VII. TRANSVAAL POLICY SINCE 1884.
DELIMITATION OF BOUNDARY AGREED TO AND NOT OBSERVED. THE CHIEF MONTSIOA. HIS
COUNTRY PLACED UNDER BRITISH PROTECTION. TRANSVAAL LAW. THE GRONDWET OR
CONSTITUTION. THE HIGH COURTS OF JUSTICE SUBSERVIENT TO THE VOLKSRAAD OR
PARLIAMENT. ARTICLE 9 OF THE GRONDWET REFERRING TO NATIVES. NATIVE MARRIAGE
LAWS. THE PASS SYSTEM. MISPLACED GOVERNMENTAL TITLES, - REPUBLIC, EMPIRE,
ETC.
The Boer policy towards the natives
did not undergo any change for the better from 1881 and onwards.
At the time of the rising of the
Boers against the British Protectorate, which culminated in the battle of
Majuba Hill and the retrocession of the Transvaal, a number of native chiefs
in districts outside the Transvaal boundary, sent to the British
Commissioner for native affairs to offer their aid to the British
Government, and many of them took the "loyals" of the Transvaal under their
protection. One of these was Montsioa, a Christian chief of the Barolong
tribe. He and other chiefs took charge of Government property and cattle
during the disturbances, and one had four or five thousand pounds in gold,
the product of a recently collected tax, given him to take care of by the
Commissioner of his district, who was afraid that the money would be seized
by the Boers. In, every instance the property entrusted to their charge was
returned intact. The loyalty of all the native chiefs under very trying
circumstances, is a remarkable proof of the great affection of the Kaffirs,
and more especially those of the Basuto tribes, who love peace better than
war, for the Queen's rule. I will cite one other instance among many of the
gladness with which different native races placed themselves under the
protection of the Queen.
In May, 1884, in the discharge of
his office as Deputy Commissioner in Bechuanaland, and on behalf of Her
Majesty, the Queen, Mr. Mackenzie entered into a treaty with the chief,
Montsioa, by which his country (the Barolong's country) was placed under
British protection, and also with Moshette, a neighbouring chief, who wrote
a letter to Mr. Mackenzie asking to be put under the same protection as the
other Barolong.[30]
Mr. Mackenzie wrote:[31] - "Whatever
may have been the feelings of disapproval of the British Protectorate
entertained by the Transvaal people, I was left in no manner of doubt as to
the joy and thankfulness with which it was welcomed in the Barolong country
itself.
"The signing of the treaty in the
courtyard of Montsioa, at Mafeking, by the chief and his headmen, was
accompanied by every sign of gladness and good feeling. The speech of the
venerable chief Montsioa was very cordial, and so cheerful in its tone as to
show that he hoped and believed that the country would now get peace.
"Using the formula for many years
customary in proclamations of marriages in churches in Bechuanaland,
Montsioa, amid the smiles of all present, announced an approaching political
union, and exclaimed with energy, "Let objectors now speak out or henceforth
for ever be silent." There was no objector.
"I explained carefully in the
language of the people, the nature and object of the Protectorate, and the
manner in which it was to be supported.
"Montsioa then demanded in loud
tones: "Barolong! what is your response to the words that you have heard?"
"With one voice there came a great
shout from one end of the courtyard to the other, "We all want it."
"The chief turned to me and said,
"There! you have the answer of the Barolong, we have no uncertain feelings
here." As I was unfolding the views of Her Majesty's Government that the
Protectorate should be self-supporting, the chief cried out, 'We know all
about it, Mackenzie, we consent to pay the tax.' I could only reply to this
by saying that that was just what I was coming to; but, inasmuch as they
knew all about it, and saw its importance, I need say no more on the
subject.
"Montsioa, in the first instance,
did not like the appearance of Moshette's people in his town. I told him I
was glad they had come, and he must reserve his own feelings, and await the
results of what was taking place. I was pleased, therefore, when in the
public meeting in the courtyard, just before the signing of the treaty,
Montsioa turned to the messengers of Moshette and asked them if they saw and
heard nicely what was being done with the Barolong country? They replied in
the affirmative, and thus, from a native point of view, became assenting
parties. In this manner something definite was done towards effacing an
ancient feud. The signing of the treaty then took place, the translation of
which is given in the Blue Book.
"After the treaty had been signed,
the old chief requested that prayer might be offered up, which was
accordingly done by a native minister. The satisfaction of the great event
was further marked by the discharge of a volley from the rifles of a company
of young men told off for the purpose; and the old cannon of Montsioa,
mounted between the wheels of an ox-waggon, was also brought into
requisition to proclaim the general joy and satisfaction.
"But alas! such feelings were
destined to be of short duration. While we were thus employed at Mafeking,
the openly-declared enemies of the Imperial Government, and of peace and
order in Bechuanaland, had been at their appropriate work elsewhere within
the Protectorate. Before sunset the same evening, I was surprised to hear
the Bechuana war cry sounded in Montsioa's Town, and shortly afterwards I
saw the old chief approaching my waggon, followed by a large body of men.
"'Monare Makence!' (Mr. Mackenzie),
'the cattle have been lifted by the Boers,' was his first announcement. I
shall never forget the scene at that moment. The excitement of the men, some
of whom were reduced to poverty by what had taken place, and also their
curiosity as to what step I should take, were plainly enough revealed on the
faces of the crowd who, with their chief, now stood before me.
"'Mr. Mackenzie,' said Montsioa,
'you are master now, you must say what is to be done. We shall be obedient
to your orders.' 'We have put our names on your paper, but the Boers have
our cattle all the same,' said one man.
Another shouted out with vehemence,
'please don't tell us to go on respecting the boundary line. Why should we
do so when the Boers don't?'
'Who speaks about a boundary line?'
said another speaker, probably a heavy loser. 'Is it a thing that a man can
eat? Where are our cattle?'
"As I have already said, I shall
never forget the scene in which these and similar speeches were made at my
waggon as the sun went down peacefully - the sun which had witnessed the
treaty-signing and the rejoicings at Mafeking. Its departing rays now saw
the cattle of the Barolong safe in the Transvaal, and the Barolong owners
and Her Majesty's Deputy Commissioner looking at one another, at
Mafeking."[32]
Mr. Mackenzie then resolved what to
do, and announced that he would at once cross the boundary and go himself to
the nearest Transvaal town to demand redress. There was a hum of approval,
with a sharp enquiry from Montsioa, - did he really mean to go himself?
"Having no one to send, I must go myself," Mackenzie replied. The old Chief,
in a generous way, half dissuaded him from the attempt. "The Boers cannot be
trusted. What shall I say if you do not return?" "All right, Montsioa,"
replied Mackenzie, "say I went of my own accord. I will leave my wife under
your care."
"Poor old fellow," writes Mackenzie,
"brave-hearted, though 'only a native,' he went away full of heaviness,
promising me his cart and harness, and an athletic herd as a driver, to
start early next morning."
Mr. Mackenzie had little success in
this expedition. He was listened to with indifference when he represented to
certain Landdrosts and Field Cornets that he had not come to talk politics,
but to complain of a theft. Those to whom he spoke looked upon the cattle
raid not as robbery, but as "annexation" or "commandeering." A man,
listening to the palaver, exclaimed: "Well, anyhow, we shall have cheap beef
as long as Montsioa's cattle last." At the hotel of the place Mr. Mackenzie
met some Europeans, who were farming or in business in the Transvaal. They
said to him: "Mr. Mackenzie, we are sorry to have to say it to you, for we
have all known you so long, but, honestly speaking, we hope you won't
succeed; the English Government does not deserve to succeed after all that
they have made us - loyal colonists - suffer in the Transvaal. For a long
time scarcely a day has passed without our being insulted by the more
ignorant Boers, till we are almost tired of our lives, and yet we cannot go
away, having invested our all in the country."
"Many such speeches were made to
me," says Mackenzie, "I give only one."
I cannot find it in my heart to
criticize the character of the Boers at a time when they have held on so
bravely in a desperate war, and have suffered so much. There are Boers and
Boers, - good and bad among them, - as among all nations. We have heard of
kind and generous actions towards the British wounded and prisoners, and we
know that there are among them men who, in times of peace, have been good
and merciful to their native servants. But it is not magnanimity nor
brutality on the part of individuals which are in dispute. Our controversy
is concerning the presence or absence of Justice among the Boers, concerning
the purity of their Government and the justice of their Laws, or the
reverse.
I turn to their Laws, and in judging
these, it is hardly possible to be too severe. Law is a great teacher, a
trainer, to a great extent, of the character of the people. The Boers would
have been an exceptional people under the sun had they escaped the
deterioration which such Laws and such Government as they have had the
misfortune to live under inevitably produce.
A pamphlet has lately been published
containing a defence of the Boer treatment of Missionaries and Natives, and
setting forth the efforts which have been made in recent years to
Christianize and civilize the native populations in their midst. This paper
is signed by nine clergymen of the Dutch Reformed Church, and includes the
name of the Rev. Andrew Murray, a name respected and beloved by many in our
own country. It is welcome news that such good work has been undertaken,
that the President has himself encouraged it, and that a number of Zulus or
Kaffirs have recently been baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church of the
Transvaal. But the fact strikes one painfully that in this pleading, (which
has a pathetic note in it,) these clergymen appear to have obliterated from
their mind and memory the whole past history, of their nation, and to have
forgotten that the harvest from seed sown through many generations may
spring up and bear its bitter fruit in their own day. They do not seem to
have accepted the verdict, or made the confession, "we and our fathers have
sinned." They seem rather to argue, "our fathers may have sinned in these
respects, but it cannot be laid to our charge that we are continuing in
their steps."
No late repentance will avail for
the salvation of their country unless Justice is now proclaimed and
practised; - Justice in Government and in the Laws.
Their Grondwet, or Constitution,
must be removed out of its place for ever; their unequal laws, and the
administrative corruption which unequal laws inevitably foster, must be
swept away, and be replaced by a very different Constitution and very
different Laws. If this had been done during the two last decades of
Transvaal history, while untrammelled (as was desired) by British
interference, the sincerity of this recent utterance would have deserved
full credit, and would have been recognized as the beginning of a radical
reformation.
The following is from the last
Report of the Aborigines Protection Society (Jan., 1900). Its present
secretary leans towards a favourable judgment of the recent improvements in
the policy of the Transvaal, and condemns severely every act on the part of
the English which does not accord with the principles of our Constitutional
Law, and therefore this statement will not be regarded as the statement of a
partisan: "It is laid down as a fundamental principle in the Transvaal
Grondwet that there is no equality of rights between white men and blacks.
In theory, if not in practice, the Boers regard the natives, all of whom
they contemptuously call Kaffirs, whatever their tribal differences, pretty
much as the ancient Jews regarded the Philistines and others whom they
expelled from Palestine, or used as hewers of wood and drawers of water, but
with added prejudice due to the difference of colour. So it was in the case
of the early Dutch settlers, and so it is to-day, with a few exceptions, due
mainly to the influence of the missionaries, whose work among the natives
has from the first been objected to and hindered. It is only by social
sufferance, and not by law, that the marriage of natives with Christian
rites is recognised, and it carries with it none of the conditions as
regards inheritance and the like, which are prescribed by the Dutch Roman
code in force with white men. As a matter of fact, natives have no legal
rights whatever. If they are in the service of humane masters, mindful of
their own interests and moral obligations, they may be properly lodged and
fed, not overworked, and fairly recompensed; but from the cruelties of a
brutal master, perpetrated in cold blood or a drunken fit, the native
practically has no redress."
The Rev. John H. Bovill, Rector of
the Cathedral Church, Lorenco Marquez, and sometime Her Majesty's Acting
Consul there, has worked for five years in a district from which numbers of
natives were drawn for work in the Transvaal, has visited the Transvaal from
time to time, and is well acquainted with Boers of all classes and
occupations. He has given us some details of the working out - especially as
regards the natives - of the principles of the Grondwet or Constitution of
the Transvaal.
To us English, the most astonishing
feature, to begin with, of this Constitution, is that it places the power of
the Judiciary below that of the Raad or Legislative Body. The Judges of the
Highest Court of Law are not free to give judgment according to evidence
before them and the light given to them. A vote of the Raad, consisting of a
mere handful of men in secret sitting, can at any time override and annul a
sentence of the High Court.
This will perhaps be better
understood if we picture to ourselves some great trial before Lord Russell
and others of our eminent judges, in which any laws bearing on the case were
carefully tested in connection with the principles of our Constitution; that
this supreme Court had pronounced its verdict, and that the next day
Parliament should discuss, with closed doors, the verdict of the judges, and
by a vote or resolution, should declare it unjust and annul it.
Let us imagine, to follow the matter
a little further on the lines of Transvaal justice, that our Sovereign had
power to dismiss at will from office any judge or judges who might have
exercised independence of judgment and pronounced a verdict displeasing to
Parliament or to herself personally! Such is law and justice in the
Transvaal; and that country is called a Republic! "This is Transvaal
justice," says M. Naville; "a mockery, an ingenious legalizing of tyranny.
There are no laws, there are only the caprices of the Raad. A vote in a
secret sitting, that is what binds the Judges, and according to it they will
administer justice. The law of to-day will perhaps not be the law to-morrow.
The fifteen members of the majority, or rather President Kruger, who
influences their votes, may change their opinion from one day to the next -
it matters not; their opinion, formulated by a vote, will always be law. Woe
to the judge who should dare to mention the Constitution or the Code, for
there is one: he would at once be dismissed by the President who appointed
him."
It was prescribed by the Grondwet
that no new law should be passed by Parliament (the Volksraad) unless notice
of it had been given three months in advance, and the people had had the
opportunity to pronounce upon it. This did not suit the President;
accordingly when desirous of legalizing some new project of his own, he
adopted the plan of bringing in such project as an addition or amendment to
some existing law, giving it out as no new law, but only a supplementary
clause. Law No. 1 of 1897 was manipulated in this manner. By this law, the
Judges of the High Court were formally deprived of the right to test the
validity of any law in its relation to the Constitution, and they were also
compelled to accept as law, without question or reservation of any kind, any
resolution passed at any time and under any circumstances by the Volksraad.
This Law No. 1 of 1897 was passed through all its stages in three days,
without being subjected in the first instance to the people.
But I am especially concerned with
what affects the natives.
Article 1 of this section says: - A
native must not own fixed property.
(2) He must not marry by civil or
ecclesiastical process.
(3) He must not be allowed access to
Civil Courts in any action against a white man.
Article 9 of the Grondwet is not
only adhered to, but is exaggerated in its application as follows: - "The
people shall not permit any equality of coloured persons with white
inhabitants, neither in the Church, nor in the State."
"These principles" says Mr. Bovill,
"are so engrained in the mind of an average Boer that we can never expect
anything to be done by the Volksraad for the natives in this respect. It
appears inconceivable," he continues, "that a Government making any pretence
of being a civilized power, at the end of the nineteenth century, should be
so completely ignorant of the most elementary principles of good government
for such a large number of its subjects."
As to the access by the natives to
the Courts of Law.
"If you ask a native he will tell
you that access to the law-courts is much too easy, but they are the
Criminal Courts of the Field Cornets and Landdrosts. He suffers so much from
these, that he cannot entertain the idea that the Higher Courts are any
better than the ordinary Field Cornets' or Landdrosts'. However, there are
times when with fear and trepidation he does appeal to a Higher Court. With
what result? If the decision is in favour of the native, the burghers are up
in arms, crying out against the injustice of a judgment given in favour of a
black against a white man; burghers sigh and say that a great disaster is
about to befall the State when a native can have judgment against a white
man. The inequality of the blacks and superiority of the white (burghers) is
largely discussed. Motions are brought forward in the Volksraad to prohibit
natives pleading in the Higher Courts. Such is the usual outcry. Summary
justice (?) by a Landdrost or Field Cornet is all the Boer would allow a
native. No appeal should be permitted, for may it not lead to a quashing of
the conviction? The Landdrost is the friend of the Boer, and he can always
"square" him in a matter against a native. "It was only to prevent an open
breach with England that these appeals to the Higher Courts were permitted
in a limited degree."[33]
No. 2. - The Native Marriage Laws.
"Think," says Mr. Bovill, "what it would mean to our social life in England
if we were a conquered nation, and the conquerors should say: 'All your laws
and customs are abrogated; your marriage laws are of no consequence to us;
you may follow or leave them as you please, but we do not undertake to
support them, and you may live like cattle if you wish; we cannot recognise
your marriage laws as binding, nor yet will we legalise any form of marriage
among you.' Such is in effect, the present position of the natives in the
Transvaal.
"I occasionally took my holidays in
Johannesburg, and assisted the Vicar, during which time I could take charge
of Christian native marriages, of which the State took no cognisance. A
native may marry, and any time after leave his wife, but the woman would
have no legal claim on him. He could marry again as soon as he pleased, and
he could not be proceeded against either for support of his first wife or
for bigamy. And so he might go on as long as he wished to marry or could get
anyone to marry him. The same is applicable to all persons of colour, even
if only slightly coloured - half-castes of three or four generations if the
colour is at all apparent. All licenses for the marriage of white people
must be applied for personally, and signed in the presence of the Landdrost,
who is very cautious lest half-castes or persons of colour should get one.
Colour is evidently the only test of unfitness to claim recognition of the
marriage contract by the Transvaal State.
"The injustice of such a law must be
apparent; it places a premium on vice.[34] It gives an excuse to any 'person
of colour' to commit the most heinous offences against the laws of morality
and social order, and protects such a one from the legal consequences which
would necessarily follow in any other civilised State."
Mr. Bovill has an instructive
chapter on the "Compound system," and the condition of native compounds.
This is a matter which it is to be hoped will be taken seriously to heart by
the Chartered Company, and any other company or group of employers
throughout African mining districts." The Compound system of huddling
hundreds of natives together in tin shanties is the very opposite to the
free life to which they are accustomed. If South African mining is to become
a settled industry, we must have the conditions of the labour market
settled, and also the conditions of living. We cannot expect natives to give
up their free open-air style of living, and their home life. They love their
homes, and suffer from homesickness as much as, or probably more than most
white people. The reason so many leave their work after six months is that
they are constantly longing to see their wives and children. Many times have
they said to me, 'It would be all right if only we could have our wives and
families with us.'"
"The result of this compound life is
the worst possible morally."....
"We must treat the native, not as a
machine to work when required under any conditions, but as a raw son of
nature, very often without any moral force to control him and to raise him
much above the lower animal world in his passions, except that which native
custom has given him."
The writer suggests that "native
reserves or locations should be established on the separate mines, or groups
of mines, where the natives can have their huts built, and live more or less
under the same conditions as they do in their native kraals. If a native
found that he could live under similar conditions to those he has been
accustomed to, he will soon be anxious to save enough money to bring his
wife and children there, and remain in the labour district for a much longer
period than at present is the case.
"It would be a distinct gain to the
mining industry as well as to the native."
Mr. Bovill goes into much detail on
the subject of the "Pass Laws." I should much desire to reproduce his
chapter on that subject, if it were not too long. That system must be wholly
abolished, he says: "it is at present worse than any conditions under which
slavery exists. It is a criminal-making law. Brand a slave, and you have put
him to a certain amount of physical pain for once, but penalties under the
Pass Law system mean lashes innumerable at the direction of any Boer Field
Cornet or Landdrost. It is a most barbarous system, as brutal as it is
criminal-making, alone worthy of a Boer with an exaggerated fear of and
cowardly brutality towards a race he has been taught to despise."
Treating of the prohibition imposed
on the Natives as to the possession in any way or by any means of a piece of
land, he writes: "Many natives are now earning and saving large sums of
money, year by year, at the various labour centres. They return home with
every intention of following a peaceful life; why should they not be
encouraged to put their money into land, and follow their 'peaceful
pursuits' as well as any Boer farmer? They are capable of doing it. Besides,
if they held fixed property in the State, it would be to their advantage to
maintain law and order, when they had everything they possessed at stake.
With no interest in the land, the tendency must always be to a nomadic life.
They are as thoroughly well capable of becoming true, peaceful, and loyal
citizens of the State as are any other race of people. Their instincts and
training are all towards law and order. Their lives have been disciplined
under native rule, and now that the white man is breaking up that rule, what
is he going to give as a substitute? Anarchy and lawlessness, or good
government which tends to peace and prosperity?
"We can only hope for better times,
and a more humane Government for the natives, to wipe out the wrong that has
been done to both black and white under a bastard civilization which has
prevailed in Pretoria for the past fifteen years. The Government which holds
down such a large number of its subjects by treating them as cut-throats and
outlaws, will one day repent bitterly of its sin of misrule."[35]
* * * * *
Tyranny has a genius for creeping in
everywhere, and under any and every form of government. This is being
strikingly illustrated in these days. Under the name of a Republic, the
traditions of a Military Oligarchy have grown up, and stealthily prevailed.
When a nation has no recorded
standard of guiding principles of government, it matters not by what name it
may be called - Empire, Republic, Oligarchy, or Democracy - it may fall
under the blighting influence of the tyranny of a single individual, or a
wealthy clique, or a military despot.
Too much weight is given just now to
mere names as applied to governments. The acknowledged principles which
underlie the outward forms of government alone are vitally important, and by
the adherence to or abdication of these principles each nation will be
judged. The revered name of Republic is as capable of being dragged in the
mire as that of the title of any other form of government. Mere names and
words have lately had a strange and even a disastrous power of misleading
and deceiving, not persons only, but nations, - even a whole continent of
nations. It is needful to beware of being drawn into conclusions leading to
action by associations attaching merely to a name, or to some crystallized
word which may sometimes cover a principle the opposite of that which it was
originally used to express. Such names and words are in some cases being as
rapidly changed and remodelled as geographical charts are which represent
new and rapidly developing or decaying groups of the human race. Yet names
are always to a large part of mankind more significant than facts; and names
and appearances in this matter appeal to France and to Switzerland, and in a
measure to the American people, in favour of the Boers.
Among the concessions made by Lord
Derby in the Convention of 1884, none has turned out to be more unfortunate
than that of allowing the Transvaal State to resume the title of the "South
African Republic." In South Africa it embodied an impossible ideal; to the
outside world it conveyed a false impression. The title has been the reason
of widespread error with regard to the real nature of the Transvaal
Government and of its struggle with this country. If "Republican
Independence" had been all that Mr. Kruger was striving for, there would
have been no war. He adopted the name, but not the spirit of a Republic. The
"Independence" claimed by him, and urged even now by some of his friends in
the British Parliament, is shown by the whole past history of the Transvaal
to be an independence and a freedom which involve the enslavement of other
men.
A friend writes: - "In order to
satisfy my own mind I have been looking in Latin Dictionaries for the
correct and original meaning of 'impero,' (I govern,) and 'imperium.' The
word 'Empire' has an unpleasant ring from some points of view and to some
minds. One thinks of Roman Emperors, Domitian, Nero, Tiberius, - of the word
'imperious,' and of the French 'Empire' under Napoleon I. and Napoleon III.
The Latin word means 'the giving of commands.' All depends on whether the
commands given are good, and the giver of them also good and wise. The Ten
Commandments are in one sense 'imperial.' Now, I think the word as used in
the phrase British Empire has, in the most modern and best sense, quite a
different savour or flavour from that of Napoleon's Empire, or the Turkish
or Mahommedan Empires of the past. It has come to mean the 'Dominion of
Freedom' or the 'Reign of Liberty,' rather than the giving of despotic or
tyrannical or oligarchic commands. In fact, our Imperialism is freedom for
all races and peoples who choose to accept it, whilst Boer Republicanism is
the exact opposite. How strangely words change their weight and value!
"And yet there still remains the
sense of 'command' in 'Empire;' and in the past history of our Government of
the Cape Colony there has been too little wholesome command and obedience,
and too much opportunism, shuffling off of responsibility, with
self-sufficient ignorance and doctrinaire foolishness taking the place of
knowledge and insight. Want of courage is, I think, in short, at the bottom
of the past mismanagement."
* * * * *
The assertion is repeatedly made
that "England coveted the gold of the Transvaal, and hence went to war." It
is necessary it seems, again and again, to remind those who speak thus that
England was not the invader. Kruger invaded British Territory, being fully
prepared for war. England was not in the least prepared for war. This last
fact is itself a complete answer to those who pretend that she was the
aggressor.
In regard to the assertion that
"England coveted the gold of the Transvaal," what is here meant by
"England?" Ours is a representative Government. Are the entire people, with
their representatives in Parliament and the Government included in this
assertion, or is it meant that certain individuals, desiring gold, went to
the Transvaal in search of it? The expression "England" in this relation, is
vague and misleading.
The search for gold is not in itself
a legal nor a moral offence. But the inordinate desire and pursuit of
wealth, becoming the absorbing motive to the exclusion of all nobler aims,
is a moral offence and a source of corruption.
Wherever gold is to be found, there
is a rush from all sides; among some honest explorers with legitimate aims,
there are always found, in such a case, a number of unruly spirits, of
scheming, dishonest and careless persons, the scum of the earth, cheats and
vagabonds. The Outlanders who crowded to the Rand were of different nations,
French, Belgians and others, besides the English who were in a large
majority. The presence and eager rush of this multitude of gold seekers
certainly brought into the country elements which clouded the moral
atmosphere, and became the occasion of deeds which so far from being typical
of the spirit of "England" and the English people at large, were the very
reverse, and have been condemned by public opinion in our country.
But, admitting that unworthy motives
and corrupting elements were introduced into the Transvaal by the influx of
strangers urged there by self-interest, it is strange that any should
imagine and assert that the "corrupting influence of gold," or the lust of
gold told upon the British alone. The disasters brought upon the Transvaal
seem to be largely attributable to the corrupting effect on President Kruger
and his allies in the Government, of the sudden acquisition of enormous
wealth, through the development, by other hands than his own, of the hidden
riches within his country.
What are the facts? In 1885 the
revenue of the Transvaal State was a little over L177,000. This rose, owing
to the Outlanders' labours, and the taxes exacted from them by the Transvaal
government to L4,400,000 (in 1899). Thus they have increased in the
proportion of 1 to 25. "If the admirers of the Transvaal government, who
place no confidence in documents emanating from English sources, will take
the trouble to open the Almanack de Gotha, they will there find the
financial report for 1897. There they will read that of these L4,400,000,
salaries and emoluments amount to nearly one-quarter - we will call it
L1,000,000, - that is, L40 per head per adult Boer, for it goes without
saying that in all this the Outlanders have no share. If we remember that
the great majority of the Boers consist of farmers who do not concern
themselves at all about the Administration, and who consequently get no
slice of the cake, we can judge of the size of the junks which President
Kruger and the chiefly foreign oligarchy on which he leans take to
themselves. The President has a salary of L7,000 - (the President of the
Swiss Confederation has L600) - and besides that, what is called
"coffee-money." This is his official income, but his personal resources do
not end there. The same table of the Almanack de Gotha shows a sum of nearly
L660,000 entitled "other expenses." Under this head are included secret
funds, which in the budget are stated at a little less than L40,000 (more
than even England has), but which always exceed that sum, and in 1896
reached about L200,000. Secret Service Funds! - vile name and viler reality
- should be unknown in the affairs of small nations. Is not honesty one of
the cardinal virtues which we should expect to find amongst small nations,
if nowhere else? What can the chief of a small State of 250,000 inhabitants
do with such a large amount of Secret funds?
"We can picture to ourselves what
the financial administration of the Boers must be in this plethora of money,
provided almost entirely by the hated Outlander. An example may be cited.
The Raad were discussing the budget of 1898, and one of the members called
attention to the fact that for several years past advances to the amount of
L2,400,000 had been made to various officials, and were unaccounted for.
That is a specimen of what the Boer regime has become in this school of
opulence."[36] M. Naville continues: - "We do not consider the Boers, as a
people, to be infected by the corruption which rules the administration. The
farmers who live far from Pretoria have preserved their patriarchal virtues:
they are upright and honest, but at the same time very proud, and impatient
of every kind of authority.... They are ignorant, and read no books or
papers - only the Old Testament; but Kruger knew he could rouse these people
by waving before them the spectre of England, and crying in their ears the
word 'Independence.' And this is what disgusts us, that under cover of
principles so dear to us all, independence and national honour, these brave
men are sent to the battlefield to preserve for a tyrannical and venal
oligarchy the right to share amongst themselves, and distribute as they
please, the gold which is levied on the work of foreigners."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 30: Parliamentary Blue
Book, 4194, 42.]
[Footnote 31: Austral Africa, Chap. 4, pages 235-250.]
[Footnote 32: Austral Africa, p. 233 and on.]
[Footnote 33: Natives under the Transvaal Flag. Revd. John H. Bovill.]
[Footnote 34: It is stated on the authority of The Sentinel (London, June,
1900), that Mr. Kruger was asked some years ago to permit the introduction
in the Johannesburg mining district of the State regulation of vice, and
that Mr. Kruger stoutly refused to entertain such an idea. Very much to his
credit! Yet it seems to me that the refusal to legalize native marriages
comes rather near, in immorality of principle and tendency, to the
legalizing of promiscuous intercourse.]
[Footnote 35: Natives under the Transvaal Flag, by Rev. J. Bovill.]
[Footnote 36: La question du Transvaal, by Professor Ed. Naville, of
Geneva.]
