[Contents]CHAPTER XIII.CAUSES OF THE AFRICANDERS’ SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.In one sense the causes of the Second War of Independence, like those of the first, were as remote as the British seizure of Cape Colony in 1795, and as the years between 1814 and 1836, which saw the accumulation of grievances that led to the “Great Trek.” Seeds of dislike to the English were then sown in the Africander mind which have never ceased to propagate themselves—an ominous heredity—from father to son through all the intervening generations.The immediate causes of that war were of a more recent date. Tracing backward, the war was brought about by the alleged grievances of a multitude of foreigners—vastly outnumbering the citizens—who, for their own purposes, had entered the territory of the South African Republic within a single decade; these foreigners went there in the pursuit of wealth; the wealth[189]that enticed them there was in the rich gold deposits of the Witwatersrand district of the Transvaal. If the gold had not been there, or had not been discovered, the excess of foreigners would not have pressed into the country; if the foreigners had not flocked into it in great excess of numbers over the citizens, there would have been no alleged grievances to redress, and therefore no war, unless one or both of the parties to it had predetermined to bring about a conflict at this time and found some other pretext.Tracing from cause to effect up to the war, we begin with unimportant discoveries of gold near the eastern border of the Transvaal between 1867 and 1872. Though these were not rich in themselves, they encouraged more vigorous and extensive prospecting than had been practiced theretofore. This led to the discovery, in 1885, of the marvelously rich deposits of the precious metal in beds of conglomerate in the Witwatersrand district. The influx of strangers had been considerable from 1882, but from 1885 to 1895 the foreign additions to the population of the Transvaal threatened to submerge the native Africander citizens, for the newcomers were mostly men, and largely exceeded in number the[190]entire Africander population, including the women and the children.The first result of the new mining industry and the rapid growth of the towns was pleasant enough—the revenues of the needy republic were increased, and there was a promise of unprecedented prosperity. Nevertheless, in the tidal wave of incoming aliens from the British colonies in South Africa, from Europe and from America—most of them British, and nearly all speaking English—the far-seeing president, Paul Kruger, and other leaders of political life in the Transvaal, early recognized an element of peril to their cherished domestic institutions.As a defense against the passing of controlling power into the hands of transient settlers, the electoral franchise was somewhat restricted. Up to the convention of 1881 the probation of an alien seeking enfranchisement in the Transvaal Republic was a residence in the country for two years. At that time, with the arbitrary annexation of 1877 fresh in their minds, and knowing that the British authorities had been solicited to take that step by English residents in the Transvaal, it is a matter of no surprise that the Africanders extended the probation for franchise to five years—the period required in the United[191]States of America. That provision was in force when the London Convention was signed, in 1884; it passed unquestioned by the British government, and was still in force in 1890. Up to that date the franchise had kept the native Africander element in a safe majority.As a concession to demands on the part of foreigners for a reduction of the period of residence required for naturalization, Mr. Kruger proposed, in 1890, to divide the volksraad, which consisted of forty-eight members, into two chambers of twenty-four members each, the first to retain supreme power, the second to be competent to legislate in all matters local to the new industrial population gathered, principally, in and about Johannesburg, and its acts to be subject always to the veto of the first volksraad. The measure provided, also, that in electing members of the second volksraad only two years’ residence and the ordinary process of naturalization should be required of aliens, their franchise for the first volksraad still being subject to an additional five years’ probation.This measure was passed by the volksraad after a good deal of opposition by the more conservative members. It has been condemned as clumsy and inadequate; but it is worth while to[192]weigh Mr. Kruger’s own words explanatory of his purpose in it. “I intend this second volksraad,” he said, “to act as a bridge. I want my burghers to see that the new population may safely be trusted to take part in the government of the country. When they see that this is done, and that no harm happens, then the twovolksraadsmay come together again, and the distinction between the old and the new population can be obliterated.” It should be remembered, however, that the two years’ franchise gave the citizen no vote in the election of the president and the executive council—for that privilege he had to fill out the additional five years’ probation—and that no naturalized burgher could become a member of the first volksraad.Discontent continued to spread among the new industrial population, who complained bitterly of exclusion from important political rights, and of grievances which they and the mining industry suffered under the existing laws and administration. As a means of redress a reform association was formed in 1893. It is necessary to a correct judgment of the situation at this time to consider the statements of both sides as to the causes of complaint.THE RIGHT HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN.THE RIGHT HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN.[193]According to Canon Little, who cannot be accused of favoring the Africanders—“The grievances of the Uitlanders were these:“1. That the customs tariff was excessive, making food shamefully dear, and that the charges for railway freights were unduly heavy.“2. That the duties on machinery and chemicals were extortionate.“3. That these and the dynamite monopoly made the expense of all mining operations excessive.“4. The extreme unfairness as to the vexatious laws touching on education and the use of language.”Over against these allegations are the statements of Mr. F. Reginald Statham in his “South Africa as It Is.” Mr. Statham writes from the Africander viewpoint, but gives some guaranty of sincerity and of confidence in his own averments by an appeal to figures—which can always be verified. Speaking in a general way of the conditions prevailing at this period, he says:“The idea of the persecuted and oppressed Uitlanders has become so fixed in the minds of English people—thanks to the efforts of those who were occupied in preparing and justifying a revolt—that even the plainest statement of facts[194]seems powerless to dispossess it. No one will claim, no one ever has claimed, that the government of the South African Republic is perfect. Having regard to the extraordinary changes that have come over the country during the last ten years, it is really a marvel that the government is not much more imperfect than it is. The present position of the Transvaal executive has been not inaptly compared to the position of the crew of a collier brig who might suddenly find themselves in control of a first-class mail steamer. However desirous they might be of doing their best, they could hardly avoid making some mistakes. If the foreign population had much more to complain of than they have, it ought not to cause either surprise or indignation.“And what have they to complain of? Really, the life of the average foreigner in Johannesburg is the freest imaginable. He can follow his trade, he can follow his profession, no matter what it is, without any question or hindrance from the government. His position as an Uitlander in no way hinders him from investing in property, from practicing as a lawyer in the courts, from undertaking, in fact, as freely as he could undertake in his own country, any lawful kind of business or occupation. If he pays a high rent for his house,[195]that is not the fault of the government, but of the land speculators who have bought up building stands. If his water supply is somewhat defective, it is the fault of the big foreign capitalists, who think more of the dividends they put in their own pockets than of the water they put into the people’s mouths.“A government which depends on the goodwill of a strictly Sabbatarian population allows the Uitlander to spend his Sunday exactly as he pleases. He may play lawn tennis if he likes—and, indeed, he generally does so; he may engage in cricket matches, he can attend so-called sacred concerts, the programmes of which are drawn from the music hall or the comic opera. If he is in a gayer mood he may witness on a Sunday evening displays of “living pictures” which certainly would not be tolerated at the Royal Aquarium. To put it shortly, allowing for little drawbacks of climate and the expense of living, the Uitlander can live more at his ease in Johannesburg or Pretoria than in almost any other city under the sun.“But he is taxed.“How is he taxed? There is probably no one in the Transvaal, rich or poor, whose personal taxes amount to more than £5 a year. If it is[196]complained that he is taxed through his interest in the gold industry it is easy to make an appeal to published figures. In 1895 the Crown Reef Gold Mining Company produced gold worth upward of £420,000, and distributed nearly £97,000 in profits. Its payment to the Government for rents, licenses, and all other privileges and rights amounted to £1,191 9s 10d. In the same year the Robinson Company, which had produced £651,000 in gold and distributed £346,000 in dividends, paid to the government £395 11s 8d. The New Chimes Company, producing £93,000 in gold and distributing £32,000 in profits, paid under the head of rates and licenses, together with insurance premiums, £664 16s 5d. The Transvaal Coal Trust produced 266,945 tons of coal, and paid the government £53 15s, while the Consolidated Land and Exploration Company, in which the Ecksteins are the largest shareholders, and which owns more than 250 farms of 6,000 acres each, paid to the government in the shape of taxes, including absentee tax, no more than £722 2s 6d.“These figures are sufficiently eloquent by themselves. They become more eloquent when they are placed beside the 50 per cent impost[197]claimed by the Chartered Company on all gold-mining enterprise in Rhodesia.“But what about indirect taxation? Here are the facts:“All machinery for mining purposes is subject to only 1½ per cent impost dues, the term machinery being stretched by the government to its uttermost possibilities to meet the mining industry, and it is made to include sheet lead, cyanide, etc. All other articles not specially rated are subject to anad valoremduty of 7½ per cent, the Cape Colonist paying anad valoremduty of 12 per cent. Specially rated articles affecting the white miners, such as tea, coffee, butter, rice, soap, sugar, are in most cases subject to lower, and only in one instance to higher, duties than in Cape Colony.“Here is a comparison:Cape Colony.Transvaal.Butter3d per lb.5s 0d per 100 lbs.Cheese3d per lb.5s 0d per 100 lbs.Coffee12s 6d per 100 lbs.2s 6d per 100 lbs.Rice3s 6d per 100 lbs.1s 6d per 100 lbs.Soap4s 2d per 100 lbs.5s 0d per 100 lbs.Sugar6s 3d per 100 lbs.3s 6d per 100 lbs.Tea8d per lb.2s 6d per 100 lbs.Guns£1 per barrel.10s 0d per barrel.“As regards monopolies and concessions, the dynamite monopoly is often quoted as an instance[198]of the manner in which monopolies are granted, to the detriment of the mining interest. It has been complained that the government retains a right to charge 90s a case for what can be produced for 30s a case. These figures, however, are exaggerated both ways. The government charge is 85s a case, and as the dynamite used by De Beers, at Kimberley, costs more than 60s a case laid down there, it can hardly be held that 85s is a high charge in Johannesburg, having regard to the much greater distance of Johannesburg from the sea. In this matter of the dynamite concession, moreover, it was a choice between a foreign monopoly and a local monopoly, while in the reports of mining companies in which explosives are separately accounted for it is shown that while total working expenses run up to over 30s per ton, the cost of explosives is less than 1s 3d per ton.“As regards the railway concessions, the truth of the matter is that the Transvaal Railway Company—the Netherlands South African Railway Company, that is—by providing competing routes to Johannesburg from Natal and Delagoa Bay, keeps in check the monopoly which would certainly be taken great advantage of by[199]the Cape Colony if the only route to Johannesburg was from Cape ports.”It may be allowed—it must be—that the old saw, “figures will not lie,” is unsound. In the hands of capable and unscrupulous persons they will lie like Ananias and Sapphira. But, like that of Ananias and Sapphira, the lie in figures brings swift detection and punishment. It ought to be easy, therefore, for those who have filled the ears of the world with charges of Africander oppression practiced upon the foreigners in the way of “excessive customs tariff,” “extortionate duties on machinery,” and the “dynamite monopoly that made the expense of all mining operations excessive,” to convince the world-jury to which they have appealed that they have a case. They ought at least to be able to show that in British Rhodesia the impost on the profits of gold mining wasnot50 per cent, while in the Transvaal it was about 8 per cent thereof; that in British Cape Colony thead valoremduty on articles not specially rated wasnot12 per cent, while in the Transvaal it was 7½ per cent; that in British Cape Colony specially rated articles affecting the white miner as to expense of living werenottaxed all the way from 100 to 500 per cent higher than in the Transvaal, with the single exception[200]of soap; that an import duty of 1½ per cent on mining machinery was extortionate as compared with the tariff of other nations, or that a higher duty than 1½ per cent was collected in the Transvaal; and that a profit of 25s a case on dynamite, less the cost of transportation from Kimberley to Johannesburg, and only causing the expense for explosives used in mining to be 1s 3d per ton of ore out of a total cost of 30s per ton, was an oppressive monopoly causing the cost of mining to be excessive.Concerning the other grounds of complaint Mr. Statham writes:“There are, besides the material grievances alluded to above, what may be called the political grievances, such as (1) the alleged government of the country by a small faction of Hollanders, (2) the language grievance, (3) the educational grievance, and (4) the franchise grievance.“As regards the first mentioned of these, an honest and impartial person would search for evidence of it in vain. All the members of the executive, with one exception, are South African born; so are the majority of heads and sub-heads of departments. * * * The only Hollander of any distinction in the government[201]is the state secretary, Dr. Leyds, a man of exceptional ability and integrity, who, in spite of enormous difficulties and constant attacks, has deserved and retained the confidence both of the president and the volksraad. To say that he is the ablest and most cultured official in South Africa is to say what is simply true, and if his ability has excited jealousy and resentment, it is only what a general study of human nature would lead one to expect.“As regards the language question and the education question, consideration has to be paid to the language most usually spoken in the country. Entirely misleading ideas are liable to be formed on this point, owing to the erroneous impression as to the relative strength of the Dutch and the foreign population. A habit has arisen of speaking as if the foreign population greatly outnumbered the burgher population. The case is quite the opposite of this. The census of Johannesburg taken in 1896 by the Johannesburg Sanitary Commission showed that the population of the place had been greatly overestimated, the male European population of all ages amounting to 31,000. As there are 25,000 burghers on the military register of the republic, it seems fair to assume that the burgher population is at least[202]150,000, while the foreign population is probably not more than half of that. Of the 150,000 burghers and their families fully two-thirds do not understand English. Is it, then, unreasonable to claim that the official language, the language of official documents, shall be the language spoken by two-thirds of the people, or do the women and children count for nothing? But although the official language by law is Dutch, there is not a single government office in which there is not English or German spoken to those who cannot speak Dutch. In the higher courts the judges frequently shut their eyes to the use of the English language in the witness-box, and in the lower courts English is invariably spoken by English litigants.“As regards the education question, there is not now much need to discuss it. The volksraad during the session of 1896 passed a law in further expansion of the principles laid down in the law of 1892, and under the regulations drawn up in accordance with the law, as now expanded, state schools, in which English-speaking children will be taught in English, and which are placed under the control of representative school boards, have been established in the gold-mining districts.“The franchise question has been made the[203]subject of special complaint. Here, however, there are several difficulties in the way. In the first place, the majority of the foreign population do not want the franchise, because they are quite content with their position as it is and do not want to become—as they would have to do if they exercised the franchise—burghers of the South African Republic. The very agitation over the question has increased the difficulty, for the more there seems to be a possibility of a serious misunderstanding between the Transvaal and Great Britain, the less disposed British subjects become to place themselves in a position which might compel them to fight against their own countrymen. Meantime the government and the volksraad have been compelled to the conclusion that the agitation for the franchise is not genuine—that it has not been encouraged with the view to obtaining a concession, but with the object of establishing a grievance. They have seen, too, that to grant wholesale political privileges to the foreign residents in Johannesburg, even if those foreign residents were willing to become naturalized, would be to a great extent to deliver up the interests of all the dependent classes—the shopkeepers, the miners, the professional men—into the hands of a small group of[204]capitalists, who would use their influence, as they have used it elsewhere, to corrupt the political atmosphere and to subject the interests of every individual to their own. The political tyranny that exists in Kimberley, where employes of De Beers are compelled to vote to order on pain of dismissal, supplies a sufficient illustration of what would happen in Johannesburg if once the financial conspirators secured political control. A further and most significant illustration is supplied by a well-known incident in connection with the revolutionary movement in Johannesburg, when miners under the control of the leading conspirators were ordered to take up arms under penalty of forfeiting their wages. That in the great majority of cases they preferred the latter course is in itself a complete exposure of the hollowness of the whole revolutionary movement. In all known cases of revolution arising from discontent on the part of a mining population it has been the miners who have taken the lead and dragged others in with them. In this case the miners, who had never dreamed of discontent, were ordered to take up arms and refused.“Out of the facts of the position actually existing in Johannesburg and other gold-mining[205]centers it was utterly impossible for any honest man to manufacture a serious complaint, least of all such a complaint as would in any respect justify a revolution to secure redress. So far from being treated with unfairness or hardship, the foreign residents in the Transvaal have been treated with marked consideration. The interests of the gold industry have been consulted in every possible way. If the government has not in some instances been able to do all it might have wished to do, it has been because the reckless language of a portion of the press and the overbearing attitude of the capitalist agitators have aroused the suspicion and the resentment of the volksraad.“Yet out of this position of things a case had to be got up against the Transvaal government in order to justify the revolutionary movement that had been planned in the interest of the small groups of capitalists who had determined to make themselves as supreme over the gold industry in Johannesburg as they had become over the diamond industry in Kimberley.”It has seemed necessary to quote Mr. Statham thus at length in order that the alleged grievances of the foreigners in the Transvaal, and the Africander answer thereto may be considered[206]side by side. To say the least, Mr. Statham has not dealt in vague generalities. His assertions are specific and his figures can easily be investigated. It is for those who sympathize with the complaints which led to prolonged agitation and finally to war, to show that Mr. Statham was in error. Until they shall have done so charges of “oppressive” and “extortionate” imposts, taxes and tariffs will lie, not against the South African Republic, but against the British administration in Cape Colony, Natal and Rhodesia.Mr. Statham’s contention that the Dutch ought to be the official language of the Transvaal seems well founded. The account he gives of a somewhat tardy provision—made after the raid of December, 1895—for the instruction of English children in the English language evinces a disposition to meet the reasonable demands of the foreigners in that regard; but the delay in doing so is to be regretted. The matter of franchise became the subject of acrimonious diplomatic negotiation and the immediate cause of war, which will be treated of more fully in a later chapter.[207]
[Contents]CHAPTER XIII.CAUSES OF THE AFRICANDERS’ SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.In one sense the causes of the Second War of Independence, like those of the first, were as remote as the British seizure of Cape Colony in 1795, and as the years between 1814 and 1836, which saw the accumulation of grievances that led to the “Great Trek.” Seeds of dislike to the English were then sown in the Africander mind which have never ceased to propagate themselves—an ominous heredity—from father to son through all the intervening generations.The immediate causes of that war were of a more recent date. Tracing backward, the war was brought about by the alleged grievances of a multitude of foreigners—vastly outnumbering the citizens—who, for their own purposes, had entered the territory of the South African Republic within a single decade; these foreigners went there in the pursuit of wealth; the wealth[189]that enticed them there was in the rich gold deposits of the Witwatersrand district of the Transvaal. If the gold had not been there, or had not been discovered, the excess of foreigners would not have pressed into the country; if the foreigners had not flocked into it in great excess of numbers over the citizens, there would have been no alleged grievances to redress, and therefore no war, unless one or both of the parties to it had predetermined to bring about a conflict at this time and found some other pretext.Tracing from cause to effect up to the war, we begin with unimportant discoveries of gold near the eastern border of the Transvaal between 1867 and 1872. Though these were not rich in themselves, they encouraged more vigorous and extensive prospecting than had been practiced theretofore. This led to the discovery, in 1885, of the marvelously rich deposits of the precious metal in beds of conglomerate in the Witwatersrand district. The influx of strangers had been considerable from 1882, but from 1885 to 1895 the foreign additions to the population of the Transvaal threatened to submerge the native Africander citizens, for the newcomers were mostly men, and largely exceeded in number the[190]entire Africander population, including the women and the children.The first result of the new mining industry and the rapid growth of the towns was pleasant enough—the revenues of the needy republic were increased, and there was a promise of unprecedented prosperity. Nevertheless, in the tidal wave of incoming aliens from the British colonies in South Africa, from Europe and from America—most of them British, and nearly all speaking English—the far-seeing president, Paul Kruger, and other leaders of political life in the Transvaal, early recognized an element of peril to their cherished domestic institutions.As a defense against the passing of controlling power into the hands of transient settlers, the electoral franchise was somewhat restricted. Up to the convention of 1881 the probation of an alien seeking enfranchisement in the Transvaal Republic was a residence in the country for two years. At that time, with the arbitrary annexation of 1877 fresh in their minds, and knowing that the British authorities had been solicited to take that step by English residents in the Transvaal, it is a matter of no surprise that the Africanders extended the probation for franchise to five years—the period required in the United[191]States of America. That provision was in force when the London Convention was signed, in 1884; it passed unquestioned by the British government, and was still in force in 1890. Up to that date the franchise had kept the native Africander element in a safe majority.As a concession to demands on the part of foreigners for a reduction of the period of residence required for naturalization, Mr. Kruger proposed, in 1890, to divide the volksraad, which consisted of forty-eight members, into two chambers of twenty-four members each, the first to retain supreme power, the second to be competent to legislate in all matters local to the new industrial population gathered, principally, in and about Johannesburg, and its acts to be subject always to the veto of the first volksraad. The measure provided, also, that in electing members of the second volksraad only two years’ residence and the ordinary process of naturalization should be required of aliens, their franchise for the first volksraad still being subject to an additional five years’ probation.This measure was passed by the volksraad after a good deal of opposition by the more conservative members. It has been condemned as clumsy and inadequate; but it is worth while to[192]weigh Mr. Kruger’s own words explanatory of his purpose in it. “I intend this second volksraad,” he said, “to act as a bridge. I want my burghers to see that the new population may safely be trusted to take part in the government of the country. When they see that this is done, and that no harm happens, then the twovolksraadsmay come together again, and the distinction between the old and the new population can be obliterated.” It should be remembered, however, that the two years’ franchise gave the citizen no vote in the election of the president and the executive council—for that privilege he had to fill out the additional five years’ probation—and that no naturalized burgher could become a member of the first volksraad.Discontent continued to spread among the new industrial population, who complained bitterly of exclusion from important political rights, and of grievances which they and the mining industry suffered under the existing laws and administration. As a means of redress a reform association was formed in 1893. It is necessary to a correct judgment of the situation at this time to consider the statements of both sides as to the causes of complaint.THE RIGHT HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN.THE RIGHT HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN.[193]According to Canon Little, who cannot be accused of favoring the Africanders—“The grievances of the Uitlanders were these:“1. That the customs tariff was excessive, making food shamefully dear, and that the charges for railway freights were unduly heavy.“2. That the duties on machinery and chemicals were extortionate.“3. That these and the dynamite monopoly made the expense of all mining operations excessive.“4. The extreme unfairness as to the vexatious laws touching on education and the use of language.”Over against these allegations are the statements of Mr. F. Reginald Statham in his “South Africa as It Is.” Mr. Statham writes from the Africander viewpoint, but gives some guaranty of sincerity and of confidence in his own averments by an appeal to figures—which can always be verified. Speaking in a general way of the conditions prevailing at this period, he says:“The idea of the persecuted and oppressed Uitlanders has become so fixed in the minds of English people—thanks to the efforts of those who were occupied in preparing and justifying a revolt—that even the plainest statement of facts[194]seems powerless to dispossess it. No one will claim, no one ever has claimed, that the government of the South African Republic is perfect. Having regard to the extraordinary changes that have come over the country during the last ten years, it is really a marvel that the government is not much more imperfect than it is. The present position of the Transvaal executive has been not inaptly compared to the position of the crew of a collier brig who might suddenly find themselves in control of a first-class mail steamer. However desirous they might be of doing their best, they could hardly avoid making some mistakes. If the foreign population had much more to complain of than they have, it ought not to cause either surprise or indignation.“And what have they to complain of? Really, the life of the average foreigner in Johannesburg is the freest imaginable. He can follow his trade, he can follow his profession, no matter what it is, without any question or hindrance from the government. His position as an Uitlander in no way hinders him from investing in property, from practicing as a lawyer in the courts, from undertaking, in fact, as freely as he could undertake in his own country, any lawful kind of business or occupation. If he pays a high rent for his house,[195]that is not the fault of the government, but of the land speculators who have bought up building stands. If his water supply is somewhat defective, it is the fault of the big foreign capitalists, who think more of the dividends they put in their own pockets than of the water they put into the people’s mouths.“A government which depends on the goodwill of a strictly Sabbatarian population allows the Uitlander to spend his Sunday exactly as he pleases. He may play lawn tennis if he likes—and, indeed, he generally does so; he may engage in cricket matches, he can attend so-called sacred concerts, the programmes of which are drawn from the music hall or the comic opera. If he is in a gayer mood he may witness on a Sunday evening displays of “living pictures” which certainly would not be tolerated at the Royal Aquarium. To put it shortly, allowing for little drawbacks of climate and the expense of living, the Uitlander can live more at his ease in Johannesburg or Pretoria than in almost any other city under the sun.“But he is taxed.“How is he taxed? There is probably no one in the Transvaal, rich or poor, whose personal taxes amount to more than £5 a year. If it is[196]complained that he is taxed through his interest in the gold industry it is easy to make an appeal to published figures. In 1895 the Crown Reef Gold Mining Company produced gold worth upward of £420,000, and distributed nearly £97,000 in profits. Its payment to the Government for rents, licenses, and all other privileges and rights amounted to £1,191 9s 10d. In the same year the Robinson Company, which had produced £651,000 in gold and distributed £346,000 in dividends, paid to the government £395 11s 8d. The New Chimes Company, producing £93,000 in gold and distributing £32,000 in profits, paid under the head of rates and licenses, together with insurance premiums, £664 16s 5d. The Transvaal Coal Trust produced 266,945 tons of coal, and paid the government £53 15s, while the Consolidated Land and Exploration Company, in which the Ecksteins are the largest shareholders, and which owns more than 250 farms of 6,000 acres each, paid to the government in the shape of taxes, including absentee tax, no more than £722 2s 6d.“These figures are sufficiently eloquent by themselves. They become more eloquent when they are placed beside the 50 per cent impost[197]claimed by the Chartered Company on all gold-mining enterprise in Rhodesia.“But what about indirect taxation? Here are the facts:“All machinery for mining purposes is subject to only 1½ per cent impost dues, the term machinery being stretched by the government to its uttermost possibilities to meet the mining industry, and it is made to include sheet lead, cyanide, etc. All other articles not specially rated are subject to anad valoremduty of 7½ per cent, the Cape Colonist paying anad valoremduty of 12 per cent. Specially rated articles affecting the white miners, such as tea, coffee, butter, rice, soap, sugar, are in most cases subject to lower, and only in one instance to higher, duties than in Cape Colony.“Here is a comparison:Cape Colony.Transvaal.Butter3d per lb.5s 0d per 100 lbs.Cheese3d per lb.5s 0d per 100 lbs.Coffee12s 6d per 100 lbs.2s 6d per 100 lbs.Rice3s 6d per 100 lbs.1s 6d per 100 lbs.Soap4s 2d per 100 lbs.5s 0d per 100 lbs.Sugar6s 3d per 100 lbs.3s 6d per 100 lbs.Tea8d per lb.2s 6d per 100 lbs.Guns£1 per barrel.10s 0d per barrel.“As regards monopolies and concessions, the dynamite monopoly is often quoted as an instance[198]of the manner in which monopolies are granted, to the detriment of the mining interest. It has been complained that the government retains a right to charge 90s a case for what can be produced for 30s a case. These figures, however, are exaggerated both ways. The government charge is 85s a case, and as the dynamite used by De Beers, at Kimberley, costs more than 60s a case laid down there, it can hardly be held that 85s is a high charge in Johannesburg, having regard to the much greater distance of Johannesburg from the sea. In this matter of the dynamite concession, moreover, it was a choice between a foreign monopoly and a local monopoly, while in the reports of mining companies in which explosives are separately accounted for it is shown that while total working expenses run up to over 30s per ton, the cost of explosives is less than 1s 3d per ton.“As regards the railway concessions, the truth of the matter is that the Transvaal Railway Company—the Netherlands South African Railway Company, that is—by providing competing routes to Johannesburg from Natal and Delagoa Bay, keeps in check the monopoly which would certainly be taken great advantage of by[199]the Cape Colony if the only route to Johannesburg was from Cape ports.”It may be allowed—it must be—that the old saw, “figures will not lie,” is unsound. In the hands of capable and unscrupulous persons they will lie like Ananias and Sapphira. But, like that of Ananias and Sapphira, the lie in figures brings swift detection and punishment. It ought to be easy, therefore, for those who have filled the ears of the world with charges of Africander oppression practiced upon the foreigners in the way of “excessive customs tariff,” “extortionate duties on machinery,” and the “dynamite monopoly that made the expense of all mining operations excessive,” to convince the world-jury to which they have appealed that they have a case. They ought at least to be able to show that in British Rhodesia the impost on the profits of gold mining wasnot50 per cent, while in the Transvaal it was about 8 per cent thereof; that in British Cape Colony thead valoremduty on articles not specially rated wasnot12 per cent, while in the Transvaal it was 7½ per cent; that in British Cape Colony specially rated articles affecting the white miner as to expense of living werenottaxed all the way from 100 to 500 per cent higher than in the Transvaal, with the single exception[200]of soap; that an import duty of 1½ per cent on mining machinery was extortionate as compared with the tariff of other nations, or that a higher duty than 1½ per cent was collected in the Transvaal; and that a profit of 25s a case on dynamite, less the cost of transportation from Kimberley to Johannesburg, and only causing the expense for explosives used in mining to be 1s 3d per ton of ore out of a total cost of 30s per ton, was an oppressive monopoly causing the cost of mining to be excessive.Concerning the other grounds of complaint Mr. Statham writes:“There are, besides the material grievances alluded to above, what may be called the political grievances, such as (1) the alleged government of the country by a small faction of Hollanders, (2) the language grievance, (3) the educational grievance, and (4) the franchise grievance.“As regards the first mentioned of these, an honest and impartial person would search for evidence of it in vain. All the members of the executive, with one exception, are South African born; so are the majority of heads and sub-heads of departments. * * * The only Hollander of any distinction in the government[201]is the state secretary, Dr. Leyds, a man of exceptional ability and integrity, who, in spite of enormous difficulties and constant attacks, has deserved and retained the confidence both of the president and the volksraad. To say that he is the ablest and most cultured official in South Africa is to say what is simply true, and if his ability has excited jealousy and resentment, it is only what a general study of human nature would lead one to expect.“As regards the language question and the education question, consideration has to be paid to the language most usually spoken in the country. Entirely misleading ideas are liable to be formed on this point, owing to the erroneous impression as to the relative strength of the Dutch and the foreign population. A habit has arisen of speaking as if the foreign population greatly outnumbered the burgher population. The case is quite the opposite of this. The census of Johannesburg taken in 1896 by the Johannesburg Sanitary Commission showed that the population of the place had been greatly overestimated, the male European population of all ages amounting to 31,000. As there are 25,000 burghers on the military register of the republic, it seems fair to assume that the burgher population is at least[202]150,000, while the foreign population is probably not more than half of that. Of the 150,000 burghers and their families fully two-thirds do not understand English. Is it, then, unreasonable to claim that the official language, the language of official documents, shall be the language spoken by two-thirds of the people, or do the women and children count for nothing? But although the official language by law is Dutch, there is not a single government office in which there is not English or German spoken to those who cannot speak Dutch. In the higher courts the judges frequently shut their eyes to the use of the English language in the witness-box, and in the lower courts English is invariably spoken by English litigants.“As regards the education question, there is not now much need to discuss it. The volksraad during the session of 1896 passed a law in further expansion of the principles laid down in the law of 1892, and under the regulations drawn up in accordance with the law, as now expanded, state schools, in which English-speaking children will be taught in English, and which are placed under the control of representative school boards, have been established in the gold-mining districts.“The franchise question has been made the[203]subject of special complaint. Here, however, there are several difficulties in the way. In the first place, the majority of the foreign population do not want the franchise, because they are quite content with their position as it is and do not want to become—as they would have to do if they exercised the franchise—burghers of the South African Republic. The very agitation over the question has increased the difficulty, for the more there seems to be a possibility of a serious misunderstanding between the Transvaal and Great Britain, the less disposed British subjects become to place themselves in a position which might compel them to fight against their own countrymen. Meantime the government and the volksraad have been compelled to the conclusion that the agitation for the franchise is not genuine—that it has not been encouraged with the view to obtaining a concession, but with the object of establishing a grievance. They have seen, too, that to grant wholesale political privileges to the foreign residents in Johannesburg, even if those foreign residents were willing to become naturalized, would be to a great extent to deliver up the interests of all the dependent classes—the shopkeepers, the miners, the professional men—into the hands of a small group of[204]capitalists, who would use their influence, as they have used it elsewhere, to corrupt the political atmosphere and to subject the interests of every individual to their own. The political tyranny that exists in Kimberley, where employes of De Beers are compelled to vote to order on pain of dismissal, supplies a sufficient illustration of what would happen in Johannesburg if once the financial conspirators secured political control. A further and most significant illustration is supplied by a well-known incident in connection with the revolutionary movement in Johannesburg, when miners under the control of the leading conspirators were ordered to take up arms under penalty of forfeiting their wages. That in the great majority of cases they preferred the latter course is in itself a complete exposure of the hollowness of the whole revolutionary movement. In all known cases of revolution arising from discontent on the part of a mining population it has been the miners who have taken the lead and dragged others in with them. In this case the miners, who had never dreamed of discontent, were ordered to take up arms and refused.“Out of the facts of the position actually existing in Johannesburg and other gold-mining[205]centers it was utterly impossible for any honest man to manufacture a serious complaint, least of all such a complaint as would in any respect justify a revolution to secure redress. So far from being treated with unfairness or hardship, the foreign residents in the Transvaal have been treated with marked consideration. The interests of the gold industry have been consulted in every possible way. If the government has not in some instances been able to do all it might have wished to do, it has been because the reckless language of a portion of the press and the overbearing attitude of the capitalist agitators have aroused the suspicion and the resentment of the volksraad.“Yet out of this position of things a case had to be got up against the Transvaal government in order to justify the revolutionary movement that had been planned in the interest of the small groups of capitalists who had determined to make themselves as supreme over the gold industry in Johannesburg as they had become over the diamond industry in Kimberley.”It has seemed necessary to quote Mr. Statham thus at length in order that the alleged grievances of the foreigners in the Transvaal, and the Africander answer thereto may be considered[206]side by side. To say the least, Mr. Statham has not dealt in vague generalities. His assertions are specific and his figures can easily be investigated. It is for those who sympathize with the complaints which led to prolonged agitation and finally to war, to show that Mr. Statham was in error. Until they shall have done so charges of “oppressive” and “extortionate” imposts, taxes and tariffs will lie, not against the South African Republic, but against the British administration in Cape Colony, Natal and Rhodesia.Mr. Statham’s contention that the Dutch ought to be the official language of the Transvaal seems well founded. The account he gives of a somewhat tardy provision—made after the raid of December, 1895—for the instruction of English children in the English language evinces a disposition to meet the reasonable demands of the foreigners in that regard; but the delay in doing so is to be regretted. The matter of franchise became the subject of acrimonious diplomatic negotiation and the immediate cause of war, which will be treated of more fully in a later chapter.[207]
CHAPTER XIII.CAUSES OF THE AFRICANDERS’ SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
In one sense the causes of the Second War of Independence, like those of the first, were as remote as the British seizure of Cape Colony in 1795, and as the years between 1814 and 1836, which saw the accumulation of grievances that led to the “Great Trek.” Seeds of dislike to the English were then sown in the Africander mind which have never ceased to propagate themselves—an ominous heredity—from father to son through all the intervening generations.The immediate causes of that war were of a more recent date. Tracing backward, the war was brought about by the alleged grievances of a multitude of foreigners—vastly outnumbering the citizens—who, for their own purposes, had entered the territory of the South African Republic within a single decade; these foreigners went there in the pursuit of wealth; the wealth[189]that enticed them there was in the rich gold deposits of the Witwatersrand district of the Transvaal. If the gold had not been there, or had not been discovered, the excess of foreigners would not have pressed into the country; if the foreigners had not flocked into it in great excess of numbers over the citizens, there would have been no alleged grievances to redress, and therefore no war, unless one or both of the parties to it had predetermined to bring about a conflict at this time and found some other pretext.Tracing from cause to effect up to the war, we begin with unimportant discoveries of gold near the eastern border of the Transvaal between 1867 and 1872. Though these were not rich in themselves, they encouraged more vigorous and extensive prospecting than had been practiced theretofore. This led to the discovery, in 1885, of the marvelously rich deposits of the precious metal in beds of conglomerate in the Witwatersrand district. The influx of strangers had been considerable from 1882, but from 1885 to 1895 the foreign additions to the population of the Transvaal threatened to submerge the native Africander citizens, for the newcomers were mostly men, and largely exceeded in number the[190]entire Africander population, including the women and the children.The first result of the new mining industry and the rapid growth of the towns was pleasant enough—the revenues of the needy republic were increased, and there was a promise of unprecedented prosperity. Nevertheless, in the tidal wave of incoming aliens from the British colonies in South Africa, from Europe and from America—most of them British, and nearly all speaking English—the far-seeing president, Paul Kruger, and other leaders of political life in the Transvaal, early recognized an element of peril to their cherished domestic institutions.As a defense against the passing of controlling power into the hands of transient settlers, the electoral franchise was somewhat restricted. Up to the convention of 1881 the probation of an alien seeking enfranchisement in the Transvaal Republic was a residence in the country for two years. At that time, with the arbitrary annexation of 1877 fresh in their minds, and knowing that the British authorities had been solicited to take that step by English residents in the Transvaal, it is a matter of no surprise that the Africanders extended the probation for franchise to five years—the period required in the United[191]States of America. That provision was in force when the London Convention was signed, in 1884; it passed unquestioned by the British government, and was still in force in 1890. Up to that date the franchise had kept the native Africander element in a safe majority.As a concession to demands on the part of foreigners for a reduction of the period of residence required for naturalization, Mr. Kruger proposed, in 1890, to divide the volksraad, which consisted of forty-eight members, into two chambers of twenty-four members each, the first to retain supreme power, the second to be competent to legislate in all matters local to the new industrial population gathered, principally, in and about Johannesburg, and its acts to be subject always to the veto of the first volksraad. The measure provided, also, that in electing members of the second volksraad only two years’ residence and the ordinary process of naturalization should be required of aliens, their franchise for the first volksraad still being subject to an additional five years’ probation.This measure was passed by the volksraad after a good deal of opposition by the more conservative members. It has been condemned as clumsy and inadequate; but it is worth while to[192]weigh Mr. Kruger’s own words explanatory of his purpose in it. “I intend this second volksraad,” he said, “to act as a bridge. I want my burghers to see that the new population may safely be trusted to take part in the government of the country. When they see that this is done, and that no harm happens, then the twovolksraadsmay come together again, and the distinction between the old and the new population can be obliterated.” It should be remembered, however, that the two years’ franchise gave the citizen no vote in the election of the president and the executive council—for that privilege he had to fill out the additional five years’ probation—and that no naturalized burgher could become a member of the first volksraad.Discontent continued to spread among the new industrial population, who complained bitterly of exclusion from important political rights, and of grievances which they and the mining industry suffered under the existing laws and administration. As a means of redress a reform association was formed in 1893. It is necessary to a correct judgment of the situation at this time to consider the statements of both sides as to the causes of complaint.THE RIGHT HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN.THE RIGHT HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN.[193]According to Canon Little, who cannot be accused of favoring the Africanders—“The grievances of the Uitlanders were these:“1. That the customs tariff was excessive, making food shamefully dear, and that the charges for railway freights were unduly heavy.“2. That the duties on machinery and chemicals were extortionate.“3. That these and the dynamite monopoly made the expense of all mining operations excessive.“4. The extreme unfairness as to the vexatious laws touching on education and the use of language.”Over against these allegations are the statements of Mr. F. Reginald Statham in his “South Africa as It Is.” Mr. Statham writes from the Africander viewpoint, but gives some guaranty of sincerity and of confidence in his own averments by an appeal to figures—which can always be verified. Speaking in a general way of the conditions prevailing at this period, he says:“The idea of the persecuted and oppressed Uitlanders has become so fixed in the minds of English people—thanks to the efforts of those who were occupied in preparing and justifying a revolt—that even the plainest statement of facts[194]seems powerless to dispossess it. No one will claim, no one ever has claimed, that the government of the South African Republic is perfect. Having regard to the extraordinary changes that have come over the country during the last ten years, it is really a marvel that the government is not much more imperfect than it is. The present position of the Transvaal executive has been not inaptly compared to the position of the crew of a collier brig who might suddenly find themselves in control of a first-class mail steamer. However desirous they might be of doing their best, they could hardly avoid making some mistakes. If the foreign population had much more to complain of than they have, it ought not to cause either surprise or indignation.“And what have they to complain of? Really, the life of the average foreigner in Johannesburg is the freest imaginable. He can follow his trade, he can follow his profession, no matter what it is, without any question or hindrance from the government. His position as an Uitlander in no way hinders him from investing in property, from practicing as a lawyer in the courts, from undertaking, in fact, as freely as he could undertake in his own country, any lawful kind of business or occupation. If he pays a high rent for his house,[195]that is not the fault of the government, but of the land speculators who have bought up building stands. If his water supply is somewhat defective, it is the fault of the big foreign capitalists, who think more of the dividends they put in their own pockets than of the water they put into the people’s mouths.“A government which depends on the goodwill of a strictly Sabbatarian population allows the Uitlander to spend his Sunday exactly as he pleases. He may play lawn tennis if he likes—and, indeed, he generally does so; he may engage in cricket matches, he can attend so-called sacred concerts, the programmes of which are drawn from the music hall or the comic opera. If he is in a gayer mood he may witness on a Sunday evening displays of “living pictures” which certainly would not be tolerated at the Royal Aquarium. To put it shortly, allowing for little drawbacks of climate and the expense of living, the Uitlander can live more at his ease in Johannesburg or Pretoria than in almost any other city under the sun.“But he is taxed.“How is he taxed? There is probably no one in the Transvaal, rich or poor, whose personal taxes amount to more than £5 a year. If it is[196]complained that he is taxed through his interest in the gold industry it is easy to make an appeal to published figures. In 1895 the Crown Reef Gold Mining Company produced gold worth upward of £420,000, and distributed nearly £97,000 in profits. Its payment to the Government for rents, licenses, and all other privileges and rights amounted to £1,191 9s 10d. In the same year the Robinson Company, which had produced £651,000 in gold and distributed £346,000 in dividends, paid to the government £395 11s 8d. The New Chimes Company, producing £93,000 in gold and distributing £32,000 in profits, paid under the head of rates and licenses, together with insurance premiums, £664 16s 5d. The Transvaal Coal Trust produced 266,945 tons of coal, and paid the government £53 15s, while the Consolidated Land and Exploration Company, in which the Ecksteins are the largest shareholders, and which owns more than 250 farms of 6,000 acres each, paid to the government in the shape of taxes, including absentee tax, no more than £722 2s 6d.“These figures are sufficiently eloquent by themselves. They become more eloquent when they are placed beside the 50 per cent impost[197]claimed by the Chartered Company on all gold-mining enterprise in Rhodesia.“But what about indirect taxation? Here are the facts:“All machinery for mining purposes is subject to only 1½ per cent impost dues, the term machinery being stretched by the government to its uttermost possibilities to meet the mining industry, and it is made to include sheet lead, cyanide, etc. All other articles not specially rated are subject to anad valoremduty of 7½ per cent, the Cape Colonist paying anad valoremduty of 12 per cent. Specially rated articles affecting the white miners, such as tea, coffee, butter, rice, soap, sugar, are in most cases subject to lower, and only in one instance to higher, duties than in Cape Colony.“Here is a comparison:Cape Colony.Transvaal.Butter3d per lb.5s 0d per 100 lbs.Cheese3d per lb.5s 0d per 100 lbs.Coffee12s 6d per 100 lbs.2s 6d per 100 lbs.Rice3s 6d per 100 lbs.1s 6d per 100 lbs.Soap4s 2d per 100 lbs.5s 0d per 100 lbs.Sugar6s 3d per 100 lbs.3s 6d per 100 lbs.Tea8d per lb.2s 6d per 100 lbs.Guns£1 per barrel.10s 0d per barrel.“As regards monopolies and concessions, the dynamite monopoly is often quoted as an instance[198]of the manner in which monopolies are granted, to the detriment of the mining interest. It has been complained that the government retains a right to charge 90s a case for what can be produced for 30s a case. These figures, however, are exaggerated both ways. The government charge is 85s a case, and as the dynamite used by De Beers, at Kimberley, costs more than 60s a case laid down there, it can hardly be held that 85s is a high charge in Johannesburg, having regard to the much greater distance of Johannesburg from the sea. In this matter of the dynamite concession, moreover, it was a choice between a foreign monopoly and a local monopoly, while in the reports of mining companies in which explosives are separately accounted for it is shown that while total working expenses run up to over 30s per ton, the cost of explosives is less than 1s 3d per ton.“As regards the railway concessions, the truth of the matter is that the Transvaal Railway Company—the Netherlands South African Railway Company, that is—by providing competing routes to Johannesburg from Natal and Delagoa Bay, keeps in check the monopoly which would certainly be taken great advantage of by[199]the Cape Colony if the only route to Johannesburg was from Cape ports.”It may be allowed—it must be—that the old saw, “figures will not lie,” is unsound. In the hands of capable and unscrupulous persons they will lie like Ananias and Sapphira. But, like that of Ananias and Sapphira, the lie in figures brings swift detection and punishment. It ought to be easy, therefore, for those who have filled the ears of the world with charges of Africander oppression practiced upon the foreigners in the way of “excessive customs tariff,” “extortionate duties on machinery,” and the “dynamite monopoly that made the expense of all mining operations excessive,” to convince the world-jury to which they have appealed that they have a case. They ought at least to be able to show that in British Rhodesia the impost on the profits of gold mining wasnot50 per cent, while in the Transvaal it was about 8 per cent thereof; that in British Cape Colony thead valoremduty on articles not specially rated wasnot12 per cent, while in the Transvaal it was 7½ per cent; that in British Cape Colony specially rated articles affecting the white miner as to expense of living werenottaxed all the way from 100 to 500 per cent higher than in the Transvaal, with the single exception[200]of soap; that an import duty of 1½ per cent on mining machinery was extortionate as compared with the tariff of other nations, or that a higher duty than 1½ per cent was collected in the Transvaal; and that a profit of 25s a case on dynamite, less the cost of transportation from Kimberley to Johannesburg, and only causing the expense for explosives used in mining to be 1s 3d per ton of ore out of a total cost of 30s per ton, was an oppressive monopoly causing the cost of mining to be excessive.Concerning the other grounds of complaint Mr. Statham writes:“There are, besides the material grievances alluded to above, what may be called the political grievances, such as (1) the alleged government of the country by a small faction of Hollanders, (2) the language grievance, (3) the educational grievance, and (4) the franchise grievance.“As regards the first mentioned of these, an honest and impartial person would search for evidence of it in vain. All the members of the executive, with one exception, are South African born; so are the majority of heads and sub-heads of departments. * * * The only Hollander of any distinction in the government[201]is the state secretary, Dr. Leyds, a man of exceptional ability and integrity, who, in spite of enormous difficulties and constant attacks, has deserved and retained the confidence both of the president and the volksraad. To say that he is the ablest and most cultured official in South Africa is to say what is simply true, and if his ability has excited jealousy and resentment, it is only what a general study of human nature would lead one to expect.“As regards the language question and the education question, consideration has to be paid to the language most usually spoken in the country. Entirely misleading ideas are liable to be formed on this point, owing to the erroneous impression as to the relative strength of the Dutch and the foreign population. A habit has arisen of speaking as if the foreign population greatly outnumbered the burgher population. The case is quite the opposite of this. The census of Johannesburg taken in 1896 by the Johannesburg Sanitary Commission showed that the population of the place had been greatly overestimated, the male European population of all ages amounting to 31,000. As there are 25,000 burghers on the military register of the republic, it seems fair to assume that the burgher population is at least[202]150,000, while the foreign population is probably not more than half of that. Of the 150,000 burghers and their families fully two-thirds do not understand English. Is it, then, unreasonable to claim that the official language, the language of official documents, shall be the language spoken by two-thirds of the people, or do the women and children count for nothing? But although the official language by law is Dutch, there is not a single government office in which there is not English or German spoken to those who cannot speak Dutch. In the higher courts the judges frequently shut their eyes to the use of the English language in the witness-box, and in the lower courts English is invariably spoken by English litigants.“As regards the education question, there is not now much need to discuss it. The volksraad during the session of 1896 passed a law in further expansion of the principles laid down in the law of 1892, and under the regulations drawn up in accordance with the law, as now expanded, state schools, in which English-speaking children will be taught in English, and which are placed under the control of representative school boards, have been established in the gold-mining districts.“The franchise question has been made the[203]subject of special complaint. Here, however, there are several difficulties in the way. In the first place, the majority of the foreign population do not want the franchise, because they are quite content with their position as it is and do not want to become—as they would have to do if they exercised the franchise—burghers of the South African Republic. The very agitation over the question has increased the difficulty, for the more there seems to be a possibility of a serious misunderstanding between the Transvaal and Great Britain, the less disposed British subjects become to place themselves in a position which might compel them to fight against their own countrymen. Meantime the government and the volksraad have been compelled to the conclusion that the agitation for the franchise is not genuine—that it has not been encouraged with the view to obtaining a concession, but with the object of establishing a grievance. They have seen, too, that to grant wholesale political privileges to the foreign residents in Johannesburg, even if those foreign residents were willing to become naturalized, would be to a great extent to deliver up the interests of all the dependent classes—the shopkeepers, the miners, the professional men—into the hands of a small group of[204]capitalists, who would use their influence, as they have used it elsewhere, to corrupt the political atmosphere and to subject the interests of every individual to their own. The political tyranny that exists in Kimberley, where employes of De Beers are compelled to vote to order on pain of dismissal, supplies a sufficient illustration of what would happen in Johannesburg if once the financial conspirators secured political control. A further and most significant illustration is supplied by a well-known incident in connection with the revolutionary movement in Johannesburg, when miners under the control of the leading conspirators were ordered to take up arms under penalty of forfeiting their wages. That in the great majority of cases they preferred the latter course is in itself a complete exposure of the hollowness of the whole revolutionary movement. In all known cases of revolution arising from discontent on the part of a mining population it has been the miners who have taken the lead and dragged others in with them. In this case the miners, who had never dreamed of discontent, were ordered to take up arms and refused.“Out of the facts of the position actually existing in Johannesburg and other gold-mining[205]centers it was utterly impossible for any honest man to manufacture a serious complaint, least of all such a complaint as would in any respect justify a revolution to secure redress. So far from being treated with unfairness or hardship, the foreign residents in the Transvaal have been treated with marked consideration. The interests of the gold industry have been consulted in every possible way. If the government has not in some instances been able to do all it might have wished to do, it has been because the reckless language of a portion of the press and the overbearing attitude of the capitalist agitators have aroused the suspicion and the resentment of the volksraad.“Yet out of this position of things a case had to be got up against the Transvaal government in order to justify the revolutionary movement that had been planned in the interest of the small groups of capitalists who had determined to make themselves as supreme over the gold industry in Johannesburg as they had become over the diamond industry in Kimberley.”It has seemed necessary to quote Mr. Statham thus at length in order that the alleged grievances of the foreigners in the Transvaal, and the Africander answer thereto may be considered[206]side by side. To say the least, Mr. Statham has not dealt in vague generalities. His assertions are specific and his figures can easily be investigated. It is for those who sympathize with the complaints which led to prolonged agitation and finally to war, to show that Mr. Statham was in error. Until they shall have done so charges of “oppressive” and “extortionate” imposts, taxes and tariffs will lie, not against the South African Republic, but against the British administration in Cape Colony, Natal and Rhodesia.Mr. Statham’s contention that the Dutch ought to be the official language of the Transvaal seems well founded. The account he gives of a somewhat tardy provision—made after the raid of December, 1895—for the instruction of English children in the English language evinces a disposition to meet the reasonable demands of the foreigners in that regard; but the delay in doing so is to be regretted. The matter of franchise became the subject of acrimonious diplomatic negotiation and the immediate cause of war, which will be treated of more fully in a later chapter.[207]
In one sense the causes of the Second War of Independence, like those of the first, were as remote as the British seizure of Cape Colony in 1795, and as the years between 1814 and 1836, which saw the accumulation of grievances that led to the “Great Trek.” Seeds of dislike to the English were then sown in the Africander mind which have never ceased to propagate themselves—an ominous heredity—from father to son through all the intervening generations.
The immediate causes of that war were of a more recent date. Tracing backward, the war was brought about by the alleged grievances of a multitude of foreigners—vastly outnumbering the citizens—who, for their own purposes, had entered the territory of the South African Republic within a single decade; these foreigners went there in the pursuit of wealth; the wealth[189]that enticed them there was in the rich gold deposits of the Witwatersrand district of the Transvaal. If the gold had not been there, or had not been discovered, the excess of foreigners would not have pressed into the country; if the foreigners had not flocked into it in great excess of numbers over the citizens, there would have been no alleged grievances to redress, and therefore no war, unless one or both of the parties to it had predetermined to bring about a conflict at this time and found some other pretext.
Tracing from cause to effect up to the war, we begin with unimportant discoveries of gold near the eastern border of the Transvaal between 1867 and 1872. Though these were not rich in themselves, they encouraged more vigorous and extensive prospecting than had been practiced theretofore. This led to the discovery, in 1885, of the marvelously rich deposits of the precious metal in beds of conglomerate in the Witwatersrand district. The influx of strangers had been considerable from 1882, but from 1885 to 1895 the foreign additions to the population of the Transvaal threatened to submerge the native Africander citizens, for the newcomers were mostly men, and largely exceeded in number the[190]entire Africander population, including the women and the children.
The first result of the new mining industry and the rapid growth of the towns was pleasant enough—the revenues of the needy republic were increased, and there was a promise of unprecedented prosperity. Nevertheless, in the tidal wave of incoming aliens from the British colonies in South Africa, from Europe and from America—most of them British, and nearly all speaking English—the far-seeing president, Paul Kruger, and other leaders of political life in the Transvaal, early recognized an element of peril to their cherished domestic institutions.
As a defense against the passing of controlling power into the hands of transient settlers, the electoral franchise was somewhat restricted. Up to the convention of 1881 the probation of an alien seeking enfranchisement in the Transvaal Republic was a residence in the country for two years. At that time, with the arbitrary annexation of 1877 fresh in their minds, and knowing that the British authorities had been solicited to take that step by English residents in the Transvaal, it is a matter of no surprise that the Africanders extended the probation for franchise to five years—the period required in the United[191]States of America. That provision was in force when the London Convention was signed, in 1884; it passed unquestioned by the British government, and was still in force in 1890. Up to that date the franchise had kept the native Africander element in a safe majority.
As a concession to demands on the part of foreigners for a reduction of the period of residence required for naturalization, Mr. Kruger proposed, in 1890, to divide the volksraad, which consisted of forty-eight members, into two chambers of twenty-four members each, the first to retain supreme power, the second to be competent to legislate in all matters local to the new industrial population gathered, principally, in and about Johannesburg, and its acts to be subject always to the veto of the first volksraad. The measure provided, also, that in electing members of the second volksraad only two years’ residence and the ordinary process of naturalization should be required of aliens, their franchise for the first volksraad still being subject to an additional five years’ probation.
This measure was passed by the volksraad after a good deal of opposition by the more conservative members. It has been condemned as clumsy and inadequate; but it is worth while to[192]weigh Mr. Kruger’s own words explanatory of his purpose in it. “I intend this second volksraad,” he said, “to act as a bridge. I want my burghers to see that the new population may safely be trusted to take part in the government of the country. When they see that this is done, and that no harm happens, then the twovolksraadsmay come together again, and the distinction between the old and the new population can be obliterated.” It should be remembered, however, that the two years’ franchise gave the citizen no vote in the election of the president and the executive council—for that privilege he had to fill out the additional five years’ probation—and that no naturalized burgher could become a member of the first volksraad.
Discontent continued to spread among the new industrial population, who complained bitterly of exclusion from important political rights, and of grievances which they and the mining industry suffered under the existing laws and administration. As a means of redress a reform association was formed in 1893. It is necessary to a correct judgment of the situation at this time to consider the statements of both sides as to the causes of complaint.
THE RIGHT HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN.THE RIGHT HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN.
THE RIGHT HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN.
[193]
According to Canon Little, who cannot be accused of favoring the Africanders—
“The grievances of the Uitlanders were these:
“1. That the customs tariff was excessive, making food shamefully dear, and that the charges for railway freights were unduly heavy.
“2. That the duties on machinery and chemicals were extortionate.
“3. That these and the dynamite monopoly made the expense of all mining operations excessive.
“4. The extreme unfairness as to the vexatious laws touching on education and the use of language.”
Over against these allegations are the statements of Mr. F. Reginald Statham in his “South Africa as It Is.” Mr. Statham writes from the Africander viewpoint, but gives some guaranty of sincerity and of confidence in his own averments by an appeal to figures—which can always be verified. Speaking in a general way of the conditions prevailing at this period, he says:
“The idea of the persecuted and oppressed Uitlanders has become so fixed in the minds of English people—thanks to the efforts of those who were occupied in preparing and justifying a revolt—that even the plainest statement of facts[194]seems powerless to dispossess it. No one will claim, no one ever has claimed, that the government of the South African Republic is perfect. Having regard to the extraordinary changes that have come over the country during the last ten years, it is really a marvel that the government is not much more imperfect than it is. The present position of the Transvaal executive has been not inaptly compared to the position of the crew of a collier brig who might suddenly find themselves in control of a first-class mail steamer. However desirous they might be of doing their best, they could hardly avoid making some mistakes. If the foreign population had much more to complain of than they have, it ought not to cause either surprise or indignation.
“And what have they to complain of? Really, the life of the average foreigner in Johannesburg is the freest imaginable. He can follow his trade, he can follow his profession, no matter what it is, without any question or hindrance from the government. His position as an Uitlander in no way hinders him from investing in property, from practicing as a lawyer in the courts, from undertaking, in fact, as freely as he could undertake in his own country, any lawful kind of business or occupation. If he pays a high rent for his house,[195]that is not the fault of the government, but of the land speculators who have bought up building stands. If his water supply is somewhat defective, it is the fault of the big foreign capitalists, who think more of the dividends they put in their own pockets than of the water they put into the people’s mouths.
“A government which depends on the goodwill of a strictly Sabbatarian population allows the Uitlander to spend his Sunday exactly as he pleases. He may play lawn tennis if he likes—and, indeed, he generally does so; he may engage in cricket matches, he can attend so-called sacred concerts, the programmes of which are drawn from the music hall or the comic opera. If he is in a gayer mood he may witness on a Sunday evening displays of “living pictures” which certainly would not be tolerated at the Royal Aquarium. To put it shortly, allowing for little drawbacks of climate and the expense of living, the Uitlander can live more at his ease in Johannesburg or Pretoria than in almost any other city under the sun.
“But he is taxed.
“How is he taxed? There is probably no one in the Transvaal, rich or poor, whose personal taxes amount to more than £5 a year. If it is[196]complained that he is taxed through his interest in the gold industry it is easy to make an appeal to published figures. In 1895 the Crown Reef Gold Mining Company produced gold worth upward of £420,000, and distributed nearly £97,000 in profits. Its payment to the Government for rents, licenses, and all other privileges and rights amounted to £1,191 9s 10d. In the same year the Robinson Company, which had produced £651,000 in gold and distributed £346,000 in dividends, paid to the government £395 11s 8d. The New Chimes Company, producing £93,000 in gold and distributing £32,000 in profits, paid under the head of rates and licenses, together with insurance premiums, £664 16s 5d. The Transvaal Coal Trust produced 266,945 tons of coal, and paid the government £53 15s, while the Consolidated Land and Exploration Company, in which the Ecksteins are the largest shareholders, and which owns more than 250 farms of 6,000 acres each, paid to the government in the shape of taxes, including absentee tax, no more than £722 2s 6d.
“These figures are sufficiently eloquent by themselves. They become more eloquent when they are placed beside the 50 per cent impost[197]claimed by the Chartered Company on all gold-mining enterprise in Rhodesia.
“But what about indirect taxation? Here are the facts:
“All machinery for mining purposes is subject to only 1½ per cent impost dues, the term machinery being stretched by the government to its uttermost possibilities to meet the mining industry, and it is made to include sheet lead, cyanide, etc. All other articles not specially rated are subject to anad valoremduty of 7½ per cent, the Cape Colonist paying anad valoremduty of 12 per cent. Specially rated articles affecting the white miners, such as tea, coffee, butter, rice, soap, sugar, are in most cases subject to lower, and only in one instance to higher, duties than in Cape Colony.
“Here is a comparison:
Cape Colony.Transvaal.Butter3d per lb.5s 0d per 100 lbs.Cheese3d per lb.5s 0d per 100 lbs.Coffee12s 6d per 100 lbs.2s 6d per 100 lbs.Rice3s 6d per 100 lbs.1s 6d per 100 lbs.Soap4s 2d per 100 lbs.5s 0d per 100 lbs.Sugar6s 3d per 100 lbs.3s 6d per 100 lbs.Tea8d per lb.2s 6d per 100 lbs.Guns£1 per barrel.10s 0d per barrel.
“As regards monopolies and concessions, the dynamite monopoly is often quoted as an instance[198]of the manner in which monopolies are granted, to the detriment of the mining interest. It has been complained that the government retains a right to charge 90s a case for what can be produced for 30s a case. These figures, however, are exaggerated both ways. The government charge is 85s a case, and as the dynamite used by De Beers, at Kimberley, costs more than 60s a case laid down there, it can hardly be held that 85s is a high charge in Johannesburg, having regard to the much greater distance of Johannesburg from the sea. In this matter of the dynamite concession, moreover, it was a choice between a foreign monopoly and a local monopoly, while in the reports of mining companies in which explosives are separately accounted for it is shown that while total working expenses run up to over 30s per ton, the cost of explosives is less than 1s 3d per ton.
“As regards the railway concessions, the truth of the matter is that the Transvaal Railway Company—the Netherlands South African Railway Company, that is—by providing competing routes to Johannesburg from Natal and Delagoa Bay, keeps in check the monopoly which would certainly be taken great advantage of by[199]the Cape Colony if the only route to Johannesburg was from Cape ports.”
It may be allowed—it must be—that the old saw, “figures will not lie,” is unsound. In the hands of capable and unscrupulous persons they will lie like Ananias and Sapphira. But, like that of Ananias and Sapphira, the lie in figures brings swift detection and punishment. It ought to be easy, therefore, for those who have filled the ears of the world with charges of Africander oppression practiced upon the foreigners in the way of “excessive customs tariff,” “extortionate duties on machinery,” and the “dynamite monopoly that made the expense of all mining operations excessive,” to convince the world-jury to which they have appealed that they have a case. They ought at least to be able to show that in British Rhodesia the impost on the profits of gold mining wasnot50 per cent, while in the Transvaal it was about 8 per cent thereof; that in British Cape Colony thead valoremduty on articles not specially rated wasnot12 per cent, while in the Transvaal it was 7½ per cent; that in British Cape Colony specially rated articles affecting the white miner as to expense of living werenottaxed all the way from 100 to 500 per cent higher than in the Transvaal, with the single exception[200]of soap; that an import duty of 1½ per cent on mining machinery was extortionate as compared with the tariff of other nations, or that a higher duty than 1½ per cent was collected in the Transvaal; and that a profit of 25s a case on dynamite, less the cost of transportation from Kimberley to Johannesburg, and only causing the expense for explosives used in mining to be 1s 3d per ton of ore out of a total cost of 30s per ton, was an oppressive monopoly causing the cost of mining to be excessive.
Concerning the other grounds of complaint Mr. Statham writes:
“There are, besides the material grievances alluded to above, what may be called the political grievances, such as (1) the alleged government of the country by a small faction of Hollanders, (2) the language grievance, (3) the educational grievance, and (4) the franchise grievance.
“As regards the first mentioned of these, an honest and impartial person would search for evidence of it in vain. All the members of the executive, with one exception, are South African born; so are the majority of heads and sub-heads of departments. * * * The only Hollander of any distinction in the government[201]is the state secretary, Dr. Leyds, a man of exceptional ability and integrity, who, in spite of enormous difficulties and constant attacks, has deserved and retained the confidence both of the president and the volksraad. To say that he is the ablest and most cultured official in South Africa is to say what is simply true, and if his ability has excited jealousy and resentment, it is only what a general study of human nature would lead one to expect.
“As regards the language question and the education question, consideration has to be paid to the language most usually spoken in the country. Entirely misleading ideas are liable to be formed on this point, owing to the erroneous impression as to the relative strength of the Dutch and the foreign population. A habit has arisen of speaking as if the foreign population greatly outnumbered the burgher population. The case is quite the opposite of this. The census of Johannesburg taken in 1896 by the Johannesburg Sanitary Commission showed that the population of the place had been greatly overestimated, the male European population of all ages amounting to 31,000. As there are 25,000 burghers on the military register of the republic, it seems fair to assume that the burgher population is at least[202]150,000, while the foreign population is probably not more than half of that. Of the 150,000 burghers and their families fully two-thirds do not understand English. Is it, then, unreasonable to claim that the official language, the language of official documents, shall be the language spoken by two-thirds of the people, or do the women and children count for nothing? But although the official language by law is Dutch, there is not a single government office in which there is not English or German spoken to those who cannot speak Dutch. In the higher courts the judges frequently shut their eyes to the use of the English language in the witness-box, and in the lower courts English is invariably spoken by English litigants.
“As regards the education question, there is not now much need to discuss it. The volksraad during the session of 1896 passed a law in further expansion of the principles laid down in the law of 1892, and under the regulations drawn up in accordance with the law, as now expanded, state schools, in which English-speaking children will be taught in English, and which are placed under the control of representative school boards, have been established in the gold-mining districts.
“The franchise question has been made the[203]subject of special complaint. Here, however, there are several difficulties in the way. In the first place, the majority of the foreign population do not want the franchise, because they are quite content with their position as it is and do not want to become—as they would have to do if they exercised the franchise—burghers of the South African Republic. The very agitation over the question has increased the difficulty, for the more there seems to be a possibility of a serious misunderstanding between the Transvaal and Great Britain, the less disposed British subjects become to place themselves in a position which might compel them to fight against their own countrymen. Meantime the government and the volksraad have been compelled to the conclusion that the agitation for the franchise is not genuine—that it has not been encouraged with the view to obtaining a concession, but with the object of establishing a grievance. They have seen, too, that to grant wholesale political privileges to the foreign residents in Johannesburg, even if those foreign residents were willing to become naturalized, would be to a great extent to deliver up the interests of all the dependent classes—the shopkeepers, the miners, the professional men—into the hands of a small group of[204]capitalists, who would use their influence, as they have used it elsewhere, to corrupt the political atmosphere and to subject the interests of every individual to their own. The political tyranny that exists in Kimberley, where employes of De Beers are compelled to vote to order on pain of dismissal, supplies a sufficient illustration of what would happen in Johannesburg if once the financial conspirators secured political control. A further and most significant illustration is supplied by a well-known incident in connection with the revolutionary movement in Johannesburg, when miners under the control of the leading conspirators were ordered to take up arms under penalty of forfeiting their wages. That in the great majority of cases they preferred the latter course is in itself a complete exposure of the hollowness of the whole revolutionary movement. In all known cases of revolution arising from discontent on the part of a mining population it has been the miners who have taken the lead and dragged others in with them. In this case the miners, who had never dreamed of discontent, were ordered to take up arms and refused.
“Out of the facts of the position actually existing in Johannesburg and other gold-mining[205]centers it was utterly impossible for any honest man to manufacture a serious complaint, least of all such a complaint as would in any respect justify a revolution to secure redress. So far from being treated with unfairness or hardship, the foreign residents in the Transvaal have been treated with marked consideration. The interests of the gold industry have been consulted in every possible way. If the government has not in some instances been able to do all it might have wished to do, it has been because the reckless language of a portion of the press and the overbearing attitude of the capitalist agitators have aroused the suspicion and the resentment of the volksraad.
“Yet out of this position of things a case had to be got up against the Transvaal government in order to justify the revolutionary movement that had been planned in the interest of the small groups of capitalists who had determined to make themselves as supreme over the gold industry in Johannesburg as they had become over the diamond industry in Kimberley.”
It has seemed necessary to quote Mr. Statham thus at length in order that the alleged grievances of the foreigners in the Transvaal, and the Africander answer thereto may be considered[206]side by side. To say the least, Mr. Statham has not dealt in vague generalities. His assertions are specific and his figures can easily be investigated. It is for those who sympathize with the complaints which led to prolonged agitation and finally to war, to show that Mr. Statham was in error. Until they shall have done so charges of “oppressive” and “extortionate” imposts, taxes and tariffs will lie, not against the South African Republic, but against the British administration in Cape Colony, Natal and Rhodesia.
Mr. Statham’s contention that the Dutch ought to be the official language of the Transvaal seems well founded. The account he gives of a somewhat tardy provision—made after the raid of December, 1895—for the instruction of English children in the English language evinces a disposition to meet the reasonable demands of the foreigners in that regard; but the delay in doing so is to be regretted. The matter of franchise became the subject of acrimonious diplomatic negotiation and the immediate cause of war, which will be treated of more fully in a later chapter.[207]