IV. INTERVIEW WITH DR. JAMES
STEWART, MODERATOR (1899) OF THE FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. LETTER OF MR.
BELLOWS TO SENATOR HOAR, U.S.A. THE REV. C. PHILLIPS. EXTRACTS FROM THE
"CHRISTIAN AGE," AND FROM M. ELISEE RECLUS, GEOGRAPHER. RETROCESSION OF THE
TRANSVAAL. MR. GLADSTONE'S ACTION. ITS EFFECT ON THE TRANSVAAL LEADERS, AND
ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR THE NATIVE SUBJECTS OF GREAT BRITAIN.
The Rev. Dr. James Stewart, of
Lovedale Mission Institute, South Africa, who, in May, 1899, was elected
Moderator of the General Assembly of the Scotch Free Church, imparted his
views with regard to the Transvaal question to a representative of the New
York Tribune on the occasion of his visit to Washington in the autumn of
1899, to attend the Pan-Presbyterian Council as a delegate from the Free
Church of Scotland.
Dr. Stewart's title to speak on
matters connected with the Transvaal rests upon thirty years' residence in
South Africa.
On the morning of his election as
Moderator of the General Assembly the Scotsman coupled his name with that of
Dr. Livingstone as the men to whom the British Central Africa Protectorate
was due.
The interview was published in the
Tribune of September 24th, 1899.
Dr. Stewart said: -
"As to the principle politically in
dispute, the British Government asks nothing more than this - That British
subjects in the Transvaal shall enjoy - I cannot say the same privileges,
but a faint shadow of what every Dutchman, as well as every man, white and
black, in the Cape Colony enjoys. Every Dutchman in the Cape Colony is
treated exactly as if he were an Englishman; and every subject of Her
Majesty the Queen, black and white, is treated in the Transvaal, and has
always been, as a man of an alien and subject race. The franchise is only
one of many grievances, and it is utterly a mistake to suppose that England
is going to war over a question of mere franchise. Let us be just, however.
There are in the Cape Colony and out of it loyal Dutchmen, loyal as the day,
to the British power, which is the ruling power. They know the freedom they
enjoy under it, and the folly and futility of trying to upset it.
"No superfluous pity or sympathy
need be wasted on President Kruger or the Transvaal Republic. The latter
(Republic) is a shadow of a name, and as great a travesty and burlesque on
the word as it is possible to conceive.
"Paul Kruger is at the present
moment the real troubler of South Africa. If the spirit and principles which
he himself and his Government represent were to prevail in this struggle, it
would arrest the development of the southern half of the continent. It is
too late in the day by the world's clock for that type of man or government
to continue.
"The plain fact is this: - President
Kruger does not mean to give, never meant to give, and will not give
anything as a concession in the shape of just and necessary rights, except
what he is forced to give. He wants also to get rid of the suzerainty. That
darkens and poisons his days and disturbs his nights by fearful dreams.
There is no excuse for him, and, as I say, there need be no sentiment wasted
on the subject. Let President Kruger and his supporters do what is right,
and give what is barely and simply and only necessary as well as right, and
the whole difficulty will pass into solution, to the relief of all concerned
and the preservation of peace in South Africa. If not, the blame must rest
with him.
"I am sorry I cannot give any
information or express any views different from what I have now stated. They
are the result of thirty years' residence in Africa. But I would ask your
readers to believe that the British Government are rather being forced into
war than choosing it of their own accord. I would also ask your readers to
believe that Sir Alfred Milner, the present Governor of Cape Colony, though
undoubtedly a strong man, is also one of the least aggressive, most
cautious, and pacific of men; and that he has the entire confidence of the
whole British population of the Cape Colony. I know also that when he began
his rule three years ago, he did so with the expectation that by pacific
measures the Dutch question was capable of a happier and better solution
than that in which the situation finds it to-day. The question and trouble
to-day is, briefly, whether the British Government is able to give
protection and secure reasonable rights for its subjects abroad."
* * * * *
The following was addressed by Mr.
John Bellows of Gloucester, to Senator Hoar, United States, America, and was
published in the New York Tribune, Feb. 22nd, 1900. Mr. Bellows, on seeing
the publication of his letter, wrote the following postscript, to Senator
Hoar: -
"As the foregoing letter was headed
by the Editor of the New York Tribune, 'A Quaker on the War,' I would say,
to prevent misunderstanding, that I speak for myself only, and not for the
Society of Friends, although I entirely believe in its teaching, that if we
love all men we can under no circumstances go to war. There is, however, a
spurious advocacy of peace, which is based, not upon love to men so much as
upon enmity to our own Government, and which levels against it untrue
charges of having caused the Transvaal War. It was to show the erroneousness
of these charges that I wrote this letter."
The following is the text of the
letter: -
"Dear Friend, I am glad to receive
thy letter, as it gives me the opportunity of pointing out a misconception
into which thou hast fallen in reference to the Transvaal and its position
with respect to the present war.
"Thou sayest: 'I am myself a
great lover of England; but I do not like to see the two countries joining
hands for warlike purposes, and especially to crush out the freedom of small
and weak nations.'
"To this I willingly assent. I am
certain that war is in all circumstances opposed to that sympathy all men
owe one to another, and to that Greater Source of love and sympathy in which
'we live and move and have our being.' Where this bond has been broken, we
long for its restoration; but it cannot but tend to retard this restoration,
to impute to one or other of the parties concerned motives that are entirely
foreign to its action. Peace, to be lasting, must stand on a foundation of
truth; and there is no truth whatever in the idea that the English
Government provoked the present war, or that it intended, at any time during
the negotiations that preceded the war, an attack on the independence either
of the Transvaal or of the Orange Free State. It is true that President
Kruger has for many years carefully propagated the fear of such an attempt
among the Dutch in South Africa, as a means of separating Boers and
Englishmen into two camps, and as an incentive to their preparing the
colossal armament that has now been brought into play, not to keep the
English out of the Transvaal, but to realise what is called the Afrikander
programme of a Dutch domination over the whole of South Africa. Thus, he a
short time ago imported from Europe 149,000 rifles - nearly five times as
many as the whole military population of the Transvaal - clearly with a view
to arming the Cape Dutch in case of the general rising he hoped for. The
Jameson Raid gave him exactly the grievance he wanted - to persuade these
Cape Dutch that England sought to crush the Transvaal.
"An examination of the 'Blue Book,'
which contains the whole of the correspondence immediately preceding the
war, will at once show the patient efforts put forth by the London Cabinet
to maintain peace. There are no irritating words used, and the last despatch
of importance before the outbreak of hostilities, dealing with the
insinuations just alluded to, is not only most courteous and conciliatory in
tone, but it states that the Queen's Government will give the most solemn
guarantees against any attack upon the independence of the Transvaal either
by Great Britain or the Colonies, or by any foreign power. I am absolutely
certain that no American reading that despatch would say that President
Kruger was justified in seizing the Netherlands Railway line within one week
after he had received it, and cutting the telegraph wires, to prepare for
the invasion of British territory, in which act of violence lay his last and
only hope of forcing England to fight; his last and desperate chance of
setting up a racial domination instead of the freedom and equality of the
two races that prevail in the Cape and Natal, and that did prevail in the
Orange Free State.
"The cause of the dispute was this:
In 1884 a Convention was agreed on between Great Britain and the Transvaal,
acknowledging the independence of the Transvaal, subject to three
conditions: that the Boers should not make treaties with foreign Powers
without the consent of the paramount Power in South Africa, i.e., England;
that they should not make slaves of the native tribes; and that they should
guarantee equal treatment for all the white inhabitants of the country as
respects taxation. As the whole war has risen out of Kruger's persistent
refusal to keep his promises, both verbal and in writing, that he would
observe this condition, I append the clause giving rise to the contention: -
"Article XIV. (1884 Convention). -
'All persons other than natives conforming themselves to the laws of the
South African Republic will not be subject in respect to their persons or
property or in respect of their commerce and industry to any taxes, whether
general or local, other than those which are or may be imposed upon citizens
of the said Republic.
"The mines brought so large a
population to Johannesburg that it at last outnumbered by very far the
entire Boer burghers in the State. Kruger, seeing that the inevitable effect
of such an increase must be the same amalgamation of the new and old
populations which was going on in Natal and Cape Colony, and to a smaller
extent in the Orange Free State, unless artificial barriers could be devised
to keep the races apart, at once set to to scheme modes of taxation that
should evade Article XIV. of the Convention, throwing the entire burden on
the Uitlanders, and letting the Boers, who were nearly all farmers, escape
scot free. Farmers, for example, use no dynamite, miners do; and President
Kruger gave a monopoly of its supply to a German, non-resident in the
country, who taxed the miners for this article alone $2,600,000 a year
beyond the highest price it could otherwise have been bought for. This was
his own act, the Volksraad not being consulted. Besides the high price, the
quality of the explosive was bad, often causing accident or death. When it
did cause accident or death, the miners were prosecuted by the Government,
from whose agent they were compelled to buy it, and fined for having used
it!
"At the time the Convention was
signed, in 1884, the franchise was obtainable after one year's residence.
President Kruger determined to serve the Uitlanders, however, as George
III.'s Government served the American Colonists, that is, tax them while
refusing them representation in the control of the taxes. He went on at one
and the same time increasing their burdens monstrously, while he prolonged
the period of residence that qualified for a vote from one year to five, and
so on, till he made it fourteen years - or fourteen times as long as when
the Convention was signed. Nor was this all. He reserved the right
personally to veto any Uitlander being placed on the register even after the
fourteen years if he thought he was for any reason objectionable. That is,
the majority of the taxpayers were disfranchised for ever! These Uitlanders
had bought and paid for 60 per cent. of all the property in the Transvaal,
and 90 per cent. of the taxes were levied from them; an amount equal to
giving every Boer in the country $200 a year of plunder.
"Is a country that is so governed
justly to be called a 'Republic?'
"But even the Boers themselves have
been adroitly edged out of power by Paul Kruger. The Grondwet, or
Constitution, provided that to prevent abuses in legislation, no new law
should be passed until the bill for it had been published three months in
advance. To evade this, Kruger passed all kinds of measures as amendments to
existing laws; which, as he explained, not being new laws, required no
notification! Finally, however, he got the Volksraad to rescind this article
of the Grondwet; and now, as for some time past, any law of any sort can be
passed by a small clique of Kruger's in secret session of the Raad without
notice of any sort, and without the knowledge or assent of the people. The
Boers have no more voice in such legislation than if they were Chinese. The
Transvaal is only a Republic in the same sense that a nutshell is a nut, or
a fossil oyster shell is an oyster.
"All that the British Government has
ever contended for with President Kruger has been the fair and honourable
observance of his engagement in respect of equal rights in Article XIV. of
the 1884 Convention. This he has persistently and doggedly refused, while he
has been using the millions of money he has wrung from the Uitlanders to
purchase the material for the war he has been long years preparing on such a
colossal scale to drive the English out of those Colonies in which they have
given absolute equality to all. It is this very equality which has upset his
calculations, by its leaving too few malcontents among the Dutch population
to make any general rising of them possible in Natal or the Cape, on which
rising Kruger staked his hope of success in the struggle. As for the
Transvaal Boers, the only part they have in the war is to fight for their
independence, which was never threatened until they invaded British
territory, and thus compelled the Queen's Government to defend it.
"The only alternative left to
England to refuse fighting would have been the ground that all war is wrong;
but as neither England nor any other nation has ever taken this Christian
ground, there was in reality no alternative. Is it fair to stigmatise
England as endeavouring to crush two small and weak nations because they
have been so small in wisdom and weak in common sense as to become the tools
of the daring and crafty autocrat who has decoyed both friend and foe into
this war? - I am, with high esteem, thy friend, - JOHN BELLOWS."
It does not come within the scope of
this treatise to deal with the case of the Uitlanders, but I have given the
foregoing, because it is a clear and concise statement of that case, and
because it expresses the strong conviction that I and many others have had
from the first, that the worst enemy the Boers have is their own Government.
A Government could scarcely be found less amenable to the principles of all
just Law, which exists alike for Rulers and ruled. These principles have
been violated in the most reckless manner by President Kruger and his
immediate supporters. The Boers are suffering now, and paying with their
life-blood for the sins of their Government. Pity and sympathy for them,
(more especially for those among them who undoubtedly possess higher
qualities than mere military prowess and physical courage,) are consistent
with the strongest condemnation of the duplicity and lawlessness of their
Government.
* * * * *
The Rev. Charles Phillips, who has
been eleven years in South Africa, has given his opinion on the native
question.
It was part of the Constitution of
the Transvaal that no equality in Church or State should be permitted
between whites and blacks. In Cape Colony, on the contrary, the Constitution
insisted that there should be no difference in consequence of colour. Mr.
Phillips enumerates the oppressive conditions under which the natives live
in the Transvaal. They may not walk on the sidepaths, or trade even as small
hucksters, or hold land. Until two years ago there was no marriage law for
the blacks, and that which was then passed was so bad - a L3 fee being
demanded for every marriage, with many other difficulties placed in the way
of marriage - that the missionaries endeavoured to procure its abolition,
and to return to the old state of things. No help is given towards the
education of native children, though the natives pay 3 per cent. of the
revenue, the Boers paying 7-1/2, and the Uitlanders 89-1/2. The natives
have, therefore, actually been helping to educate the Boer children. "In
1896," says Mr. Phillips, "only L650 was granted to the schools of those who
paid nine-tenths of the revenue, L63,000 being spent upon the Boer Schools.
In other words, the Uitlander child gets 1s. 10d., the Boer child L8 6s. 1d.
The Uitlander pays L7 per head for the education of every Boer child, and he
has to provide in addition for the education of his own children."
* * * * *
The following extract is from a more
general point of view, but one which it is unphilosophical to overlook.
The Christian Age reproduces a
communication from an American gentleman residing in the Transvaal to the
New York Independent.
"The Boers," Mr. Dunn says, "are, as
a race - with, of course, individual exceptions - an extraordinary instance
of an arrested civilisation, the date of stoppage being somewhere about the
conclusion of the seventeenth century. But they have not even stood still at
that point. They have distinctly and dangerously degenerated even from the
general standard of civilisation existing when Jan van Riebeck hoisted the
flag of the Dutch East India Company at Cape Point. The great cardinal fact
in connection with the Uitlander population is that, owing to their numbers
and activity, they have brought in their train an influx of new wealth into
the Transvaal of truly colossal dimensions. Thus, to sum up the distinctive
and divergent characteristics of the two classes into which the population
of the South African Republic is divided - the Boers, or old population, are
conservative, ignorant, stagnant, and a minority; the Uitlanders, or new
population, are progressive, full of enterprise, energy and work, and
constitute a large majority of the total number of inhabitants.
"It has so happened, therefore, that
the Boers, as the ruling and dominant class, have hopelessly failed to
master or comprehend the new conditions with which they have been called
upon to deal. They have not, as a body, shown either capacity or desire to
treat the new developments with even a remote appreciation of their inherent
value and inevitable trend. The Boer has simply set his back against the
floodgates, apparently oblivious or indifferent to the fact that the hugely
accumulating forces behind must one day burst every barrier he may choose to
set up. That is the whole Transvaal situation in a sentence.
"It is necessary to point out,
further, that this blind and dogged determination on the part of the Boers
to 'stop the clock' affects not merely the Transvaal; it is vitally and
perniciously affecting the whole of South Africa. But for the
obstructiveness and obscurantism of the Transvaal Boers, the rate of
progress and development which would characterise the whole South African
continent would be unparalleled in the history of any other country. The
reactionary policy of the Transvaal is the one spoke in the wheel. It must
therefore be removed in the name of humanity and civilisation."
* * * * *
M. Elisee Reclus, the great
Geographer, an able and admittedly impartial Historian, wrote some years ago
in his "Africa," Vol. 4, page 215: -
"The patriotic Boers of South Africa
still dream of the day when the two Republics of the Orange and the
Transvaal, at first connected by a common customs union, will be
consolidated in a single 'African Holland,' possibly even in a broader
confederacy, comprising all the Afrikanders from the Cape of Good Hope to
the Zambesi. The Boer families, grouped in every town throughout South
Africa, form, collectively, a single nationality, despite the accident of
political frontiers. The question of the future union has already been
frequently discussed by the delegates of the two conterminous Republics.
But, unless these visions can be realized during the present generation,
they are foredoomed to failure. Owing to the unprogressive character of the
purely Boer communities and to the rapid expansion of the English-speaking
peoples by natural increase, by direct immigration, and by the assimilation
of the Boers themselves, the future 'South African Dominion' can, in any
case, never be an 'African Holland.' Whenever the present political
divisions are merged in one State, that State must sooner or later
constitute an 'African England,' whether consolidated under the suzerainty
of Great Britain or on the basis of absolute political autonomy. But the
internal elements of disorder and danger are too multifarious to allow the
European inhabitants of Austral Africa for many generations to dispense with
the protection of the English sceptre.
"Possessing for two centuries no
book except the Bible, the South African Dutch communities are fond of
comparing their lot with that of the 'Chosen People.' Going forth, like the
Jews, in search of a 'Promised Land,' they never for a moment doubted that
the native populations were specially created for their benefit. They looked
on them as mere 'Canaanites, Amorites, and Jebusites,' doomed beforehand to
slavery or death.
"They turned the land into a
solitude, breaking all political organization of the natives, destroying all
ties of a common national feeling, and tolerating them only in the capacity
of 'apprentices,' another name for slaves.
"In general, the Boers despise
everything that does not contribute directly to the material prosperity of
the family group. Despite their numerous treks, they have contributed next
to nothing to the scientific exploration of the land.
"Of all the white intruders, the
Dutch Afrikanders show themselves, as a rule, most hostile to their own
kinsmen, the Netherlanders of the mother country. At a distance the two
races have a certain fellow-feeling for each other, as fully attested by
contemporary literature; but, when brought close together, the memory of
their common origin gives place to a strange sentiment of aversion. The Boer
is extremely sensitive, hence he is irritated at the civilized Hollanders,
who smile at his rude African customs, and who reply, with apparent
ostentation, in a pure language to the corrupt jargon spoken by the
peasantry on the banks of the Vaal or Limpopo."
No impartial student of recent South
African History can fail, I think, to see that the results of Mr.
Gladstone's policy in the retrocession of the Transvaal have been unhappy,
however good the impulse which prompted his action. To his supporters at
home, and to many of his admirers throughout Europe, his action stood for
pure magnanimity, and seemed a sort of prophetic instalment of the Christian
spirit which, they hoped, would pervade international politics in the coming
age.
To the Transvaal leaders it
presented a wholly different aspect. It meant to them weakness, and an
acknowledgment of defeat. "Now let us go on," they felt, "and press towards
our goal, i.e., the expulsion of the British from South Africa." The
attitude and conduct of the Transvaal delegates who came to London in 1883,
and of their chiefs and supporters, throws much light on this effect
produced by the act of Mr. Gladstone.
There can be no doubt that the
desire to supplant British by Dutch supremacy has existed for a long time.
President Kruger puts back the origin of the opposition of the two races to
a very distant date. In 1881, he said, "In the Cession of the Cape of Good
Hope by the King of Holland to England lies the root out of which subsequent
events and our present struggle have grown." The Dutch believe themselves, -
and not without reason, - capable of great things, they were moved by an
ambition to seize the power which they believed, - and the retrocession
fostered that belief, - was falling from England's feeble and vacillating
grasp. "Long before the present trouble" says a Member of the British
Parliament well acquainted with South African affairs, "I visited every town
in South Africa of any importance, and was brought into close contact with
every class of the population; wherever one went, one heard this ambition
voiced, either advocated or deprecated, but never denied. It dates back some
forty or fifty years."[15] The first reference to it is in a despatch of
Governor Sir George Grey, in 1858; and it is to be found more definitely in
the speeches of President Burgers in the Transvaal Raad in 1877 before the
annexation, and in his apologia published after the annexation. The movement
continued under the administration of Sir Bartle Frere, who wrote in a
despatch (published in Blue book) in 1879, "The Anti-English opposition are
sedulously courting the loyal Dutch party (a great majority of the Cape
Dutch) in order to swell the already considerable minority who are disloyal
to the English Crown here and in the Transvaal." Mr. Theodore Schreiner, the
brother of the Cape Premier, in a letter to the "Cape Times," November,
1899, described a conversation he had some seventeen years ago with Mr.
Reitz, then a judge, afterwards President of the Orange Free State, and now
State Secretary of the Transvaal, in which Mr. Reitz admitted that it was
his object to overthrow the British power and expel the British flag from
South Africa. Mr. Schreiner adds; "During the seventeen years that have
elapsed I have watched the propaganda for the overthrow of British power in
South Africa being ceaselessly spread by every possible means, the press,
the pulpit, the platform, the schools, the colleges, the legislature; and it
has culminated in the present war, of which Mr. Reitz and his co-workers are
the origin and the cause."
The Retrocession of the Transvaal
(1881) gave a strong impulse to this movement, and encouraged President
Kruger in his persistent efforts since that date to foster it. A friend of
the late General Joubert, - in a letter which I have read, - wrote of Mr.
Kruger as "the man who, for more than twenty years past, has persistently
laboured to drive in the wedge between the two races. It has been his
deliberate policy throughout."
I always wish that I could separate
the memory of that truly great man, Mr. Gladstone, from this Act of his
Administration. Few people cherish his memory with more affectionate
admiration than I do. Independently of his great intellect, his eloquence,
and his fidelity in following to its last consequences a conviction which
had taken possession of him, I revered him because he seemed like King Saul,
to stand a head and shoulders above all his fellows, - not like King Saul in
physical, but in moral stature. Pure, honourable and strong in character and
principles, a sincere Christian, he attracted and deserved the affection and
loyalty of all to whom purity and honour are dear. I may add that I may
speak of him, in a measure also as a personal friend of our family. I have
memories of delightful intercourse with him at Oxford, when he represented
that constituency, and later, in other places and at other times.
I recall, however, an occasion in
which a chill of astonishment and regret fell upon me and my husband
(politically one of his supporters), in hearing a pronouncement from him on
a subject, which to us was vital, and had been pressing heavily on our
hearts. I allude to a great speech which Mr. Gladstone made in Liverpool
during the last period of the Civil War in America, the Abolitionist War.
Our friend spoke with his accustomed fiery eloquence wholly in favour of the
spirit and aims of the combatants of the Southern States, speaking of their
struggle as one on behalf of liberty and independence, and wishing them
success. Not one word to indicate that the question which, like burning lava
in the heart of a volcano, was causing that terrible upheaval in America,
had found any place in that great man's mind, or had even "cast its shadow
before" in his thoughts. It appeared as though he had not even taken in the
fact of the existence of those four millions of slaves, the uneasy clanking
of whose chains had long foreboded the approach of the avenging hand of the
Deliverer. This obscured perception of the question was that of a great
part, if not of the majority, of the Press of that day, and of most persons
of the "privileged" classes; but that he, a trusted leader of so many,
should be suffering from such an imperfection of mental vision, was to us an
astonishment and sorrow. As we left that crowded hall, my companion and I,
we looked at each other in silent amazement, and for a long time we found no
words.
As I look back now, there seems in
this incident some explanation of Mr. Gladstone's total oblivion of the
interests of our loyal native subjects of the Transvaal at the time when he
handed them over to masters whose policy towards them was well known. These
poor natives had appealed to the British Government, had trusted it, and
were deceived by it.
I recollect that Mr. Gladstone
himself confessed, with much humility it seemed to us, in a pamphlet written
many years after the American War, that it "had been his misfortune" on
several occasions "not to have perceived the reality and importance of a
question until it was at the door." This was very true. His noble enthusiasm
for some good and vital cause so engrossed him at times that the humble
knocking at the door of some other, perhaps equally vital question, was not
heard by him. The knocking necessarily became louder and louder, till at
last the door was opened; but then it may have been too late for him to take
the part in it which should have been his.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 15: Speech of Mr. Drage,
M.P., at Derby, December, 1899.]
