VIII. THE THEOLOGY OF THE BOERS.
EXPLOITATION OF NATIVES BY CAPITALISTS. BRITISH COLONIZING. - ITS CAUSES AND
NATURE. CHARACTER OF PAUL KRUGER AS A RULER. THE MORAL TEACHINGS OF THE WAR.
OUR RESPONSIBILITIES. HASTY JUDGMENTS. DENUNCIATIONS OF ENGLAND BY
ENGLISHMEN. THE OPEN BOOK. MY LAST WORD IS FOR THE NATIVE RACES.
Even in these enlightened days
there seems to be in some minds a strange confusion as to the understanding
of the principle of Equality for which we plead, and which is one of the
first principles laid down in the Charter of our Liberties. What is meant in
that charter is Equality of all before the Law; not by any means social
equality, which belongs to another region of political ideas altogether.
A friend who has lived in South
Africa, and who has had natives working for and with him, tells me of this
confusion of ideas among some of the more vulgar stamp of white colonists,
who, my friend observes, amuse themselves by assuming a familiarity in
intercourse with the natives, which works badly. It does not at all increase
their respect for the white man, but quite the contrary, while it is as
little calculated to produce self-respect in the native. My friend found the
natives naturally respectful and courteous, when treated justly and
humanely, in fact as a gentleman would treat them. Above all things, they
honour a man who is just. They have a keen sense of justice, and a quick
perception of the existence of this crowning quality in a man. Livingstone
said that he found that they also have a keen eye for a man of pure and
moral life.
The natives in the Transvaal have
never asked for the franchise, or for the smallest voice in the Government.
In their hearts they hoped for and desired simple legal justice; they asked
for bread, and they received a stone. It does not seem desirable that they
should too early become "full fledged voters." Some sort of Education test,
some proof of a certain amount of civilization and instruction attained,
might be applied with advantage; and to have to wait a little while for that
does not seem, from the Englishwoman's point of view at least, a great
hardship, when it is remembered how long our agricultural labourers had to
wait for that privilege, and that for more than fifty years English women
have petitioned for it, and have not yet obtained it, although they are not,
I believe, wholly uncivilized or uneducated.
The Theology of the Boers has been
much commented upon; and it is supposed by some that, as they are said to
derive it solely from the Old Testament Scriptures, it follows that the
ethical teaching of those Scriptures must be extremely defective. A Swiss
Pastor writes to me: "It is time to rescue the Old Testament from the Boer
interpretation of it. We have not enough of Old Testament righteousness
among us Christians." This is true. Those who have studied those Scriptures
intelligently see, through much that appears harsh and strange in the Mosaic
prescriptions, a wisdom and tenderness which approaches to the Christian
ideal, as well as certain severe rules and restrictions which, when observed
and maintained, lifted the moral standard of the Hebrew people far above
that of the surrounding nations. When Christ came on earth, He swept away
all that which savoured of barbarism, the husk which often however,
contained within it a kernel of truth capable of a great development. "Ye
have heard it said of old times," He reiterated, "but I say unto you" - and
then He set forth the higher, the eternally true principles of action.
Yet if the Transvaal teachers and
their disciples had read impartially (though even exclusively) the Old
Testament Scriptures, they could not have failed to see how grossly they
were themselves offending against the divine commands in some vital matters.
I cite, as an example, the following commands, given by Moses to the people,
not once only, but repeatedly. Had these commands been regarded with as keen
an appreciation as some others whose teaching seems to have an opposite
tendency, it is impossible that the natives should have been treated as they
have been by Boer Law, or that Slavery or Serfdom should have existed among
them for so many generations. The following are some of the often-repeated
commands and warnings:
Ex. xii. v 19. - "One law shall be
to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you."
Num. ix. v 14. - "If a stranger
shall sojourn among you, ... ye shall have one ordinance, both for the
stranger, and for him that was born in the land."
Num. xv. v 15. - "One ordinance
shall be both for you of the congregation, and also for the stranger that
sojourneth with you, an ordinance for ever in your generation: as ye are so
shall the stranger be before the Lord."
Verse 16. - "One law and one manner
shall be for you, and for the stranger that sojourneth with you."
Lev. xix. v 33. - "And if a stranger
sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him."
Verse 34. - "But the stranger that
dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt
love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."
Verse 35. - "Ye shall do no
unrighteousness in judgment, in mete-yard, in weight, or in measure."
Although the natives of the
Transvaal were the original possessors of the country, they have been
reckoned by the Boers as strangers and foreigners among them. They have
treated them as the ancient Jews treated all Gentiles as for ever excluded
from the Commonwealth of Israel, - until in the "fulness of time" they were
forced by a great shock and terrible judgments - to acknowledge, with
astonishment, that "God had also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto
life," and that they also had heard the news of the glorious emancipation of
all the sons of God throughout the earth.
Not only is the non-payment, but
even delay in the payment of wages condemned by the Law of Moses. Is it
possible that Boer theologians, who quote Scripture with so much readiness,
have never read the following?
Lev. xix. v 13. - "Thou shalt not
defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall
not abide with thee all night until the morning."
Deut. xxiv. v 14. - "Thou shalt not
oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy
brethren, or of the strangers that are in thy land, within thy gates."
Verse 15. - "At his day thou shalt
give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor,
and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and
it be sin unto thee."
Jer. xxii. v 13. - "Woe unto him
that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that
useth his neighbour's service without wages, and giveth him not for his
work."
Mal. iii. v 5. - "And I will come
near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against ... those
that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and
that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord
of hosts."
The following is from the New
Testament, but it might have come under the notice of Boer theologians and
Law makers: -
The epistle of St. James v. v 4. -
"Behold the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields which is
of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped
are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth."
Verse 3. - "Your gold and your
silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you."
Jer. xxxv. v 17. - "Because ye have
not proclaimed Liberty every man to his neighbour, behold I proclaim Liberty
for you, saith the Lord, to the Sword, to the pestilence, and to the
famine."
I am aware that there will be voices
raised at once in application to certain English people of the very commands
here cited; and justly so, so far as that application is made to individuals
or groups of persons who have transgressed not only Biblical Law but the Law
of our Land in their dealings with native races; and the warning conveyed to
us in such recriminations must not and, I believe, will not be unheeded.
The following occurs in a number of
the "Ethical World," published early in the present year: - "We know that
capitalists, left to themselves, would mercilessly exploit the labour of the
coloured man. That is precisely the reason why they should not be left to
themselves, but should be under the control of the British Empire. It is a
reason why Crown colonies should supersede Chartered Companies; it is a
reason for much that is often called 'shallow Imperialism.' If the present
war had been staved off, and if, by mere lapse of time and increase of
numbers without British intervention, the Outlanders had come to be the
masters of the South African Republic, they might have established a system
of independent government quite as bad as that now in existence, though not
hardened against reform by the same archaic traditions."
To my mind some of the published
utterances of the Originator and members of the "Chartered Company" are not
such as to inspire confidence in those who desire to see the essential
principles of British Law and Government paramount wherever Great Britain
has sway. There is the old contemptuous manner of speaking of the natives;
and we have heard an expression of a desire to "eliminate the Imperial
Factor."
This elimination of the Imperial
Factor is precisely that which is the least desired by those who see our
Imperialism to mean the continuance of obedience to the just traditions of
British Law and Government. The granting of a Charter to a Company lends the
authority (or the appearance of it) of the Queen's name to acts of the
responsible heads of that company, which may be opposed to the principles of
justice established by British Law; and such acts may have disastrous
results. It is to be hoped that the present awakening on the subject of past
failures of our government to enforce respect for its own principles may be
a warning to all concerned against any transgression of those principles.
Continental friends with whom I have
conversed on the subject of the British Colonies have sometimes appeared to
me to leave out of account some considerations special to the subject. They
regard British Colonization as having been accomplished by a series of acts
of aggression, solely inspired by the love of conquest and desire for
increased territory. This is an error.
I would ask such friends to take a
Map of Europe, or of the World, and steadily to regard it in connection with
the following facts. Our people are among the most prolific, - if not the
most prolific, - of all the nations. Energy and enterprise are in their
nature, together with a certain love of free-breathing, adventure and
discovery. Now look at the map, and observe how small is the circumference
of the British Isles. "Our Empire has no geographical continuity like the
Russian Empire; it is that larger Venice with no narrow streets, but with
the sea itself for a high-road. It is bound together by a moral continuity
alone." What are our Sons to do? Must our immense population be debarred
from passing through these ocean tracts to lands where there are great
uninhabited wastes capable of cultivation? What shall we do with our sons
and our daughters innumerable, as the ways become overcrowded in the mother
land, and energies have not the outlets needful to develop them. Shall we
place legal restrictions on marriage, or on the birth of children, or
prescribe that no family shall exceed a certain number? You are shocked, -
naturally. It follows then that some members of our large British families
must cross the seas and seek work and bread elsewhere.
The highest and lowest, representing
all ranks, engage in this kind of initial colonization. Our present Prime
Minister, a "younger son," went out in his youth, - as others of his class
have done, - with his pickaxe, to Australia, to rank for a time among
"diggers" until called home by the death of the elder son, the heir to the
title and estate. This necessity and this taste for wandering and exploring
has helped in some degree to form the independence of character of our men,
and also to strengthen rather than to weaken the ties of affection and
kinship with the Motherland. Many men, "nobly born and gently nurtured,"
have thus learned self-dependence, to endure hardships, and to share manual
labour with the humblest; and such an experience does not work for evil.
Then when communities have been formed, some sort of government has been
necessitated. An appeal is made to the Mother Country, and her offspring
have grown up more or less under her regard and care, until self-government
has developed itself.
The great blot on this necessary and
natural expansion is the record (from time to time) of the displacement of
native tribes by force and violence, when their rights seemed to interfere
with the interests of the white man. Of such action we have had to repent in
the past, and we repent more deeply than ever now when our responsibilities
towards natives races have been brought with startling clearness before
those among us who have been led to look back and to search deeply into the
meanings of the present great "history-making war."
The personality of Paul Kruger
stands out mournfully at this moment on the page of history. Mr. FitzPatrick
wrote of him in 1896, as follows: -
"L'Etat c'est moi, is almost as true
of the old Dopper President as it was of its originator; for in matters of
external policy and in matters which concern the Boer as a party, the
President has his way as completely as any anointed autocrat. To anyone who
has studied the Boers and their ways and policy ... it must be clear that
President Kruger does more than represent the opinion of the people and
execute their policy: he moulds them in the form he wills. By the force of
his own strong convictions and prejudices, and of his indomitable will, he
has made the Boers a people whom he regards as the germ of the Afrikander
nation; a people chastened, selected, welded, and strong enough to attract
and assimilate all their kindred in South Africa, and thus to realize the
dream of a Dutch Republic from the Zambesi to Cape Town.
"In the history of South Africa the
figure of the grim old President will loom large and striking, - picturesque
as the figure of one who, by his character and will, made and held his
people; magnificent as one who, in the face of the blackest fortune, never
wavered from his aim or faltered in his effort ... and it maybe, pathetic
too, as one whose limitations were great, one whose training and
associations, - whose very successes had narrowed and embittered and
hardened him; - as one who, when the greatness of success was his to take
and to hold, turned his back on the supreme opportunity, and used his
strength and qualities to fight against the spirit of progress, and all that
the enlightenment of the age pronounces to be fitting and necessary to good
government and a healthy State.
"To an English nobleman, who in the
course of an interview remarked, 'my father was a Minister (of the Queen),'
the Dutchman answered, 'and my father was a shepherd!' It was not pride
rebuking pride; it was the ever present fact which would not have been worth
mentioning but for the suggestion of the antithesis. He, too, was a
shepherd, - a peasant. It may be that he knew what would be right and good
for his people, and it may be not; but it is sure that he realized that to
educate would be to emancipate, to broaden their views would be to break
down the defences of their prejudices, to let in the new leaven would be to
spoil the old bread, to give to all men the rights of men would be to swamp
for ever the party which is to him greater than the State. When one thinks
of the one century history of that people, much is seen which accounts for
their extraordinary love of isolation, and their ingrained and passionate
aversion to control; much, too, that draws to them a world of sympathy; and
when one realizes the old President hemmed in once more by the hurrying tide
of civilization, from which his people have fled for generations - trying to
fight both fate and Nature - standing up to stem a tide as resistless as the
eternal sea - one realizes the pathos of the picture. But this is as another
generation may see it. We are now too close - so close that the meaner
details, the blots and flaws, are all most plainly visible, the corruption,
the insincerity, the injustice, the barbarity - all the unlovely touches
that will bye and bye be forgotten - sponged away by the gentle hand of
time, when only the picturesque will remain."[37]
And now that his sun is setting in
the midst of clouds, and the great ambition of his life lies a ruin before
him, and age, disappointment, and sorrow press heavily upon him, reproach
and criticism are silenced. Compassion and a solemn awe alone fill our
hearts.
A late awakening and repentance may
not serve to maintain the political life of a party or a nation; but it is
never too late for a human soul to receive for itself the light that may
have been lacking for right guidance all through the past, and God does not
finally withdraw Himself from one who has ever sincerely called upon His
name.
I beg to be allowed to address a
word, in conclusion, more especially to certain of my own countrymen, -
among whom I count some of my valued fellow-workers of the past years. These
latter have been very patient with me at times when I have ventured a word
of warning in connection with the Abolitionist war in which we have together
been engaged, and perhaps they will bear with me now; but whether they will
do so or not, I must speak that which seems to me the truth, that which is
laid on my heart to speak. I refer especially to the temper of mind of those
whose present denunciations of our country are apparently not restrained by
considerations derived from a deeper and calmer view of the whole situation.
When God's Judgments are in the
earth, "the people of the world will learn righteousness." Are we learning
righteousness? Am I, are you, friends, learning righteousness? I desire, at
least, to be among those who may learn something of the mind of God towards
His redeemed world, even in the darkest hour. But you will tell me perhaps
that there is nothing of the Divine purpose in all this tribulation, that
God has allowed evil to have full sway in the world for a time. Others among
us, as firmly believe that there is a Divine permission in the natural
vengeance which follows transgression, that we are never the sport of a
senseless fate, and that God governs as well as reigns.
"God's fruit of justice ripens
slow; "Men's souls are narrow; let them grow, "My brothers, we must
wait."
Many among us are learning to see
more and more clearly that the present "tribulation" is the climax of a long
series, - through almost a century past, - of errors of which till now we
had never been fully conscious, - of neglect of duty, of casting off of
responsibility, of oblivion of the claims of the millions of native
inhabitants of Africa who are God's creatures and the redeemed of Christ as
much as we, - of ambitions and aims purely worldly, of a breathless race
among nations for present and material gain.
There are hasty judges it seems to
me who look upon this war as the Initial Crime, a sudden and fatal error
into which our nation has leapt in a fit of blind passion aroused by some
quite recent event, and chiefly chargeable to certain individuals living
among us to-day, who represent, in their view, a deplorable deterioration of
the whole nation. The evils (which are not chiefly attributable to our
nation) which have led up to this war, and made it from the human point of
view, inevitable, are all ignored by these judges. Like the servant in one
of the Parables of Christ, who said "my Lord delayeth his coming," (God is
nowhere among us,) and began to beat and abuse his fellow-servants, they
fall to inflicting on their fellow citizens unmeasured blows of the tongue
and pen, because of this war. Their hearts are so full of indignation that
they cannot see anything higher or deeper than the material strife. They
judge the combatants, our poor soldiers, the first victims, with little
tenderness or sympathy. When King David was warned by God of approaching
chastisement for his sins as a ruler, he pleaded that that chastisement
should fall upon himself alone, saying, "these sheep (the people) what have
they done?" We may ask the same of the rank and file of our army. What have
they done? It was not they who ordained the war, and so far as personal
influence may have gone to provoke war, many of those who sit at home at
ease are more to blame than the men who believe that they are obeying the
call of duty when they offer themselves for perils, for hardships, wounds,
sickness, and lingering as well as sudden death.
God's thoughts, however, are "not as
our thoughts," nor "His ways as our ways." The record I might give of
spiritual awakening and extraordinary blessing bestowed by Him at this time
in the very heart of this war on these, the "first victims" of it, would be
received I fear with complete incredulity by those to whom I now address
myself. Be it so. The sources of my information are from "the front," they
are many and they are trustworthy. It seems to me that in visiting the sins
of the fathers on the children, or of rulers on the people, the Great Father
of all, in His infinite love has said to these multitudes: "Your bodies are
given to destruction, but I have set wide open for you the door of
salvation; you Shall enter into my kingdom through death." And many have so
entered.[38]
The following is the expression of
the thought of many of our humble people at home, who are neither "jingoes"
nor yet impatient judges of others. The Journal from which the extract is
taken represents not the wealthy nor ambitious part of society, but that of
the middle class of people, dependent on their own efforts for their daily
bread, among whom we often find much good sense: - "Some persons are
humiliated for the sins and mistakes they see in other people. As for
themselves, their one thought is 'If my advice had been taken the country
would never have been in this pass!' This is the expression of an utterly
un-Christian self-conceit. Others, again, take delight in recording the sins
of the nation. That our ideals have been dimmed, that a low order of public
morality has been openly defended in the highest places, and that the
reckoning has come to us we fully believe. Yet it is possible to judge the
heart of our people far too harshly. It is a sound heart when all is said
and done. We fix our eyes upon the great and wealthy offenders; but it must
be remembered that the British people are not wealthy. The number of rich
men is small. Most of us, in fact, are very poor. Even those who may be
called well off depend on the continuance of health and opportunity for
their incomes. The vast majority of those who believe that our cause is
righteous are not exultant jingoes, neither are they millionaires. They are
care-worn toilers, hard-worked fathers and mothers of children. They have in
many cases given sons and brothers and husbands to our ranks; their hearts
are aching with passionate sorrow for the dead. Many more are enduring the
racking agony of suspense. Multitudes, besides, spend their lives in a hard
fight to keep the wolf from the door. Already they are pinched, and they
know that in the months ahead their poverty will be deeper. Yet they have no
thought of surrender. They do not even complain, but give what they can from
their scanty means to succour those who are touched still more nearly. It is
quite possible to slander a nation when one simply intends to tell it plain
truths. The British nation, we are inclined to believe, is a great deal
better and sounder than many of its shrillest censors of the moment. And,
for our part, we find among our patient, brave, and silent people great
seed-beds of trust and hope."[39]
These are noble words, because words
of faith - worthy of the Roman, Varro - to whom his fellow-citizens
presented a public tribute of gratitude because "he had not despaired of his
country in a dark and troubled time."
It can hardly be supposed that I
underrate the horrors of war. I have imagination enough and sympathy enough
to follow almost as if I beheld it with my eyes, the great tragedy which has
been unfolded in South Africa. The spirit of Jingoism is an epidemic of
which I await the passing away more earnestly than we do that of any other
plague. I deprecate, as I have always done, and as strongly as anyone can
do, rowdyism in the form of violent opposition to free speech and freedom of
meeting. It is as wholly unjustifiable, as it is unwise. Nothing tends more
to the elucidation of truth than evidence and freedom of speech from all
sides. Good works on many hands are languishing for lack of the funds and
zeal needful to carry them on. The Public Press, and especially the
Pictorial Press, fosters a morbid sentiment in the public mind by needlessly
vivid representations of mere slaughter; to all this may be added (that
which some mourn over most of all) the drain upon our pockets, - upon the
country's wealth. All these things are a part of the great tribulation which
is upon us. They are inevitable ingredients of the chastisement by war.
I see frequent allusions to the
"deplorable state of the public mind," which is so fixed on this engrossing
subject, the war, that its attention cannot be gained for any other. I hear
our soldiers called "legalized murderers," and the war spoken of as a
"hellish panorama,"[40] which it is a blight even to look upon.
But, - I am impelled to say it at
the risk of sacrificing the respect of certain friends, - there is to me
another view of the matter. It is this. In this present woe, as in all other
earthly events, God has something to say to us, - something which we cannot
receive if we wilfully turn away the eye from seeing and the ear from
hearing.
It is as if - in anticipation of the
last great Judgment when "the Books shall be opened," - God, in his severity
and yet in mercy (for there is always mercy in the heart of His judgments)
had set before us at this day an open book, the pages of which are written
in letters of blood, and that He is waiting for us to read. There are some
who are reading, though with eyes dimmed with tears and hearts pierced with
sorrow - whose attitude is, "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth."
You "deplore the state of the public
mind." May not the cloud of celestial witnesses deplore in a measure the
state of your mind which leads you to turn your back on the opened book of
judgment, and refuse to read it? Does your sense of duty to your country
claim from you to send forth such a cry against your fellow-citizens and
your nation that you have no ears for the solemn teachings of Providence?
Might it not be more heroic in us all to cease to denounce, and to begin to
enquire? - with humility and courage to look God in the face, and enquire of
Him the inner meanings of His rebukes, to ask Him to "turn back the floods
of ungodliness" which have swelled this inundation of woe, rather than to
use our poor little besoms in trying to sweep back the Atlantic waves of His
judgments.
It is good and necessary to protest
against War; but at the same time, reason and experience teach that we must,
with equal zeal, protest against other great evils, the accumulation of
which makes for war and not for peace. War in another sense - moral and
spiritual war - must be doubled, trebled, quadrupled, in the future, in
order that material war may come to an end. We all wish for peace; every
reasonable person desires it, every anxious and bereaved family longs for
it, every Christian prays for it. But what Peace? It is the Peace of God
which we pray for? the Peace on Earth, which He alone can bring about? His
hand alone, which corrects, can also heal. We do not and cannot desire the
peace which some of those are calling for who dare not face the open book of
present day judgment, or who do not wish to read its lessons! Such a peace
would be a mere plastering over of an unhealed wound, which would break out
again before many years were over.
There seems to me a lack of
imagination and of Christian sympathy in the zeal which thrusts denunciatory
literature into all hands and houses, as is done just now. It would, I
think, check such action and open the eyes of some who adopt it, if they
could see the look of pain, the sudden pallor, followed by hours and days of
depression of the mourners, widows, bereaved parents, sisters and friends,
when called upon to read (their hearts full of the thought of their beloved
dead) that those who have fought in the ranks were morally criminal,
legalized murderers, "full of hatred," actors in a "hellish panorama." Some
of these sufferers may not be much enlightened, but they know what love and
sorrow are. Would it not be more tender and tactful, from the Christian
point of view, to leave to them their consoling belief that those whom they
loved acted from a sense of duty or a sentiment of patriotism; and not, just
at a time of heart-rending sorrow, to press upon them the criminality of all
and every one concerned in any way with war? I commend this suggestion to
those who are not strangers to the value of personal sympathy and gentleness
towards those who mourn.
No, we are not yet looking upon
hell! It may be, it is, an earthly purgatory which we are called to look
upon; a place and an hour of purging and of purifying, such as we must all,
nations and individuals alike, pass through, before we can see the face of
God.
Mr. Fullerton, speaking in the
Melbourne Hall, Leicester, on Jan. 7th of this year, said: - "The Valley of
Achor (Trouble), may be a Door of Hope." "You say the Transvaal belongs to
the Boers; I say it belongs to God. If it belongs specially to any, it
belongs to the Zulus and Kaffirs, on whom, for 100 years, there have been
inflicted wrongs worthy of Arab slave dealers. What has the Boer done to
lift these people? Nothing. As a Missionary said the other day, 'A nation
that lives amongst a lower race of people, and does not try to lift them,
inevitably sinks.' The Boers needed to be chastised; only thus could they be
kept from sinking; only thus can there be hope for the native races. Who
shall chastise them? Another nation, which God wishes also to chastise. Is
therefore God for one nation and not for another? May He not be for one, and
for the other too? If both pray, must He refuse one? Perhaps God is great
enough to answer both, and bringing both through the fire, purge and teach
them."
It would have been bad for us if we
had won an early or an easy victory. We should have been so lifted up with
pride as to be an offence to high Heaven. But we have gone and are going
through deep waters, and the wounds inflicted on many hearts and many homes
are not quickly healed. In this we recognise the hand of God, who is
faithful in chastisement as in blessing.
Many have, no doubt, read, and I
hope some have laid to heart, the words which Lord Rosebery recently
addressed to the Press, but which are applicable to us all at this juncture.
They are wise and statesmanlike words. Taking them as addressed to the
Nation and not to the Press only, they run thus: "At such a juncture we must
be sincere, we must divest ourselves of the mere catchwords and impulses of
party.... We must be prepared to discard obsolete shibboleths, to search out
abuse, to disregard persons, to be instant in pressing for necessary reforms
- social, educational, administrative, and if need be, constitutional.
"Moreover, with regard to a sane
appreciation of the destinies and responsibilities of Empire, we stand at
the parting of the ways. Will Britain flinch or falter in her world-wide
task? How is she best to pursue it? What new forces and inspiration will it
need? What changes does it involve? These are questions which require clear
sight, cool courage, and freedom from formula."[41]
In the conscientious study which I
have endeavoured to make of the history of the past century of British rule
in South Africa, nothing has struck me more than the unfortunate effects in
that Colony of our varying policy inspired by political party spirit in the
Mother Country; and consequently I hail with thankfulness this good counsel
to "divest ourselves of mere catchwords and impulses of party, to discard
obsolete shibboleths, to free ourselves from formula, and to disregard
persons," even if these persons are or have been recognized leaders, and to
abide rather by principles. "What new forces and inspiration do we need,"
Lord Rosebery asks, for the great task our nation has before it? This is a
deep and far-reaching question. The answer to it should be sought and
earnestly enquired after by every man and woman among us, who is worthy of
the name of a true citizen.
My last word must be on behalf of
the Natives. When, thirty years ago, a few among us were impelled to take up
the cause of the victims of the modern white slavery in Europe, we were told
that in our pleadings for principles of justice and for personal rights, we
ought not to have selected a subject in which are concerned persons who may
deserve pity, but who, in fact, are not so important a part of the human
family as to merit such active and passionate sympathy as that which moved
our group. To this our reply was: "We did not choose this question, we did
not ourselves deliberately elect to plead for these persons. The question
was imposed upon us, and once so imposed, we could not escape from the
claims of the oppressed class whose cause we had been called to take up. And
generally, (we replied,) the work of human progress has not consisted in
protecting and supporting any outward forms of government, or the noble or
privileged classes, but in undertaking the defence of the weak, the humble,
of beings devoted to degradation and contempt, or brought under any
oppression or servitude."
It is the same now. My father was
one of the energetic promoters of the Abolition of Slavery in the years
before 1834, a friend of Clarkson and Wilberforce. The horror of slavery in
every form, and under whatever name, which I have probably partly inherited,
has been intensified as life went on. It is my deep conviction that Great
Britain will in future be judged, condemned or justified, according to her
treatment of those innumerable coloured races, heathen or partly
Christianized, over whom her rule extends, or who, beyond the sphere of her
rule, claim her sympathy and help as a Christian and civilizing power to
whom a great trust has been committed.
It grieves me to observe that (so
far as I am able to judge) our politicians, public men, and editors, (with
the exception of the editors of the "religious press,") appear to a great
extent unaware of the immense importance of this subject, even for the
future peace and stability of our Empire, apart from higher interests. It
will be "imposed upon them," I do not doubt, sooner or later, as it has been
imposed upon certain missionaries and others who regard the Divine command
as practical and sensible men should do: "Go ye and teach all nations." All
cannot go to the ends of the earth; but all might cease to hinder by the
dead weight of their indifference, and their contempt of all men of colour.
Dr. Livingstone rebuked the Boers for contemptuously calling all coloured
men Kaffirs, to whatever race they belonged. Englishmen deserve still more
such a rebuke for their habit of including all the inhabitants of India,
East and West, and of Africa, who have not European complexions, under the
contemptuous title of "niggers." Race prejudice is a poison which will have
to be cast out if the world is ever to be Christianized, and if Great
Britain is to maintain the high and responsible place among the nations
which has been given to her.
"It maybe that the Kaffir is
sometimes cruel," says one who has seen and known him, - "he certainly
requires supervision. But he was bred in cruelty and reared in oppression -
the child of injustice and hate. As the springbok is to the lion, as the
locust is to the hen, so is the Kaffir to the Boer; a subject of plunder and
leaven of greed. But the Kaffir is capable of courage and also of the most
enduring affection. He has been known to risk his life for the welfare of
his master's family. He has worked without hope of reward. He has laboured
in the expectation of pain. He has toiled in the snare of the fowler. Yet
shy a brickbat at him! - for he is only a Kaffir! "However much the Native
may excel in certain qualities of the heart, still, until purged of the
poison of racial contempt, that will be the expression of the practical
conclusion of the white man regarding him; "Shy a brickbat at him. He is
only a nigger."
A merely theoretical acknowledgment
of the vital nature of this question, of the future of the Native races and
of Missionary work will not suffice. The Father of the great human family
demands more than this.
"Is not this the fast that I
have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, To undo the heavy
burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that ye break every yoke?"
(ISAIAH lviii. 6.)
I have spoken, in this little book,
as an Abolitionist, - being a member of the "International Federation for
the Abolition of the State regulation of vice." But I beg my readers to
understand that I have here spoken for myself alone, and that my views must
not be understood to be shared by members of the Federation to which I
refer. My Abolitionist friends on the Continent of Europe, with very few
exceptions, hold an opinion absolutely opposed to mine on the general
question here treated. It is not far otherwise in England itself, where many
of our Abolitionists, including some of my oldest and most valued
fellow-workers, stand on a very different ground from mine in this matter. I
value friendship, and I love my old friends. But I love truth more. I have
very earnestly sought to know the truth in the matter here treated. I have
not rejected evidence from any side, having read the most extreme as well as
the more moderate writings on different sides, including those which have
reached me from Holland, France, Switzerland, Germany, and the Transvaal, as
well as those published in England. Having conscientiously arrived at
certain conclusions, based on facts, and on life-long convictions in regard
to some grave matters of principle, I have thought it worth while to put
those conclusions on record. J.E.B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 37: The Transvaal from
Within. FitzPatrick.]
[Footnote 38: This may also be true of the Boer combatants sacrificed for
the sins of their rulers, but I prefer only to attest that of which I have
full proof.]
[Footnote 39: "British Weekly."]
[Footnote 40: An Expression reported to have been used by Mr. Morley.]
[Footnote 41: Daily News, June 4th, 1900.]
