To
resume the cursory history of the Transvaal. Mr. Burger, during his
Presidency in the early seventies, went to Europe with the mission of
attracting capital to the development and exploitation of gold, etc., then
already authentically discovered; also, to provide for the building of a
railway connecting with Delagoa Bay. The Transvaal Boers were at that time
exceedingly poor, and without a sufficient revenue for properly maintaining
the administration. Beyond creating a lively interest, his success was
confined to an agreement with a company in Holland for building a section of
that railroad, which, however, fell through, because the Transvaal proved
ultimately unable to furnish its quota of the necessary funds. The present
President fared better. A Dutch company styled "The Nederlandsch Zuid
Afrikaansche Spoorweg Maatschappy," abbreviated "Z.A.S.M.," undertook the
work and completed it in 1887, from the Portuguese border to Pretoria. The
line from Pretoria to the Natal border was soon after built, as also several
extensions around the Wit-waters Rand, and that from Pretoria to Pietersburg.
The section connecting Delagoa Bay as far as the Transvaal border had
previously been completed by McMurdo, and is the subject of the present
Berne arbitration.[2]
The contract conferred to the Dutch Company a monopoly, and most
advantageous financial terms as well. By that time great strides had been
made in the development of the Transvaal gold-fields, especially at the
Wit-waters Rand (Johannesburg); and immigration on a large scale from all
parts of the world had set in, and was constantly increasing with vast
amounts of investments in mercantile and other enterprises, as well as in
mining industries. At first, equitable laws governed burghers and Uitlanders
alike, administered by an independent judiciary. All desirable security was
afforded for person and property, with confidence in the safety of
investments, and great general prosperity kept pace with ever-increasing
activities and enterprise.
It
was a great satisfaction to Uitlanders that the peace of 1881, and the
reinstatement of Transvaal independence, had restored harmony between Boer
and English, and that a policy was being followed to preclude friction
between the respective Governments. Those facts largely stimulated
investments and enhanced confidence. By 1887 the alien population had
already exceeded 100,000, and the capital investments £200,000,000 sterling,
and the desire so ardently entertained by the people of the land, for twenty
years back, was gratified at last. The burghers shared in the prosperity to
a very large degree, and in lieu of former poverty, competence and wealth
became the rule, and many of them became exceedingly rich. It was not
unusual to hear Boers expressing undisguised gratitude, not merely for the
natural gold deposits, but specially also that people had come to prospect
and to invest capital, without which the wealth of the land would have
remained unexploited and lain fallow. Harmony and cordiality were the proper
outcome between foreigners and Boers. The influx of capital and of
immigrants continued to increase, but not so the happy conditions. These
were gradually getting marred by a spirit of variance, no one seemed to know
how. The study of this paper will reveal it. The variance between Boers and
Uitlanders began to be specially discernible from 1887 and had been
increasing like a blight ever since. This was noticeably coincident with the
numerous arrivals of educated Hollanders employed for the railways and the
Government administration.
In
the earlier period of the Transvaal Republic, one year's residence was first
held sufficient for acquiring full franchise or burgher rights and voting
qualifications. The condition was successively raised to two, three, and
five years; but in 1890 laws were passed which required fourteen years'
probation, with conditions which virtually brought the term to twenty-one
years, and even then left the acquisition of full franchise to the caprice
of field-cornets and higher officials. Englishmen and their descendants were
at one time totally and for ever excluded and disqualified just merely
because of their nationality whilst Hollanders were admitted in very large
numbers without having to pass any probation at all or only comparatively
short terms. The English language became a target for hostility and as good
as proscribed; impracticable and ludicrous attempts even were made to
exclude its use in Johannesburg, where hardly any Uitlander understood
Dutch, whilst every Boer official was well versed in English: market and
auction sales were to be conducted only in Dutch; bills of fare at hotels
and restaurants were also to be in full-fledged Dutch only—and all this, it
must be remembered, some years before the Jameson incursion took place.
The judiciary, which, according to the "Grondwet" (Constitution), was the
highest legal authority, was by one stroke of enactment rendered subservient
and subordinate to the First Volksraad. The then Chief Justice (Kotzee) was
ignominiously deposed for honourably contending against the grave departure
from right and justice in subverting the sacred prerogative due to the
highest tribunal, which Boer and Uitlander alike relied upon for independent
justice.
A
new system of education was next introduced which admitted only High Dutch
as the medium of instruction in public schools. As only Hollander children
could benefit by such tuition, and whereas those of other immigrants could
not understand that language, the effect was that parents of English and
other nationalities had to combine in establishing private schools or else
to employ private teachers at their own expense—whilst paying, in the way of
taxation, for Hollander public schools as well. That oppressive system was
subsequently somewhat modified in a manner which admitted the English
language as a medium for a portion of the school hours, the proportion so
accorded being larger in Johannesburg and other such wholly English-speaking
centres than in other parts of the State; but the amelioration did not take
place until after much irritation and expense had been occasioned, nor did
it meet the case of hardship more than half-way. I may here place the remark
that the public educational department is conducted without stint of
expenditure in providing from Holland the amplest and best school equipments
and highly salaried Dutch professors and teachers.
Irritating class legislation began to be systematically resorted to, to the
prejudice of Uitlanders (the majority of whom, it will be borne in mind,
were English), which painfully pointed to a fixed determination on the part
of the Boers to lord it over them as a totally inferior class, allowing them
no representation, and to treat them, in fact, just as a conquered people
placed under tribute and proper only to be dominated and exploited.
Boers could walk or ride about armed to the teeth, whilst Uitlanders were
forbidden to possess arms under penalty of confiscation and other
punishments (except sporting-guns under special permit). The like
irritations became rampant by 1890 already.
The alien population were at first too much occupied with their prosperous
vocations to combine in the way of protesting against such prevailing usage.
The Press was, however, eventually employed, and the Government was
approached with respectful petitions praying for redress of the most glaring
causes of discontent; but those were invariably either disdainfully rejected
or ignored, or, if some matter was relieved, other more exasperating
enactments were defiantly substituted. They were cynically told that they
had come to their (the Boer's) country unasked, and were at liberty, and in
fact invited, to leave it if the laws did not please them. This was said,
well knowing that to leave would involve too great sacrifices of homes and
investments. The Uitlanders could not, however, be brought to the belief
that the Government of a conscientious people could persist in dealing with
them as if a previous design had existed—first to inveigle them and their
capital into their midst, with the object of goading and despoiling them
afterwards. The course of petitioning and respectful remonstrances was
therefore persevered in, but all to no purpose. Indignation and resentment
were the natural result of those failures. There appeared no alternative but
to submit or else to abandon all and leave the country.
It
is true that numerous Uitlanders acquired competences, and some were
amassing fortunes, but such prizes were comparatively few. The majority just
managed, with varying success, to reap a reasonable return for their outlays
and energies, or only to live more or less comfortably. The fashion of
luxurious and unthrifty living, so prevalent among the "nouveaux riches" and
the section who vied with them, impressed the Boers with the notion that all
were getting rich, and that soon there would be nothing left for them in the
race. In their Hollander Press they were reminded that the gold, in reality
belonging to them, was rapidly being exhausted, and the wealth appropriated
by aliens, whose hewers of wood and drawers of water they would finally
become. All this galled them to the heart, and the Government readily lent
itself to proceedings intended to balance conditions in favour of their
burghers, as the process was described. I will adduce a few instances. As is
well known, it is only burghers and some privileged Hollanders who are
employed in Government service, from President down to policeman. There are
very few exceptions to this rule, which also applies to the nominations of
jurymen, who are well paid too. The salaries of all, especially in the
higher grades, had been largely augmented; the President receiving £8,000
per year, and so on downwards.
For Government supplies and public works the tenders of burghers only, and
perhaps of some privileged persons, are accepted. In many instances the
tenderers are without any pretence of ability for the performance of the
contract, but are nevertheless accepted, performing only a sub rosa rôle.
One such instance occurred some years ago when a burgher who did not possess
£100—a simple farmer and a kind of "slim" speculator—received by Volksraad
vote the contract for building a certain railway.[3] The price included a
very large margin to be distributed in places of interest—as douceurs of
£1,000 to £5,000 each, and £10,000 for the pro forma contractor and his
Volksraad confederates; all those sums were paid out by the firm for whom
the contract was actually taken up.
Similarly in contracts for road making, repairing, and making streets, etc.,
etc. On one occasion a rather highly placed official obtained a contract for
repairing certain streets in Pretoria for £60,000. The work being worth
£20,000 at most, the difference went to be shared by the several official
participants.
One of the first instances of glaring peculation occurred about fifteen
years ago in relation with the Selati railway contract obtained by Baron
Oppenheim. [4] The procedure was publicly stigmatized as bribery. It had
transpired that nearly all the Volksraad's members had received gifts in
cash and values ranging each from £50 to £1,000 prior to voting the
contract, but what was paid after voting did not become public at the time
of exposure.
The acceptance of those gifts was ultimately admitted, in the face of
evidence adduced in a certain law case; denial became, in fact, impossible.
The plea of exoneration was that those gifts had been freely accepted
without pledging the vote. The President publicly exculpated the honourable
members, expressing his conviction that none of them could have meant to
prejudice the State in their votes for the contract; and as there had been
no pledge on their part, the donor had actually incurred the risk of missing
his object. From that time the practice of obtaining and selling concessions
or of sinecures and other lucrative advantages grew quite into a trade; and
receiving douceurs became a hankering passion from highest to lowest, but
happily with not a few exceptions where the official's honour was above
being priced.
There was nothing shocking in all this venality to the bulk of the
Johannesburg speculator class and others of that category. The rest assessed
official morality at a depreciated value, but hoped the blemishes might be
purged out with other and graver causes for discontent, if Uitlanders, were
only granted some effective representation in public matters. That appeared
to be the only constitutional remedy. But this continued to be resentfully
refused, even in matters which partook of purely domestic interest, such as
education, municipal privileges, etc. The latter were opposed upon the
specious argument that such extended rights would constitute an imperium in
imperio, and thus a condition incompatible with the safety and the
conservation of complete control.
In
the usual intercourse with burghers and officials a great deal of
exasperating and even humiliating experiences had often to be endured,
Uitlanders being treated as an inferior class, with scarcely veiled and
often with arrogant assumption of superiority.
I
witnessed a field cornet enjoying free and courteous hospitality at a
Uitlander's house, while being entertained by his host and others in the
vernacular Dutch, peremptorily object to the conversation in English in
which the lady of the house happened to be engaged with another guest at the
further end of the table. His remark was to the effect "that he could not
tolerate English being spoken within his hearing"; this was in about 1888.
No
wonder that under such conditions and ungenial usage Englishmen and other
Uitlanders were put in a resentful mood, and many of them bethought
themselves of methods other than constitutional to improve their position.
Identification was resorted to with the Imperial League, a political
organization called into being in the Cape Colony to stem Boer assertiveness
there and to restrain Bond aspirations. It was also seriously mooted to
obtain the good offices of Great Britain as an influence for intervention
and remonstrance.
It
was not that the Transvaal Government was unaware of its duty and
responsibility to remove causes which produced discontent and resentment
among by far the larger section of the people under its rule. It seemed
rather that the Uitlanders were provoked with systematic intention.
FOOTNOTES:
2. The Berne award has, as is well known, since been given.
3. The Ermelo-Machadodorp branch.
4. These very details were since made public in the Belgian Law courts in
the recent cause célèbre of "The Government of the South African Republic
versus Baron Oppenheim."
