Sir David Harris is
one of our best known and most popular men in South Africa, and a volume of
his memories needs no introduction to South African readers. But with his
usual modesty he has asked me to write a brief foreword to introduce his
book to a wider public beyond our shores, and with perhaps less modesty, but
in equal friendship, I respond most readily to his kind request.
For the last fifty
years and more South Africa has been the happy or unhappy hunting-ground of
distinguished men. Many of them were not African born, but were attracted by
the lure of Africa—its mystery, the openings it offered for travel and
discovery, its climate and scenery, its wonderful history, its gold and
diamonds. Here they have had unusual opportunities, which have given them
the chance in life which might have been denied them in older, more settled
countries. The result has been a crop of outstanding men, rare for so young
and primitive a community. Thus it has happened that South Africa has been
even more distinguished for its human products than for its gold and
diamonds.
Among these
distinguished men whom we have produced or nourished during the last fifty
years Sir David Harris occupies a place all his own. I am not going to
anticipate the interesting record which will be set forth in this book, but
this I may say, that the story of the boy who came to South Africa on the
discovery of diamonds near the future Kimberley more than half a century
ago, and who has since played a distinguished part in the industrial and
public life of South Africa, is certain to prove of deep interest to a very
wide circle of readers. Here is vivid first-hand experience, not written up
for literary purposes, but written down in all directness and sincerity. Sir
David Harris's account of the old mining days and conditions in South
Africa, the story of his association with many of the important events
during this half-century which have given South Africa its place in the sun,
his reminiscences of the remarkable men who have dominated the South African
scene during that period, his picture of the amazing developments in South
Africa during his long lifetime, constitute a great record, as interesting
to the general reader as it will be valuable to the historian of the future.
It covers a wonderful era, full of drama and incident, which would require
the pen of an ancient Greek rather than a modern South African to do justice
to. Here is the real stuff of history, and the comment and the padding can
be added by the scribes who will follow this generation of doers. Many of
our actors are, alas! passing from the scene without leaving a written
record behind, and the world is the poorer for the loss. All the greater,
therefore, is our gratitude to find this septuagenarian, this Trojan of our
immediate past, setting down his experiences in such an interesting and
faithful manner as this book will reveal. There is a good deal of plain
speaking, but not a trace of bitterness. Sir David has been a great friend,
and here we have a book of friendship, in which good humour and sympathy
play over the scenes of the past and bind the whole together in a story of
deep human interest. It deserves and I am sure will find a large circle of
interested readers not only in South Africa but far beyond.
A concluding word of
tribute to my old friend and comrade in his long political association,
first with General Botha and thereafter with me. He proved as stout a friend
as he had been a redoubtable opponent in the far-off days of the Boer war. I
never had or wished for a better comrade. His broad sympathies and wide
experience made him a link between opposing leaders which proved invaluable
on many a difficult occasion, and the service which he was thus, and in
other ways,
able to render the
country has been outstanding. With literally no enemy, and surrounded by the
sympathy and goodwill of hosts of friends, he passes on to the reserve,
where South Africa still has a call on his great fund of experience and
wisdom. Our best wishes accompany him in his political retirement.
