with the principles of PrivateInternational Law, the English system is applicable—the presumption now being that, as a general rule, it is not applicable.
Photo: Russell, London.RIGHT HON. SIR J. GORDON SPRIGG, K.C.M.G.,Prime Minister of Cape Colony.
Photo: Russell, London.
As regards the capacity of adults to enter into and be bound by contract, the most striking difference between the English and Roman Dutch systems is the survival, under the latter, of a modified form of the Roman Interdiction of the Prodigal. Under certain circumstances, on application of friends or relatives, such an order can issue. Again, contracts of service made out of South Africa are not binding unless entered into again before a public official in South Africa.
In respect to the tenure of property, more especially of property in land, the differences which exist are all in favour of Roman Dutch Law. An admirable system of registering titles to land, whether of ownership or mortgage, exists in South Africa, as on the Continent of Europe, where that most valuable legacy from the Roman Empire has remained unchanged in principle to our day. No tedious scrutiny of documents attesting title to land is necessary, as it is in England. The official register is sufficient proof of ownership. Transfer is rapid and inexpensive. Again, unavoidable calamity, amounting to a condition of impossibility of beneficial occupation, excuses from the necessity of payment of rent of land. Such excuse is not known to the Law of England.
Unlike the Law of England, but like the Law of Scotland, desertion by either party to a marriage furnishes ground for absolute divorce, with right of re-marriage. The system, flowing directly from the Roman Law, both in Scotland and South Africa, is understood to work satisfactorily, comparatively few divorces being sought for.
II.—THE MODERN LAW OF SOUTH AFRICA
Leaving the general principles of the law affecting personal status, family relations, and property rights, the difference between the Law of England and that of South Africa practically disappears as regards Europeans in social relations. In the whole field of Commercial Law, and in that of the Law of Crimes and Punishments, the Law of England has practically been adopted in all the States and Colonies. The origin of this state of the law is, of course, to be found in the fact that the Roman Law conceptions were out of harmony with modern commercial conditions and the competition of the World Market; and also that their code of Crimes and Punishments has become inappropriate to the later forms of European civilisation.
Several features of South African legislation require more specialnotice. The Transvaal Law may be taken as typical of that of the other States, and political and economical conditions make the law of the late Republics of most importance and interest to the British public. The most salient topics are those dealt with by the Law of Mines, the law as to the natives, and the Law of Universal Military Service.
The law as to minerals, including not alone gold and silver, but all precious metals and precious stones, is based on State ownership. It is expressly declared: “The right of mining for and disposal of all precious stones and precious metals belongs to the State.”
The State, however, does not undertake the work of mining, but grants, under certain conditions, that privilege to various classes in the community. The Government is authorised by law to proclaim a specified area to be public “diggings.” Thereupon, certain rights are reserved to the owner of the farm wherein the area is situated. These rights are in effect to select certain portions of the proclaimed area as mining “claims” belonging to the owner, and to mark off these portions. The remainder of the area is then open to appropriation by the public, the first comer having the first right. Shortly before the war of 1899, in consequence of scenes of disorder attending the marking off of these “claims” by the general public, steps were taken to introduce a system of assigning the mining areas by lot among the residents in each district.
The taxation of the mineral grounds was, and is, based on a dual system. The one is taxation, by means of levying a monthly due, called a “claim licence,” in the mere possession of a mining area, called a “claim,” whether or not the area is being developed. The other principle, superadded to the first, was that of taxing the profits of each mine. Before the war this latter tax amounted to five per cent.
In relation to gold mining, in one very important respect the Law of the Transvaal, like that of Cape Colony, is in striking opposition to the rules of civilised law all over the world. The famous I. D. B. (Illicit Diamond Buying) enactments passed to protect diamond mining in Kimberley have a parallel in the I. G. B. (Illicit Gold Buying) provisions of the Transvaal Law. It is incumbent on the possessor of rough diamonds to prove his innocence. Similarly, under the Gold Law of the Transvaal, “Any one who is found in possession of amalgam or unwrought gold, or uncut precious stones, and can give no proof that he obtained possession of the same in a lawful manner,” is punishable with fine and imprisonment. For a third offence, the amount of fine and imprisonment with hard labour is at the discretion of the Court, andforfeiture of the unwrought gold, or uncut precious stones, follows conviction.
It is true that in England, for instance, a similar exception is in force with reference to the possession of explosives, a measure intended to prevent Anarchist outrages. But the difference is very great between the two classes of cases. The manufacture and sale of explosives is not the staple industry of England, as the production of gold and diamonds is in South Africa. The chief occupation of the industrial population of England is not affected; the provision remains only one of some inconsiderable exceptions to the general rule, that every one is presumed innocent until he is proved guilty.
The law relating to natives, under which head are included all the coloured races, is equally strange to those familiar only with the Law of England. The so-called Pass Law provides that every native in districts or towns inhabited by Europeans—everywhere, in fact, except in the native villages—must be in possession of an official passport, showing he is registered in an official State registry. Other regulations limit the action of the native—the Curfew regulations, compelling Kaffirs in town districts to remain indoors after sunset. Municipal rules, prohibiting Kaffirs from walking on the footpath of the street, and special rules of the Criminal Law affect them. The lash is presented as the penalty for various offences. The death penalty is inflicted for Kaffir outrages on women of the European race. By the imposition of a Hut Tax, payable annually, the Kaffir is induced to labour; an occupation which, if left to himself, he prefers to leave to women.
The Law of Universal Military Service, applying to all Europeans who are burghers—a law of all the States of South Africa—furnishes another point of divergence from the Law of England. In the Transvaal all burghers over the age of sixteen and up to the age of sixty are under the military command of the elected Field Cornet of the district. In time of war the age begins at fourteen and has no fixed limit for ending. This, be it noted, is not a case of conscription; it is a levyen masse, taken as a normal condition of life. Burghers on commando are exempt from civil process, and are exempt from the obligation of paying claim licenses for the period they are on commando.
III.—RECENT BRITISH MODIFICATIONS
It is, of course, in the present stage of our information impossible to state fully the various modifications which have been introduced in the new Colonies since the British annexation two years ago.
Some changes worth noticing have, however, been published.
In Private Law, the chief change of which we have information appears to have been the abolition of the Orphan Chamber of Roman Dutch Law—a State department concerned with the administration of infants’ estates. The change, however, seems only to have been one of administration and title, the duties of the abolished Chamber being transferred to the Attorney-General’s Department.
As regards the Gold Law, an enactment by the late Republic of a war-tax on the gold output of from forty to fifty per cent. has been abolished. The British tax on the mines has been fixed by proclamation at ten per cent. on the profits of each mine. The system of claim licenses—taxation on the possession of mining areas—is continued.
Minor modifications of the details of the Native Pass Law have also been announced, including the restriction of the number of cases, and of the power of magistrates to sentence Kaffirs to the punishment of the lash.
The Law of Military Service appears to remain up to the present unmodified. Indeed, a recent decision in the newly established British High Court of the Transvaal has very rigidly construed a provision of the Gold Law, protecting burghers on commando from liability to pay license dues. The Court refuses to allow to Uitlanders the same privilege as that allowed to burghers in arms. The Uitlander, according to that decision, is liable to pay these arrears accruing during the war to the present British administration.
IV.—PRINCIPLES OF IMPERIAL POLICY—OBSTACLES IN THE WAY OF THEIR BEING CARRIED OUT
Before considering specific suggestions as to actual legislation required in the new Colonies, it is necessary to set clearly before us what are the objects to be aimed at by Imperial statesmen. Most of the errors of the past century of Imperial rule in South Africa are traceable to the fact that no steady and consistent policy has been adopted for any definite period. With every change of government in the United Kingdom the British policy in South Africa altered. As I have written elsewhere, it swung with bewildering inconsistency, according to whether an Imperialist or a Little Englander Government was in power, from an expansionist to a “retrenchment” policy. Alternately negrophilist and anti-Kaffir, alternately conciliatory to the Dutch and aggressively British. “Nothing more fixed than the certainty of Imperial change, unless, indeed, it were the cruelty of Imperial ingratitude.”
I shall take it, then, that consistency is the least we may expect as the result of the late war. The maintenance of the integrity of the world-wide Empire, plainly bound up with the retention of South Africa, involving the possession of the only secure sea-route to Australia and India; the upholding of the banner of European justice and humanity in Africa, the British portion of the mission of the European race the world over—to this end, the fusion of all strains of the European people in a new nationality to form a constituent part of the Empire—these I take to be the objects of Imperial statesmen in the United Kingdom and the Colonies, and of all loyal citizens of the Empire.
Now, these principles being fixed, we have next to consider what are the dangers threatening the successful carrying out of a policy based on these principles.
The first, and most formidable, danger is that arising from the existence in all the Colonies of South Africa of a Separatist party among the Boer section of the population, usually described as the Young Afrikander party. Its origin is due to many historic causes; among which not the least has been the unwise and vacillating policy of the Imperial Government. That party is by no means extinct as a result of the late war. No matter what professions are made in the Land of Diplomatists, it has to be reckoned with for our time and generation. It relies for the ultimate success of its policy of substituting a Boer-ruled independent State for British citizenship of the Empire on many causes. In the first place, the stubborn tenacity of the Boer people, and their slowness to abandon any long-held purpose. Again, on their military skill, their religious fanaticism, their conviction that they are the Lord’s elect, and that His sword will smite not in vain. Yet again, and most of all, on the enormous birth-rate among the Boers—families of twelve sons being not uncommon. Boer ignorance of the power and purpose of the Empire—of the real character of that federation of freemen—figures also in their calculations; and as well the barrier against fusion of the European strains kept up by the use of thatpatoisof the Hollander tongue, the South AfricanTaal. Lastly, their main reliance is on future inefficiency of the Imperial administration—marred by negrophilist British missionaries and English society nepotism and favouritism—on the see-saw of British party politics, and on the prospects of the Empire becoming involved in war with some great European Power.
The next danger is that arising from the presence on the goldfields of the Transvaal of vast agglomerations of cosmopolitan finance owning most of the mineral wealth of the State. On many points, the interest of these groups is not the same as those of the ImperialGovernment and those of the rank and file of the British settlers. Taxation of the mines for Imperial purposes, such as those of State-aided British immigration and State-constructed irrigation works, cannot be in the interest of the mining groups. The lowering of the wages of the white miners is clearly in their interest; while opposed to the prospects of welfare of British miners and British merchants in the towns, to those of the professional classes, and, above all, to the interests of British agricultural settlers, whose occupation cannot be profitable for many years to come unless their market is at their door. Mining profits remitted to Berlin and Paris, instead of going to the pockets of resident British miners, cannot benefit the British agricultural settler. Again, the truck system, by which employers supply goods to their workers (a system illegal in England), while it may increase the profits of the mining groups, would be destruction of the trade of the British dwellers in the towns. This aspect of the question is rendered more serious by the fact that practically all the press of South Africa is owned or controlled by the financiers of the mining groups.
Lastly, a danger which has existed for generations is that arising from the existence of a body of sentiment in the United Kingdom which, for want of a better word, is called negrophilism. This sentiment is usually voiced by British missionaries, and advocates an impossible black man and brother theory. Its effect on British legislation and administration in South Africa caused the first dissension of moment between Boers and British at the time of the abolition of negro slavery in 1836. The whole theory is felt by all Europeans of South African experience to be based on a flat contradiction of the facts of life and the teaching of the 250 years of European contact with the South African native—Bushman, Hottentot, or Kaffir. Allied with this is the colour-blindness of some Anglo-Indians, who favour the disastrous measure of flooding South Africa with Asiatics from India.
V.—LINES OF LEGISLATION TO CARRY OUT THE IMPERIAL POLICY
Having defined the Imperial policy in South Africa to be the maintenance of the integrity of that federation of freemen which is the British Empire, the upholding of the banner of European justice and humanity in the Dark Continent, and for the promotion of these ends the fusion of all strains of the European race in one community, let us now consider the general lines of State action requisite to carry out that policy.
All parties loyal to the Empire are agreed that the first requisitefrom the standpoint of the Imperial welfare is the promotion of the immigration of British agriculturists to South Africa. The enormous birth-rate of the Boer people will prevent any prospect of fusion between British and Boers—anything, in fact, but the swamping of the British element—unless this immigration be organised by the State. The life of the gold and diamond mines cannot last longer—so those qualified to speak are agreed—than a few generations. With the exhaustion of the mines, the British population, if confined to the towns, would inevitably disappear. Again, the Boers being essentially country folk, could never have that close association with the British necessary for the coalition of a united people, unless the British are settled as agriculturists. A most encouraging precedent of the success of State-organised immigration of British settlers on the land is to be found in the State-aided immigration of 1820 into the Eastern Province of Cape Colony.
Exactly as in Egypt and in India, agriculture, to be prosperous and to extend over large areas, is impossible in South Africa unless with the aid of State-constructed irrigation works. The water supply, both from rainfall and underground natural reservoirs, is ample; but engineering skill is required to enable these sources to be utilised all the year round. The recently published report of Mr. W. Willcocks shows what favourable prospects exist for the carrying out of a general system of State irrigation works.
One word of warning is necessary. The general impression, so sedulously created for many years past, of the unsuitability of South Africa as a sphere for British immigration, is, as Mr. Rudyard Kipling has pointed out, only a part of a political propaganda, intended to exclude British influence. It may be entirely ignored.
The next requisite of State action is the promotion, by legislation and administration, of the development of the present and future goldfields, and other mineral fields, in such manner as may tend to further the general ends of the Imperial policy as already described. The taxation of the mines should be so adjusted as to favour British immigration and the creation of a prosperous and loyal British community. The development of new fields should be encouraged; adequate sums should be raised for public objects; the minerals, expressly declared to be property of the State, should be primarily regarded as a fund for State purposes, not one for the creation of millionaires or the undue enriching of shareholders in Hamburg or Paris or Vienna. The welfare of the mass of British residents in the towns engaged in trade should be considered in legislation affecting the gold mines.
In view of the presence of an overwhelming majority of thesubject Kaffir race, all Europeans should be trained to arms, on the model of the laws already in existence in the two new Colonies. From an Imperial, as distinguished from a European standpoint, this measure is equally necessary. The Boers are born soldiers: a nation in arms. No reliance on a professional army or professional police can afford any assurance of stability for the Imperial rule. The Boers would regard such a régime as merely one of transitory military domination.
An efficient system of education, from primary school to university, should be organised and carried out. In the new Colonies great progress has already been made in this direction, and a recently published address by Mr. W. Sargent, the Director of Education, shows that the principles to be kept in mind are clearly apprehended.
A sane and consistent policy with regard to the status of the Kaffir and other non-European people should be adopted and adhered to. The Boer position, that the Kaffir is not in justice entitled to equality, social or political, with Europeans, should be upheld, as that plainly sanctioned by European experience of two centuries and a half.
Efficiency should be insisted on as the test for appointment in the public service. Salaries on an adequate scale should be given, bearing in mind the standard of payment usually obtaining in gold-bearing districts. The obstacles in the way of making efficiency the test of appointment should be clearly understood, and as far as possible guarded against; the persistence of Young Afrikander Separatist ideals, and the readiness of the propagandists to accept office under the Imperial Government; the danger of undue weight being given to the influence of the great capitalists; the equal danger of the intrigue, favouritism, and nepotism of London society—of which so much was heard at the late Committee of Inquiry into the training of army officers—being brought to bear on appointments to office in the new Colonies.
The language question—that of the degree of recognition necessary or expedient of the Dutch language in the courts and public offices—is so important that it is better to consider it separately.