Photo: Russell, London.HON. SIR ARTHUR LAWLEY, K.C.M.G.,Lieutenant-Governor of the Transvaal.
Photo: Russell, London.
VI.—THE LANGUAGE QUESTION
The question of the degree of recognition of the Dutch language in the new Colonies to be accorded by the new administration is one of the most difficult, and at the same time one of the most urgent and altogether inevitable, presented by the altered situation, the result of the late war. It is one of the cases where not to decide isto decide. Let us endeavour to understand the conditions of the problem, bearing steadily in mind the objects to be aimed at by the Imperial policy.
No responsible statesman in the United Kingdom or in the Colonies can desire to take any step other than conciliatory to Boer sentiment, provided the main object of creating a united and prosperous European community is obtained. Anything like a persecution of the Boer tongue or traditions would not only be unjust, but most unwise. At the same time, Imperial statesmen must remember that British-descended citizens of the Empire in South Africa hold that their sentiment and their opinion is not to be taken as a matter to be ignored. Now, Imperialist sentiment in South Africa is united as to the desirability of having only one official language, and of doing away with the dual language system introduced in Cape Colony twenty years ago.
Limiting any action of the Imperial Government, must necessarily be the conditions as to the recognition of Dutch agreed upon with the Boer generals as one of the terms of peace. These conditions were that the Dutch language is to be taught in the schools, in cases where the parents of the children desire it; and in the courts of law in cases where, in the opinion of the court, the ends of justice will be furthered by its use. The wish of the parents and the discretion of the law-courts are, therefore, to be arbiters. The peace terms, in this matter, seem wholly reasonable; but the main question of a dual language remains unaffected.
Let us first deal with the cause of much misapprehension in the United Kingdom in this matter. Here I will quote from an article of mine published some time before the peace agreement:—
“There is no question here of the suppression of the language of a people. The language of the Boer people of South Africa is a patois called the Taal, based on the seventeenth-century Hollander Dutch, with a mixture of many strange words, Kaffir and English, and with the omission of most grammatical inflexions. In that happy tongue you are permitted to say: ‘I is.’ It is needless to say there is no literature in this patois, as there is in the Hollander Dutch of this century. Now, it is only to Hollander Dutch that it is proposed to accord equal audience as an official language. The official recognition of Hollander Dutch dates from 1882 in the Cape Colony, and is a result of the political propaganda of the Afrikander Bond. It was openly announced and hailed as the ‘thin end of the wedge’ to prevent the fusion of the Boer and British strains of the European people, and to drive the British into the sea. It is almost as grotesque a misrepresentation to call this claim for the official recognition of Hollander Dutch a popular demand, as if, in regard tomodern Italy, we were told that the peasants of Umbria or the Marches were hungering and thirsting for the recognition of Augustan Latin as entitled to equal audience with Italian in the courts and public offices of Italy.
“The veld Boer does not understand Hollander Dutch. He only hears the Hollander tongue, or, rather, the seventeenth-century predecessor of it, in the text from the seventeenth-century Dutch Bible read out in the churches on Sundays by the predikant, or in the hymns, once chanted by his forefathers of the Lowlands, who worsted Alva, persecutor of the Saints of the Lord.
“It will clear the air greatly if people at home will realise what is the force behind this Hollander Dutch language movement. It is the Young Afrikander party.
“For sixty years English was the sole official language in South Africa. The experiment of two official languages is one of only twenty years’ duration, and has not been crowned with any conspicuous success, unless racial cleavage, political and social, be counted as such.
“No other course can so speedily promote the fusion of all Europeans. Judging by the trend of events, the future among the European people belongs to one or two of the great languages. It is significant that, at the present moment of time, with a knowledge of English and French, one can travel the world. The fusion of European strains, so happily accomplished in the United States of America, is admittedly due to the determined enforcement of a single language as the sole official language of the Republic. Immigrants of all European nationalities learn to speak and write English—their children of the next generation become Americans. As a London Consul-General of the United States pointed out to me, the reunion of the European race, as a political measure on a vast scale, has been first accomplished in the American Commonwealth. Never since the pre-historic time of the root-origins of our language, never since the corporate unity of the Roman Empire, has there been so vast a breaking down of barriers between Europeans.
“The matter is one of political expediency, not of æsthetics. The unity of the European people is a greater historic fact and present reality than any of those brief heritages of common life for a few short centuries of one or other sections of the race, giving rise to the national tongues. Personally, one may sympathise with the scholar’s preference for a survival of Latin as the language of Europe, as it was during the Roman Empire, as it was during the Middle Ages, and as it would have remained but for the outburst of Nationalist particularism during the sixteenth century. One may lament, with a loyal European like Talleyrand, what that outburst has cost Europe; led by the ambition of the House of Capet inFrance, of the Tudor in England, and the princes of North Germany, plunderers of the Teutonic knights. No doubt it is true that thousands of millions of pounds and millions of lives have been wasted by that particularism—strange step-child of the unifying Renaissance. From the æsthetic side, it is vain to argue whether Keltic be a purer tongue, more passionately expressive, Spanish more majestic, or Italian liquid music. The sieve of the gods seems hitherto to let through, for the world of the European race, only two of the great tongues—French and English.”
In a word, for all æsthetic purposes, let the various harmonies of all the tongues of the European race continue to enrich the choir, enshrining memories of the past. But for the political field of action the trumpet of command and order should sound a note clear from its being single.
Any incidental inconvenience, such as must arise to the first generation of immigrants to the American Commonwealth, must only be treated as transitory, and, as far as possible, provided against. Very few Europeans who do not know English have business in the law-courts or public offices. In the years preceding the late war, only five out of every hundred cases in the Transvaal law-courts were between people not conversant with English. For this small minority, in all the public offices and the courts, competent interpreters can be provided.
VII.—LEGISLATIVE MEASURES
It may be well that I should add some suggestions as to the measures which I at present hold should be taken to put into force the general lines of legislation, already sketched out as suitable for the carrying out of the Imperial policy as already defined. But it should be understood that these suggestions are only intended as furnishing material for discussion. In the absence of fuller information as to future needs and emergencies, it would be unwise to finally advocate concrete measures. What is, in my mind, of importance is not any specific measure, but the principles of Imperial policy on which I have insisted. If it can be shown to me, in the future discussions on these matters, in which I hope to take part on my return to South Africa, that other measures are better suited to carry out the consistent policy I have defined, I shall be prepared to advocate such other measures.
In the first place, I think that in view of the wide divergence of opinion and interest, among the British residents quite as much as among the Boers, a consultative body, nominated by the High Commissioner, should be appointed to advise on any projectedlegislation. For some time, while the form of Crown Colony Government is continued, advice from such a body will be specially needful. Apart from the maintenance of law and order, the interests of the great mining groups, representation of shareholders resident in Europe is by no means necessarily the same as those of the rest of the British residents, or indeed those of the Imperial Government. Among such matters of divergence of interest may be enumerated the scale and method of taxation on the mines, no matter for what Imperial purpose—British immigration, State irrigation works, or university and general education. The maintenance of the present very high rate of wages of the European miners is another subject. British residents in the towns, shopkeepers, importers, professional men and their employees, are concerned in the maintenance of a high rate of wages for the miners, as the money is spent in the country, not in Paris or Berlin. Again, the introduction of the truck system, the supply of goods by the miners to their employees, European or Kaffir, while it would increase the profits of mining shareholders in Europe, would destroy the means of existence of the bulk of the British residents in the towns.
Amongst the Boers, there is almost as great divergence of interest between the wealthy farmers, desirous of keeping together their vast cattle ranches of 6000 acres, and the class of Bijwoners (tenants at will on an over-lord’s land), whose interest would be favoured by the dividing up of cattle ranches, and the encouragement of small farmers who would be agriculturists.
For this reason, a consultation body should be thoroughly representative of all classes.
Direct legislation favouring British immigration of agriculturists is plainly necessary, and as well the creation of State irrigation works. Such steps, it is reassuring to know, have already been taken. Personally, I am in favour of village ownership of agricultural lands being instituted, a system with which the Boers are already familiar, in connection with the cultivation of the lands owned by the towns.
To promote the prosperity of British residents in the towns, and as well to secure a market for agricultural produce, the truck system should be prohibited by law; and the compound system, under which the Kaffir workmen in mines are not only supplied with goods but confined to barracks called “compounds,” should also be prohibited. Neither system has hitherto been in force in the new Colonies.
As regards the Gold Law, the new British administration has established a tax of ten per cent. on the net profits of each mine, and has retained the previous system as well, of taxing the possession of mining areas. It will require some time to see how the present method of levy affects the growth of the British population. Personally, I have not been convinced by the arguments in favour of the “claim license” system: it is held by its opponents that it tends to throw all the mining areas into the possession of the great mining groups, the areas being forfeited to the State in times of depression by poorer men who are unable to continue to pay. Suggestions deserving consideration have been made as to the advisability of the State developing gold areas already in the possession of the State.
As regards the arrears of claim licenses accruing during the war against the expelled British inhabitants, I have strongly advocated in the London press their entire remission. The Boer burgher on commando is held to be exempted; it is difficult to see why the expelled British should not also be exempted.
Another measure which I have supported is that of the arming of all British civilians, for reasons already enumerated. An essential to the measure being successful, being loyally supported, is that, on the Boer model, the officers of the corps should be elected by their men. British colonists, with their traditions of liberty and independence, will never submit to being compulsorily placed on military service and subjected to the orders of officers whom they have not chosen.
No measure of greater political moment can be taken than the thorough organising of a system of education, from the university to the school. I am one of those who support the making of the Gold Reef city a great university centre.
As regards the Native Law, I advocate as little as possible alteration in the laws already in force. The Boer theory of the position of the Kaffir—as not an equal, but entitled to justice, under tutelage to a government directed by European ideals—is the sound one.[2]
Asiatic immigration in any form, whether of British Indians from India, or Chinese from Hong-Kong or elsewhere, would be a measure fraught with disaster to the future of European civilisation. With the exception of some employers of labour in Rhodesia and Natal, South African opinion—British, Boer, even Kaffir—is opposed to Asiatic immigration. Even the employers referred to only desire to encourage the importation of Asiatics as manual labourers, not as owners of the land or traders in the towns.
FOOTNOTES:[2]In theFortnightly Review, August 1902. Ideal with this subject: “Negrophilism in South Africa.”
[2]In theFortnightly Review, August 1902. Ideal with this subject: “Negrophilism in South Africa.”
[2]In theFortnightly Review, August 1902. Ideal with this subject: “Negrophilism in South Africa.”
ITS ORIGIN, ITS GROWTH, ITS AIMS
By the HON. A. WILMOT
Member of the Legislative Council, Cape Colony; Author of “History of Our Own Times in South Africa,” &c., &c.
One of the greatest statesmen whose experience and ability have assisted the Imperial Government declares that it was only after two years’ residence that he understood the political problems affecting South Africa. Hundreds rush in where Milners fear to tread, and the little knowledge which induces superficial views and rash judgment on a merelyprimâ faciecase are now at present, as they have been in the past, among the causes which impede the progress of a vast country which we hope will yet become a great federated dominion under the British crown.
It is because of the vital importance of going to the root of the political questions affecting South Africa that this paper is written.
The origin of the Africander party is traceable principally to discontent with British rule. The Cape Colony, as our readers know, was obtained by conquest in 1806, and by purchase from the Netherlands for six million pounds sterling in the year 1814. Mr. Paul M. Botha, Member of the Orange Free State Volksraad for Kroonstadt, states the case from the Dutchman’s point of view, and tells us that as England said that South Africa was her country she ought to have governed it, instead of which she shirked responsibilities and was guilty of the most glaring inconsistencies. One day England blew hot and the next cold. “One moment she insisted on swallowing us, and the next moment she insisted on disgorging us.” For example, the Orange Free State was declared British territory because a governor said, “You can never escape British jurisdiction.” Then we were abandoned because the next governor said, “The country was a howling wilderness.” The Transvaal was annexed, and Sir Garnet Wolseley declared: “The rivers will sooner run back in their courses than that England will give back the Transvaal.” Shortly after that the Transvaal wasretroceded, after Majuba, because the British Ministry said, “We have been unjust in annexing this country.”[3]
The slavery question, Mr. Botha tells us, was handled with astounding negligence and ignorance of the circumstances of the people. Although England was perfectly right in emancipating the slaves, yet the way it was done irritated, annoyed, and disgusted the people, and sowed seeds of distrust which have never been eradicated. England failed to carry out effectively her promises of compensation.
On the minor grievances, such as Slagter’s Nek and other so-called injustices of England, Mr. Botha lays no stress. “It was a rough period, and rough measures were used by all Governments.” He significantly adds that what he has heard of the cruelty of the Dutch East India Company’s officials makes him think that anyhow British rule was heaven to that of the Dutch. Whatever a well-educated man like Mr. Botha may say, we know that the rank and file of the Dutch throughout South Africa are taught to “Remember Slagter’s Nek.” Nothing can be more unjust than to blame the British power for executing rebels, caught red-handed and sentenced to death in perfect accord with both evidence and law by a competent Court, whose members were themselves of Dutch extraction. Nevertheless this is one of the heavy popular grievances.
Mr. Botha says that England’s weak and spasmodic policy in South Africa has made the Boer what he is to-day—distrustful and contemptuous of British statesmen. By further receding into the interior, and having to fight wild beasts and hordes of Kaffirs, the Boer became blown out with vanity at his own prowess, and more and more ignorant. Through this ignorance it is easier to mislead than to lead him. A man who plays upon his vanity and prejudices against England quickly obtains influence. A loud talker and blusterer gets a better hearing than a quiet reasoner. “I ascribe this to want of education and complete isolation on the veldt.”
As a marked illustration in support of Mr. Botha’s view which has come under the present writer’s observation, let us tell what occurred shortly before the war to a nephew of the Speaker of the House of Assembly who had to travel through the Transvaal to look after some landed property. This gentleman, who spoke the Taal perfectly, met at one place about two dozen Dutchmen who were, like the Laird of Cockpen, “greatly ta’en up with the ’fairs of the State.” The first question, “Can we beat the British?” was answered by a unanimous “Yes, we have done so before, and can, of course, easily do so again.” Second. “Tell me, Carls,could we beat England and France united?” “Certainly,” said every one, “there can be no doubt about it.” But now interposed a new speaker. “How if we had to fight England, France, and Germany?” The reply was unanimous. “We can beat them all three.” No wonder that the people of the Lord, as they believed themselves to be, took the bit between their teeth at the time of the ultimatum. Not even Paul Kruger could then have stopped the war, for they felt perfectly assured of victory.
With a religion which has not unfitly been described as a superstition based upon the Old Testament, there is profound ignorance accompanied by prejudice of the most deep-rooted character. Mr. Botha tells us that unfortunately the ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church, “greedy for the fat lamb, the fowl, and the purse,” foster this ignorance. One Predikant had actually the audacity to tell his congregation that Godmusthelp His chosen people, otherwise He would lose His influence.
Mr. Botha defends his own people against charges of treachery, and gives it as his fixed opinion that a just and firm Government with uniformity of treatment will not only control and satisfy the Boers, but eradicate in time that feeling of distrust and fear which was engendered in their minds by the halting and unequal policy of England. He admits at the same time that it is to Britain that they owe peace, and that it was Britain that protected them from foreign invasion and saved them from continual civil strife. Then comes most important evidence. President Brand of the Free State recognised in the misgoverned Transvaal a subtle enemy. Indeed, it is scarcely remembered that in 1857 the burghers of the South African Republic invaded the Orange Free State territory and declared that it belonged to them. Paul Kruger was subsequently raised up, in the opinion of his followers, to be a Moses, whose mission was to deliver “De Africander Natie” from British bondage. Mr. Botha asks us to let him tear this veil of false romance away. “We know him,” he tells us, “as an avaricious, unscrupulous, and hypocritical man, who sacrificed a whole people to his cupidity.” Krugerism spread over South Africa, using the Bond, the press, and the pulpit to further its schemes.
AT THE HEAD OF UMGENI FALLS, HOWICK, NATAL.
Let it be fully understood—the Bond was thefonsandorigoof the South African war—Krugerism powerfully co-operating. The idea of the Africander Bond took root at the Paarl in the Cape Colony in the years 1879 and 1880. Of course, as we have seen, there was abundant preparation, but events in the Transvaal hastened proceedings. Enthusiastic, educated men, such as Reitz, Te Water, and the students of the Theological Seminary at Stellenbosch felt patriotic desires wildly coursing in their veins, but thehonour of formulating a definite plan of organisation belongs to the Rev. S. J. du Toit, who then editedDe Patriotnewspaper at the Paarl.De Transvaalse Oorlagwas published by Messrs. D. T. du Toit & Co. of the Paarl in the year 1881. It was the retrocession of the Transvaal under the direction of Mr. Gladstone in the last-mentioned year that enabled the Bond to assume a very definite shape, and to obtain immense and widespread power.
Carl Borckenhagen, editor of theBloemfontein Express, and F. W. Reitz, who succeeded Sir J. Brand as President of the Orange Free State, and was subsequently State Secretary of the Transvaal, earnestly joined the Bond. The former was a German, whose honest and intense hatred of England was apparent in all his leading articles, while the life-dream of the latter was to see the establishment of the Dutch Republican United States of South Africa.
Branches of the Bond were formed in the Cape Colony, the Transvaal, and the Orange Free State, and in 1882 the first Congress of the Bond was held at Graaff Reinet. A very astute and profoundly able plotter was already at work in the person of Mr. J. H. Hofmeyr, who had started “The Farmers’ Protection Society” with the expressed purpose of watching over Dutch farmers, and stirring them up to take an interest in politics. Hitherto the Dutch bucolic mind had lain fallow. It was now to be cultivated in order that it might produce fruit at parliamentary elections, and, as a more powerful means to that end, “The Farmers’ Protection Society” was amalgamated with the Bond in the year 1883. Mr. J. H. Hofmeyr then assumed the reins of management, and, as a Member in the House of Assembly for Stellenbosch, began to wield a power which at last developed into that of a colonial Earl of Warwick, or king-maker. Ministries were formed at his bidding, and cabinets accepted his control.
Certainly Mr. Hofmeyr very wisely and astutely modified the ostensible objects of the Bond, and he was helped to do so by the fact that the Hollander party in the Government at Pretoria became stronger than the Africanders. Indeed, the Rev. S. J. Du Toit, the founder of the Bond, was worsted in the Transvaal by the men from the old country. But to make up for this, their march in the Cape Colony was so triumphant that the President of the Bond at the Paarl Congress in June 1900 was able to glory in the fact that since 1884 the Cape Colony had been ruled under responsible government almost exclusively by the aid of the Africander Bond. In 1885 there were twenty-five Bond Members of Parliament who held the balance of power, and there can be no doubt that Sir Thomas Upington, Sir Gordon Sprigg, and Mr. Rhodes sought and accepted their support.
When Mr. Rhodes became Prime Minister in 1890 he was in harmony with the Bond, but certainly did not sympathise with its real object. Each party masked its idea, and each party thought that it was successfully using the other for its own objects. Objects diametrically opposite: Mr. Rhodes desired the supremacy of the British Imperial Power, and the Africander party really aimed at the formation of a Republican South Africa.
The Bond, says Mr. Theo. Schreiner (“The Africander Bond,” &c., p. 29) was for many years the only organised political body in the Cape Colony, and it exercised a political tyranny which crushed all true political life and thought under its iron heel. While it deliberately refused to take the reins of Government, it constantly aimed at increasing the number of its Members in Parliament, and at making it impossible for any Ministry to exist without its support. Arguing apparently from facts, Sir Hercules Robinson, in his farewell speech at Cape Town in April 1889, went so far as to say that there was no longer any permanent place in South Africa for direct Imperial rule.
A Bond Congress was held at Kimberley in 1891, when Mr. Rhodes made a very bold but unsuccessful attempt to get the Dutch to join with the English of the Cape Colony against the iniquitous rule and anti-British policy of the South African Republic. Another Congress was held at Port Elizabeth, when there was an attempt made to capture the Bond by means of British friendship. Indeed the changed attitude of this Association deceived many people, as under the extremely able leadership of Mr. Hofmeyr it assumed the position of a great benevolent society, which desired all Colonists, both English and Dutch, to join it, in order to help forward the progress of South Africa. Nevertheless, it is very significant that the Rev. S. J. du Toit lost the high position he had previously held in consequence of his supposed anti-Transvaal sympathies, and at the same time the influence of the South African Republic greatly increased. “Blood is thicker than water.” The close alliance of sympathy more and more knit together the Dutchmen of the States and of the Colonies.
But the Jameson Raid of 1895 removed every estrangement. Just before this event President Kruger showed his hand by venturing on a dangerous step, which really meant an open breach of the Convention. He closed the drifts, or fords, by which goods carried on the Cape and Natal railways entered the Transvaal, intending by this act to force traffic over his own Delagoa Bay line. He was informed by a joint ultimatum from the Imperial Government and the Cape Colony that his action could not be permitted, and he rescinded his declaration.
It is not necessary to give a history of the Jameson Raid. No event since Majuba had so much played into the hands of the party in favour of an “Africander Natie.” Cromwell’s words when General Leslie’s army left its strong position, “The Lord has delivered them into our hands,” clearly expressed the sentiment which on this occasion animated the minds of Bond members. The Transvaal enormously increased its armaments, preparations for war virtually commenced, and the entire sympathy of the Africander party in the Cape Colony went out to their brethren of the South African Republic.
Mr. Hofmeyr was a leader who thoroughly deserved the title of “the mole,” as he metaphorically burrowed under the political platform, and concealed his methods and aims with great subtlety. He saw the danger of pursuing openly the programme expressed in the motto of his party, and clothed the ideas of Africanderism in a constitutional garb. However, when considering the real aim of the Bond, we shall prove that this association never abandoned its original programme.
It must be admitted that, in some respects, there is an analogy between Daniel O’Connell, as leader of the Irish National party, and J. H. Hofmeyr, the “Ons Jan” of Africanderism. Both ostensibly were in favour of working only on constitutional lines, and both were defeated by extremists, who saw no other way of obtaining success than by recourse to arms. In the case of the Young Ireland party, with such leaders as John Michell, Smith O’Brien, and Gavan Duffy, a very futile insurrection was quickly crushed; while, so far as J. H. Hofmeyr was concerned, a much greater conflagration resulted. The great fire was really lit by him—at least he constantly added fuel to it—and when too late made futile efforts to extinguish the flames. O’Connell was much more honest, as he openly opposed the Young Irelanders, and retired broken-hearted from the arena.
Hofmeyr undoubtedly did not raise a finger to stop the furious onward march of his party.Ons Landindeed encouraged this movement, and the editor, Mr. Malun, was completely under the great leader’s influence. Certainly at the end, as will be seen if the correspondence ever comes to light, Hofmeyr tried to stop the mad career of the Republics. No one saw more clearly than he did that it was absolute folly to fight the British nation, but his interference came too late.
O’Connell fought more straightforwardly. Never for a moment did he admit that the policy of force was justifiable; while, on the contrary, Hofmeyr had not the moral courage to step publicly into the arena and denounce it. He was always occult in his mode offighting. Unfortunately, in posing as a friend, he became the most dangerous enemy of his own people.
The policy of the Africander Bond in the Cape Colony pandered to mean interests and base prejudices. The corn farmers and brandy producers were banded together in an unholy compact. Heavy duties of five shillings per hundred pounds on flour and half-a-crown on wheat were levied, while excise was abolished on spirits made from the grape, in order that members of the Bond who grew cereals and made very bad brandy might be benefited. The shameful result was that bread became dear and bad alcohol cheap. As a Nemesis the producers got into the hands of middlemen, and their condition was rather injured than improved. In the case of both wines and spirits, careless, unscientific methods were generally adopted, quantity was preferred to quality, and in many cases acetous fermentation resulted. Although spirit produced from the grape paid not a farthing of excise, and was carried at a non-paying rate on the railways, it was so miserably full of fusel oil and dangerous in character as to be discarded generally by the white population, and sent broadcast among the aboriginal natives for their degradation, demoralisation, and destruction. In a shameful manner Mr. Hofmeyr and the Bond politicians persistently resisted every proposed law for the restriction of the sale of bad alcohol among aboriginal natives, and indeed by insidious methods did all in their power to remove every barrier between the native and the deadly poison made carelessly in thousands of “pot stills” in the Dutch districts of the Western Province.
At the same time the true Phariseeism of this people was demonstrated by their fanatical observance of the Lord’s Day, which they styled the Sabbath, and their absurd opposition to any Sunday trains, even when absolutely necessary in general public interests. Mr. Merriman, in one of his saner moments, reprobated this hypocrisy.
Photo: Maull & Fox, London.SIR H. J. GOOLD-ADAMS, C.B., C.M.GLieutenant-Governor of Orange River Colony.
Photo: Maull & Fox, London.
In South Africa the Native Laws Commission, which comprised such men as Sir Thomas Upington, Sir Thomas Scanlen, and Sir Jacob Barry, took evidence in a very complete form in the early eighties, and as a result reported unanimously in favour of prohibiting the sale of intoxicants to the aboriginal natives. Accordingly by Act of Parliament this recommendation was given full effect to in the Transkeian Territories. Subsequently the Drink Commission reported in favour of this prohibition being extended to natives throughout the Colony. In Bechuanaland and Basutoland, as well as in Natal, the law was adopted long ago, and invariably worked well; nevertheless, to the shame of the Bond organisation, it persistently preferred Mammon to God, and in the strongest manner opposed any legislation whose result would be to save the black manfrom destruction. Eventually an Act introduced by Sir James Rose Innes was maimed before it was allowed to pass, so that licensing Boards were only empowered to pass restrictive regulations on the sale of alcohol to the coloured races “short of total prohibition.”
During the entire term of Bond rule in the Cape Colony not a sixpence could be obtained for the encouragement of emigration from the United Kingdom to the Cape Colony—nor would any land be ever granted for the purpose. “Africa for the Africanders” has a very real and exact meaning, and this was shown to demonstration when even the petty vote for granting assisted passages to domestic servants and artisans was objected to and refused. These people might in many cases come from England, and therefore must be shut out.
The subtlety and diplomacy of the Bond were evinced in voting a grant for the British Navy, and Mr. Hofmeyr took many opportunities of posing as a loyal subject, but, as we shall prove in the context, the one great underlying principle of the organisation was to obtain the mastery in South Africa. All nationalities were invited to join. Africa must be made great by a union of all its people, but those who read between the lines and ascertained the real opinions of those who were guiding the movement knew perfectly well that although the Imperial power might be allowed at first to be afaineantking, the Mayor of the Palace with real authority was to be the people of Dutch extraction—the Africanders—throughout Southern Africa.
We now come to the last days before the war, when Lord Milner could have been easily checkmated if Mr. Hofmeyr had been able to influence the Republican Governments. As every one knew, Mr. Kruger had positively promised equal franchise rights to British subjects at the retrocession of the Transvaal, and this promise was shamefully broken. In a constitutional manner the Uitlanders vainly endeavoured to obtain redress, and now appealed to the Imperial Government. The High Commissioner merely did his evident duty, when at the Bloemfontein Conference he insisted that at least a portion of the franchise rights promised should be given. No doubt Mr. Hofmeyr would have seen his opportunity here, and have consented in such a manner, and with such a purpose, as to really render British interference nugatory, but the Dutch Republicans had now the bit between their teeth. They were the Lord’s people, they had made all their preparations, and were perfectly sure of victory. Mr. Kruger himself could not now stop the war, and the astounding ultimatum came forth from the little Republic to the great Empire: “Recall your troops and send no more, or we will punish you.” If this gage had not been takenup the United Kingdom would have been forced to take a back seat as a third-class power among the nations of the world.
Having referred to the origin and growth of the Africander party, we must now consider its aims. It must be admitted that its originators were perfectly candid. We find them declaring inDe Patriotin 1882, when referring to Confederation, that “There is just one hindrance, and that is the British flag. Let them take that away, and within a year the confederation under the free Africander flag will be established. The British must just have Simon’s Bay as a naval and military station on the road to India, and give over all the rest of Africa to the Africanders.... It is we on top or they on top. They must be under or we under.... Two things are wanted, artillery for the Transvaal ... to make their own ammunition and to be well supplied with cannon. Now that the war against the English Government is over (at Majuba Hill), the war against the English language must begin. By Anglifying the girls they infect the whole family life with the English speech.”
We must now put into the box witnesses of a very important character whose testimony, so far as the aims of the Bond are concerned, is perfectly unexceptionable. These witnesses are Mr. Burgers, President of the South African Republic, Sir John Brand, President of the Orange Free State, Mr. Reitz, State Secretary of the South African Republic and previously President of the Orange Free State, and Mr. Steyn, Attorney-General and subsequently President of the Orange Free State. In 1875 President Burgers stated at a meeting held in Holland to consider the Delagoa Bay railway scheme, that he hoped to see a New Holland eight millions strong in South Africa, whence England shall have been expelled. It was President Brand who said, “Bartle Frere dreams of United South Africa under the British flag; and so do I, but not under the same flag.” And when conducting a controversy with Kruger on the subject of a Customs Union, Sir John Brand, disgusted with treachery, cried aloud, “The Bond seeks to raise a Republican flag in a country with which we are at peace.”[4]
Mr. Theo. Schreiner, whose honesty and truthfulness no man in South Africa will deny, furnishes us with a circumstantial account of an interview between himself and Mr. Reitz in the early eighties.[5]Then Mr. Reitz was a judge at Bloemfontein, and was one of that band of Africander patriots whose aspiration and conduct remind us naturally of the aims, objects, and aspirations of the Young Ireland party under Smith O’Brien. After in vain trying to enlist Mr.Schreiner as a recruit, Mr. Reitz asked him to state the reason of his refusal. The reply was, “Because the ultimate object aimed at was the overthrow of British power and the expulsion of the British flag from South Africa.” “Well, what if it is so?” was the rejoinder, to which Mr. Schreiner replied, “You don’t suppose, do you, that the flag is going to disappear without a tremendous struggle and fight?” “Well,” said Mr. Reitz, “I suppose not, but what of that?”
Mr. Steyn, of the Orange Free State, made the following statement to the Rev. W. Tees, Presbyterian Minister in Durban:—
“Great Britain has been completely taken by surprise.”
“Sir, this has been preparing since the year 1884.”[6]
“In both States?” asked the clergyman.
“Yes,” was the reply, “in both, and in the Colony also. The Transvaal has been the arsenal, but those in the know in the Free State and in the Colony have worked in unison with Kruger. The object was to oust the British from South Africa, but it was not intended to do it all at once. The first step was the consolidation of the two Republics as a Sovereign International State, and later on an Africander rising at the right moment.”
Mr. Tees then asked a very pertinent question. “Then do you mean to say that when President Kruger attended the Bloemfontein Conference he knew perfectly well that the proceedings were a farce, and that he really meant to fight?”
Mr. Steyn’s reply was “Yes.”
At a conference between the Governments of the South African Republic and Orange Free States held in 1887[7]relative to railways, we find Mr. Kruger declaring: “If you hook on to the Colony you cut our throat.... Let us speak frankly; we are not going to be dependent on England.” Mr. Wolmarans, following, declared: “We have had much experience of her Majesty’s Government, and we will and must shake ourselves free. We are still insufficiently prepared. We wish to get to the sea, especially with an eye to future complications—you know our secret policy.” Subsequently the blunt soldier, General Joubert, said on the occasion of an Uitlander complaining to him of the constant breach of Article 14 of the 1884 Convention providing equality of treatment for the Uitlanders: “Equality! We don’t want equality! We want to see who is to be boss in South Africa.”
Apropos to this subject it is not uninteresting to note from the debates in the Volksraad of the South African Republic (see theJohannesburg Starof August 17, 1895) that the laws of the Transvaal were intended to make the acquisition of the franchise by Uitlanders morally impossible, and that at the end of one debate Mr. Otto merely became the mouthpiece of the Burghers when he said, without any rebuke from the chairman, “Come on and fight. I say, come on and have it out; and the sooner the better.”
We must now put in documentary evidence to prove the real aims and objects of the Africander Bond. The declaration of the Rev. S. J. Du Toit, Judge Reitz, and Carl Borckenhagen is perfectly explicit. They declare that “The object of the Africander Bond is the establishment of a South African Nationality through the cultivation of a true love of this our fatherland. This object must be attained by the promotion and defence of the national language, and by Africanders, both politically and socially, making their power to be felt as a nation.”
After the retrocession of the Transvaal the “Africander Natie” took a very definite shape, as we find thePatriotnewspaper declaring that “God’s hand has been visible in a more marked manner than ever before seen since the days of the children of Israel. Proud England is compelled to give the Boers back their land after they had been defeated by a mere handful.” The little respect which Africanders entertained for British troops had entirely departed.
One of the articles of the Bond programme of principles contained the following words: “In itself acknowledging no single form of Government as the only suitable form, and whilst acknowledging the form of Government existing at present, it (the Bond) means that the aim of our national development must be a United South Africa under its own flag.” With the subtlety which always distinguished the party, a change was made in this some years afterwards.
The language of the Bond organ,De Patriot, is perfectly explicit, and shows very clearly the spirit and intentions of the party. The English must be boycotted. There must be no English shops, signboards, advertisements, or bookkeepers. Manufacture of munitions of war must be started in the two Republics. “At Heidelberg there are already 4000 cartridges made daily, and a few skilful Africanders have begun to make shells too. That is right; so we must become a nation.” It must be considered a disgrace to speak English, and war must be waged in the Church against that language. “It is the Dutch Reformed Church. What has England to do with it?” In family life no quarter was to be given.
THE LOW VELDT FROM BOTHA’S HILLPhoto by Wilson, Aberdeen
As we have already said, the junction of the Farmers’ Protection Society with the Bond exercised a moderating influence, but the spirit, intentions, and object of the party remained the same, althoughMr. J. H. Hofmeyr attempted, in a manner as astute as it was dangerous, to unite the Dutch and English people in South Africa in a common antagonism to Great Britain’s power, influence, and presence. Even Mr. Merriman saw through this trick, as he declared in a speech delivered at Grahamstown in 1885. “It is now the cue of the Bond to pretend to be loyal, and if it were not painful it would be ridiculous to hear the editor ofDe Zuid Afrikaancheering the Queen, and to hear Du Toit praying for her while resolutions are passed round to the branches in direct opposition to the honour of England.... Each one of you will have to make up his mind whether he is prepared to see the colony remain a part of the British Empire, which carries with it obligations as well as privileges, or whether he is prepared to obey the dictates of the Bond. From the very first time, some years ago, when first the poison began to be distilled in this country, I felt that it must come to this: Was England or the Transvaal to be the paramount force in South Africa?... What could they think of the objects of the Bond when they found Judge Reitz advocating a Republic of South Africa under one flag?... No one who wishes well to the British Government could have read the leading articles of theZuid AfrikaanandExpressandDe Patriot, in expounding the Bond principles, without seeing that the maintenance of law and order under the British Crown and the object they have in view are absolutely different things.... My quarrel with the Bond is that it stirs up race difference. Its main object is to make the South African Republic the paramount power in South Africa.”
To do justice to the Bond, we must quote Mr. Theron, their secretary, who is reported by theSouth African Newsof May 5, 1900, to have said:—
“One other question may be asked, ‘What is the object of the Bond?’ My reply is, its object, its only object, is expressed in sec. 2 of the General Constitution, which is worded as follows: ‘The nearest object of the Bond is the formation of a South African Nationality by means of union and co-operation, as a preparation for the ultimate object, a united South Africa. The Bond tries to attain this object by constitutional means, giving to respective governments and legislatures all the support they are entitled to, and respecting everybody’s rights.’” This was perfectly understood. It was a Dutch Nationality and a Dutch Republican South Africa that was aimed at, and the context fully proved this assertion when the vast majority of the Bond party fought against England, either as belligerents in the Republics or as rebels—active and passive—within the Cape Colony. Nine out of every ten ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church wererebels, according to the testimony of one of their own number—the Rev. Mr. Vlok of Piquetberg. In such circumstances it is impossible to come to any other conclusion than that the departure from the original, straightforward declaration of the aims of the Bond was nothing but a diplomatic effort to throw dust in the eyes of the enemy.
Certainly such a man as Mr. Cronwright Schreiner was in no way deceived by this attitude, as we find him saying in 1893[8]that the Africander Bond is anti-English in its aims; its officers and its language are Dutch, and it is striving to gain such power as absolutely to control the Cape Parliament. It had “paralysed our political life.” “In fact,” he goes on to say, “the Bond has sacrificed the welfare of the country for years to the selfish attainment of one object, namely, the supremacy of the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of the Cape Colony, regardless of the rights of others; the imagined good of an ignorant clique of the Dutch has been preferred to the good of the country. These men must not have power; they are wholly unfit to have it. The Bond is a body striving solely for its own benighted ends, and founded and conducted on race lines.” This was a correct judgment passed from the English Cape Colony farmer’s point of view; men who, quite unlike the pro-Boers in England, perfectly understood their subject by means of adequate evidence obtained on the spot, as well as by bitter personal experience.
Can anything be more significant than the following facts. The Hon. Mr. Bellingan, a Dutch member of the Legislative Council, in the session immediately previous to the war is reported by theCape Timesto have said: “If the policy of annexation were adhered to, they (the Africanders) would take advantage of England’s calamity;” while the Bond paper,Ons Land, reports the honourable member as saying that when the Queen came to die and storms burst over the empire the Africanders would not side with England if the Republics were annexed. Then the member himself, in a letter to theCape Times, declared that what he said was: “He saw difficulty for the British Empire after the death of our beloved Queen. By giving the Republicans their independence England could reckon upon them as friends, but if the Republics were annexed she could not do so.”
The Bond undoubtedly during many years prepared the materials for a conflagration. The great never-dying, ever-present aspiration was fully expressed in its motto, “Africa for the Africanders.” It was nothing if not diplomatic, and professed very loudly a loyalty which showed itself in its true colours when theBond party was in power just prior to the war. Then we find its aims exhibited by the Bond party in Parliament, backed up by the Bond Congress, fighting most strenuously against the absurdly lenient provisions of the Treason Bill.
As Mr. Theo. Schreiner aptly says, “Rebellion in fact is no rebellion in the eyes of the Bond so long as it be in accord with the Africander national ideal.” The ministers of their political party allowed ammunition and guns to be carried to the Republics over the railways of the Colony in immense quantities, and the W. P. Schreiner ministry was split up rather than consent to the very mild punishment of deprivation of the franchise being inflicted on rebels. Then came the war, when a large majority of the Bond party were either active or passive rebels.
But no one more clearly points out the real objects of the Bond than Mr. Reitz, one of its original founders, and to the end one of its principal leaders. He does not hesitate to say in his brochure entitled “A Century of Wrong,” largely circulated in more than one language over the continent of Europe:—
“May the hope which glowed in our hearts during 1880, and which buoyed us up during that struggle, burn on steadily. May it prove a beacon of light in our path, invincibly moving onwards through blood and through tears until it leads us to a real union of South Africa.... Whether the result be victory or death, liberty will assuredly rise in South Africa ... just as freedom dawned over the United States of America a little more than a century ago. Then from Zambesi to Simonstown it will be ‘Africa for the Africander.’”
A Bond object-lesson was really to be seen in a practical manner in the South African Republic under the rule of Dutch Africanders. There indeed the Transvaal portion of Africa was clearly ruled for one section of the population—the Africander—to the utter exclusion of the rights of the English population largely in a majority within Johannesburg. There was an election system leading to the corrupt and unjust rule of Boer Raads and a Boer oligarchy. Protection, Concessions, the Master and Servants Acts were all managed in accordance with Africander ideas. Bond views of native policy were carried out in such a way that no coloured person however civilised could vote, nor hold title to fixed property nor trade freely, nor even marry as white people might. All this found encouragement in the Cape Colony, and eventually the absurd fiction of Boers fighting for liberty in the Transvaal was proclaimed as a fact over all Europe, although literally they commenced a war in which they felt sure of success for the purpose of subverting liberty and obtaining complete freedom to carry on government by a section ofthe people purely for the interests of a section—the Africanders—ignoring altogether equal rights for all other men.
When we consider clearly and definitely all the facts, remember that history repeats itself and that the Africanders are profoundly tenacious of their political opinions and have proved themselves to be a people who are able to wait, can we not see at once how desirable it is to suspend temporarily the constitution of the Cape Colony? The body politic requires a physician. No one better understands the subject or is more competent to prescribe than Lord Milner. Why do we not take his advice? Nothing is more significant than the fact that in the Cape Colony two years ago heated parliamentary debates and a violent political agitation, following immediately upon the suppression of the first rebellion, were in their turn succeeded by a second rebellion more ruinous than the former one.
In asking for suspension there is no idea of defection from the principle of responsible government. The Imperial system requires local independence, and in due course this will be extended to all parts of South Africa. A necessary interregnum is required for purposes of true liberty and sound rule, in order that breakdown may be prevented and true constitutionalism take the place of the tyranny of any section of the population. The Imperial Government is no step-mother, and the federation of Southern Africa will doubtless be on similar lines to those of the Canadian Dominion. Certainly no system will be forced upon the people contrary to their wishes, but the resurrection of Bond power in the Cape Colony would absolutely prevent any well-considered and statesmanlike plan, in which all men would receive fair play utterly regardless of race extraction. In fact the British and the Africander Bond theories are diametrically opposed. The first makes every civilised man equal from the Zambesi to Cape Town, the other specially and always means “Africa for the Africanders.”
Heated discussions in Parliament, and the intense excitement connected with contested elections, cannot but accentuate race hatred in the Cape Colony. Surely South Africa should have a rest. As in the Transvaal and in the Orange Colony, so at the Cape, the great healer, time, ought to be allowed to do its work.
But perhaps the strongest, because the most practical, argument in favour of “suspension” is based upon the fact that a re-distribution Act is absolutely necessary if fair play is to be bestowed on all nationalities, and the reign of the Bond be not allowed to again become supreme. The suspensionists are really fighting for liberty against the rule of a section. Their motto is that of the Union Jack—“Equal rights for all”—whereas, as we know, the Africanders will in the future, as in the past, demand “Africa for the Africanders.” No delusion is greater than to imagine that they will change their purpose. Their plan is to adhere to their principles, consolidate their party, and wait for an opportunity. After spending more than two hundred millions of money, and much more than this—40,000 noble lives—for the sake of upholding British supremacy in Southern Africa, nothing should be done even to risk a recurrence of the trouble. This certainly was the opinion of Lord Milner, and of the great majority of the British people in the Cape Colony. The advice now referred to was not taken, and history must record the result.
The real aims and objects of the Bond are as decipherable to-day as they were three years or ten years ago. The people who belong to it are thoroughly tenacious of these opinions, and to do them justice, make no pretence of having changed them. At the Paarl the popular General Botha has just declared that they are not vanquished, retain their traditions, and will yet conquer. They look with unutterable scorn on the men who joined the National Scouts, and entertain feelings of coldness and dislike for those who did not join the enemy either actively or passively. In the great Dutch Church of Cape Town, the Republican Generals received an unanimous ovation, and were carried shoulder high, in triumph, from the edifice. The truth is that the Bond exists, remains extremely powerful, and is only waiting and watching for an opportunity.
British rule is now comparatively easy both in the Transvaal and Orange Colonies. Effective progress is being made under the rule of wise and firm Governments; but it is in the Cape Colony, where a treacherous and powerful enemy is allowed to plot with impunity, that the real danger to British Imperial interests lies.
How history repeats itself! When the fatuous policy of abandoning 35,000 square miles of excellent territory styled the Orange River Sovereignty was pursued in 1853, there was only one man in the House of Commons who opposed it,[9]and subsequent circumstances amply justified his judgment. In 1902, Mr. Chamberlain would have found it absolutely impossible to obtain a majority in the House of Commons favourable to suspension of the Cape Colony Constitution. What is now to be done? Our answer is, “Accept with loyalty the decision of the Government, and show by wise moderation that we are most desirous to be friends with our fellow-subjects of Dutch extraction. No recriminations nor abuse should proceed from our side. Nothingwill please us better than to find the Bond abandoned and all men cordially uniting as one free people under the British flag. If this be not done—and masses of the people have already declared that it will not—we will have to fight the Bond again at elections, on public platforms, and in the press, as well as in Parliament. It would have been well for both nationalities if this could have been avoided, but this is now impossible.”
LET GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT.