SOUTH AFRICA
Before Froude had written the last chapter of The English in Ireland
he was visited by the greatest sorrow of his life. Mrs. Froude died
suddenly in February, 1874. It had been a perfect marriage, and he
never enjoyed the same happiness afterwards. Carlyle and his
faithful friend Fitzjames Stephen were the only persons he could see
at first, though he manfully completed the book on which he was
engaged. It was long before he rallied from the shock, and he felt
as if he could never write again. He dreaded "the length of years
which might yet lie ahead of him before he could have his discharge
from service." He took a melancholy pride in noting that none of the
reviewers discovered any special defects in those final pages of his
book which had been written under such terrible conditions. Mrs.
Froude had thoroughly understood all her husband's moods, and her
quiet humour always cheered him in those hours of gloom from which a
man of his sensitive nature could not escape. She could use a gentle
mockery which was always effective, along with her common sense, in
bringing out the true proportions of things. Conscious as she was of
his social brilliancy and success, she would often tell the children
that they lost nothing by not going out with him, because their
father talked better at home than he talked anywhere else. Her deep
personal religion was the form of belief with which he had most
sympathy, and which he best understood, regarding it as the
foundation of virtue and conduct and honour and truth. He attended
with her the services of the Church, which satisfied him whenever
they were performed with the reverent simplicity familiar to his
boyhood. Happily he was not left alone. He had two young children to
love, and his eldest daughter was able to take her stepmother's
place as mistress of his house. With the children he left London as
soon as he could, and tried to occupy his mind by reading to them
from Don Quixote, or, on a Sunday, from The Pilgrim's Progress. To
the end of his life he felt his loss; and when he was offered,
fifteen years later, the chance of going back to his beloved
Derreen, he shrank from the associations it would have recalled.
He took a house for his family in Wales, which he described in the
following letter to Lady Derby:
"CROGAN HOUSE, Corwen, June 3rd, 1874.
"I do not know if I told you upon what a curious and interesting old
place we have fallen for our retirement. The walls of the room in which
I am writing are five feet thick. The old part of the house
must have been an Abbey Grange; the cellars run into a British
tumulus, the oaks in the grounds must many of them be as old as the
Conquest, and the site of the parish church was a place of
pilgrimage probably before Christianity. Stone coffins are turned
over on the hillsides in making modern improvements. Denfil Gadenis'
(the mediaeval Welsh saint's) wooden horn still stands in the church
porch, and the sense of strangeness and antiquity is the more
palpable because hardly a creature in the valley, except the cows
and the birds, speak in a language familiar to me. It was Owen
Glendower's country. Owen himself doubtless has many times ridden
down the avenue. We are in the very heart of Welsh nationality,
which was always a respectable thing--far more so than the Celticism
of the Gaels and Irish. We are apt to forget that the Tudors were
Welsh." Fortunately a plan suggested itself which gave him variety
of occupation and change of scene. Disraeli's Government had just
come into office, and with the Colonial Secretary, Lord Carnarvon,
Froude was on intimate terms. Froude had always been interested in
the Colonies, and was an advocate of Federation long before it had
become a popular scheme. As early as 1870 he wrote to Skelton:
"Gladstone and Co. deliberately intend to shake off the Colonies.
They are privately using their command of the situation to make the
separation inevitable."* I do not know what this means. Lord
Dufferin has left it on record that after his appointment to Canada
in 1872 Lowe came up to him at the club, and said, "Now, you ought
to make it your business to get rid of the Dominion." But Lowe was
in the habit of saying paradoxical things, and it was Disraeli, not
Gladstone, who spoke of the Colonies as millstones round our necks.
Cardwell, the Secretary for War, withdrew British troops from Canada
and New Zealand, holding that the self-governing Colonies should be
responsible for their own defence. That wise policy fostered union
rather than separation, by providing that the working classes at
home should not be taxed for the benefit of their colonial fellow-
subjects. Lord Carnarvon himself had passed in 1867 the Bill which
federated Canada and which his Liberal predecessor had drawn. He was
now anxious to carry out a similar scheme in South Africa, and
Froude offered to find out for him how the land lay. His visit was
not to be in any sense official. He would be ostensibly travelling
for his health, which was always set up by a voyage. He was
interested in extending to South Africa Miss Rye's benevolent plans
of emigration to Canada; in the treatment of a Kaffir chief called
Langalibalele; and in the disputes which had arisen from the
annexation of the Diamond Fields. Thus there were reasons for his
trip enough and to spare. He would, it was thought, be more likely
to obtain accurate information if the principal purpose of his visit
were kept in the background.
--
*Table Talk of Shirley, p. 142.
--
There was one great and fundamental difference between the case of
Canada and the case of South Africa. Canada had itself asked for
federation, and Parliament simply gave effect to the wish of the
Canadians. Opinion in South Africa was notoriously divided, and the
centre of opposition was at Cape Town. Natal had not yet obtained a
full measure of self-government, and the lieutenant-Governor, Sir
Benjamin Pine, had excited indignation among all friends of the
natives by arbitrary imprisonment, after a mock trial, of a Kaffir
chief. Lord Carnarvon had carefully to consider this case, and also
to decide whether the mixed Constitution of Natal, which would not
work, should be reformed or annulled. A still more serious
difficulty was connected with the Diamond Fields, officially known
as Griqualand West. The ownership of this district had been disputed
between the Orange Free State and a native chief called Nicholas
Waterboer. In 1872 Lord Kimberley, as Secretary of State for the
Colonies, had purchased it from Waterboer at a price ludicrously
small in proportion to its value, and it had since been annexed to
the British dominions by the Governor, Sir Henry Barkly. Waterboer,
who knew nothing about the value of money, was satisfied. The Orange
State vehemently protested, and President Brand denounced the annexation
as a breach of faith. Not only, he said, were the Diamond
Fields within the limits of his Republic; the agreement between
Waterboer and the Secretary of State was itself a breach of the
Orange River Convention, by which Great Britain undertook not to
negotiate with any native chief north of the River Vaal. Lord
Kimberley paid no heed to Brand's remonstrances. He denied
altogether the validity of the Dutch claim, and he would not hear of
arbitration. By the time that Lord Carnarvon came into office
thousands of British settlers were digging for diamonds in
Griqualand West, and its abandonment was impossible. Brand himself
did not wish to take the responsibility of governing it. But he
continued to press the case for compensation, and the British
Government, which had forced independence upon the Boers, appeared
in the invidious light of shirking responsibility while grasping at
mineral wealth. If it had not been for this untoward incident, the
Dutch Republics would have been more favourable to Lord Carnarvon's
policy than Cape Colony was. The Transvaal was imperfectly protected
against the formidable power of the Zulus, and a general rising of
blacks against whites was the real danger which threatened South
Africa.
That peril, however, was felt more acutely in Natal than in Cape
Colony. The Cape had for two years enjoyed responsible government,
and its first Prime Minister was John Charles Molteno.
Molteno was not in any other respect a remarkable man. He had come
to the post by adroit management of a miscellaneous community,
comprising British, Dutch, and Kaffirs. He was personally
incorruptible, and he played the game according to the rules. He
would have called himself, and so far as his opportunities admitted,
he was, a constitutional statesman, justly proud of the position to
which his own qualities had raised him, and extremely jealous of
interference Downing Street. He had no responsibility, he was never
tired of explaining, for the acquisition of the Diamond Fields, and
he left the Colonial Office to settle that matter with President
Brand. Local politics were his business. He did not look beyond the
House of Assembly at Cape Town, which it was his duty to lead, and
the Governor, Sir Henry Barkly, with whom he was on excellent terms.
His own origin, which was partly English and partly Italian, made it
easy for him to be impartial between the two white races in South
Africa. For the Kaffirs he had no great tenderness. They had votes,
and if they chose to sell them for brandy that was their own affair.
Of what would now be called Imperialism Molteno had no trace. He
would support Federation when in his opinion it suited the interests
of Cape Colony, and not an hour before.
Froude left Dartmouth in the Walmer Castle on the 23rd of August,
1874. He occupied himself during the voyage partly in discussing the
affairs of the Cape with his fellow-passengers, and partly in
reading Greek. The "Leaves from a South African Journal," which
close the third volume of Short Studies, describe his journey in his
most agreeably colloquial style. A piece of literary criticism
adorns the entry for September 4th. "I have been feeding hitherto on
Greek plays: this morning I took Homer instead, and the change is
from a hot-house to the open air. The Greek dramatists, even
Aeschylus himself, are burdened with a painful consciousness of the
problems of human life, with perplexed theories of Fate and
Providence. Homer is fresh, free, and salt as the ocean."
No sooner had Froude landed at Cape Town than he began tracing all
its evils to responsible government. The solidity of the houses
reminded him that they were built under an absolute system. "What is
it which has sent our Colonies into so sudden a frenzy for what they
call political liberty?" A movement which has been in steady
progress for thirty years can scarcely be called sudden, even though
it be regarded as a frenzy, and so far back as 1776 there were
British colonists beyond the seas who attached some practical value
to freedom. A drive across the peninsula of Table Mountain suggested
equally positive reflections of another kind. "Were England wise in
her generation, a line of forts from Table Bay to False Bay would be
the northern limit of her Imperial responsibilities."
This had been the cherished policy of Lord Grey at the Colonial
Office, and the Whigs generally inclined to the same view. But it
was already obsolete. Lord Kimberley had proceeded on exactly the
opposite principle, and Lord Carnarvon's object in Federation was
certainly not to diminish the area of the British Empire.
If Froude talked in South Africa as he wrote in his journal, his
conversation must have been more interesting than discreet. "Every
one," he wrote from Port Elizabeth, on the 27th of September, 1874,
"approves of the action of the Natal Government in the Langalibalele
affair. I am told that if Natal is irritated it may petition to
relinquish the British connection, and to be allowed to join the
Free States. I cannot but think that it would have been a wise
policy, when the Free States were thrown off, to have attached Natal
to them." Lord Carnarvon disapproved of the Natal Government's
action, released Langalibalele, and recalled the Lieutenant-
Governor. His policy was as wise as it was courageous, and no
proposal to relinquish the British connection followed. Froude was a
firm believer in the Dutch method of dealing with Kaffirs, and he
had no more prejudice against slavery than Carlyle himself. But his
sense of justice was offended by the treatment of Langalibalele, and
if he had been Secretary of State he would have done as Lord
Carnarvon did. With the Boers Froude had a good deal of sympathy.
Their religion, a purer Calvinism than existed even in Scotland,
appealed to his deepest sentiments, and he admired the austere
simplicity of their lives. No one could accuse a Cape Dutchman of
complicity in such horrors as progress and the march of intellect.
On his way from Cape Town to Durban Froude was told a characteristic
story of a Dutch farmer. "His estate adjoined the Diamond Fields.
Had he remained where he was, he could have made a large fortune.
Milk, butter, poultry, eggs, vegetables, fruit, went up to fabulous
prices. The market was his own to demand what he pleased. But he was
disgusted at the intrusion upon his solitude. The diggers worried
him from morning to night, demanding to buy, while he required his
farm produce for his own family. He sold his land, in his
impatience, for a tenth of what he might have got had he cared to
wait and bargain, mounted his wife and children into his waggon, and
moved off into the wilderness." Froude's sarcastic comment is not
less characteristic than the story. "Which was the wisest man, the
Dutch farmer or the Yankee who was laughing at him? The only book
that the Dutchman had ever read was the Bible, and he knew no
better."*
--
* Short Studies, iii. 497.
--
The state of Natal, which was then perplexing the Colonial Office,
puzzled Froude still more. Four courses seemed to him possible.
Natal might be annexed to Cape Colony, made a province of a South
African Federation, governed despotically by a soldier, or left to
join the Dutch Republics. The fifth course, which was actually
taken, of giving it responsible government by stages, did not come
within the scope of his ideas. The difficulty of Federation lay, as
it seemed to him, in the native problem.
"If we can make up our minds to allow the colonists to manage the
natives their own way, we may safely confederate the whole country.
The Dutch will be in the majority, and the Dutch method of
management will more or less prevail. They will be left wholly to
themselves for self-defence, and prudence will prevent them from
trying really harsh or aggressive measures. In other respects the
Dutch are politically conservative, and will give us little
trouble." If, on the other hand, native policy was to be directed
from home, or, in other words, if adequate precautions were to be
taken against slavery, a federal system would be useless, and South
Africa must be governed like an Indian province.
Pretoria Froude found full of English, loudly demanding annexation.
He told them, speaking of course only for himself, that it was
impossible, because the Cape was a self-governing Colony, and the
Dutch majority "would take any violence offered to their kinsmen in
the Republics as an injury to themselves." To annexation without
violence, by consent of the Boers, the great obstacle, so Froude
found, was the seizure, the fraudulent seizure, as they thought it,
of the Diamond Fields. He visited Kimberley, called after the
Colonial Secretary who acquired it, "like a squalid Wimbledon Camp
set down in an arid desert." The method of digging for diamonds was
then primitive.
"Each owner works by himself or with his own servants. He has his
own wire rope, and his own basket, by which he sends his stuff to
the surface to be washed. The rim of the pit is fringed with
windlasses. The descending wire ropes stretch from them thick as
gossamers on an autumn meadow. The system is as demoralising as it
is ruinous. The owner cannot be ubiquitous: if he is with his
working cradle, his servants in the pit steal his most valuable
stones and secrete them. Forty per cent of the diamonds discovered
are supposed to be lost in this way."* The proportion of profit
between employer and employed seems to have been fairer than usual,
though it might, no doubt, have been more regularly arranged.
At Bloemfontein Froude called on President Brand, "a resolute,
stubborn-looking man, with a frank, but not over-conciliatory,
expression of face." Brand was in no conciliatory mood. He held that
his country had been robbed of land which the British Government
renounced in 1854, and only resumed now because diamonds had been
discovered on it. The interview, however, was neither unimportant
nor unsatisfactory. It was followed by an invitation to dinner, and
frank discussion of the whole subject. So firmly convinced was
Froude of the President's good faith and of the injustice done him
that he pleaded the cause of the Free State with the Colonial
Office, and Lord Carnarvon settled the dispute in a friendly manner
by the payment of a reasonable sum.+ But that was not till 1876,
after Brand had visited London, and seen Lord Carnarvon himself.
--
* Short Studies, vol. iii. p. 537.
+ 90,000 lbs.
--
At the end of 1874 Froude returned to England, and reported to Lord
Carnarvon what he had observed. The Colonial Secretary, just, but
punctilious, was unwilling to reverse Lord Kimberley's policy, and
Froude discovered that party politics, to which he traced all our
woes, had much less to do with administration than he imagined.
Under the influence of Bishop Colenso, an intrepid friend of the
natives, Lord Carnarvon had already interfered on behalf of
Langalibalele, but that only involved overruling the Government of
Natal. After mature consideration he wrote a despatch to Sir Henry
Barkly in which stress was laid upon the importance of arranging all
differences with the Orange State. Then he proceeded to the subject
of Federation, which was always in his mind and at his heart. Here
he unfortunately failed to make allowance for the sensitive pride of
Colonial statesmen. He proposed the assemblage of a Federal
Conference at Cape Town, at which Froude would represent the Colonial
Office. For Cape Colony he suggested the names of the Prime
Minister, Molteno, and of Paterson, who led the Opposition.
In June, 1875, Froude went back to South Africa, this time as an
acknowledged emissary of the Government, but by ill luck his
arrival coincided with the receipt of the despatch. The effect of
this document was prodigious. Molteno considered that he had been
personally insulted. The Legislative Assembly was defiant, and
greeted the recital of Carnarvon's words with ironical laughter. A
Ministerial Minute, signed by Molteno and his colleagues, protested
against the Colonial Secretary's intrusion, and especially against
his rather ill advised reference to a proposed separation of the
eastern from the western provinces of the Cape. It was a fact that
Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown, where there were very few Dutch,
considered that they paid proportionately too much towards the
colonial revenues, and desired separate treatment. But the people of
Cape Town strongly objected, and it was unwise for the Secretary of
State to take a side in local politics. Froude found his position by
no means agreeable. Molteno, though never discourteous, received him
coldly, and objected to his making speeches. The Governor, who liked
to be good friends with his Ministers, gave him no encouragement.
The House of Assembly, after proposing to censure Carnarvon in their
haste, censured Froude at their leisure. That did him no harm. But
he disliked the new position in which he found himself, and in his
private journal he expressed his sentiments freely.
He had not been long in Cape Town when he wrote, on the 9th of July,
1875, to his eldest daughter a full and vivid account of the
political situation. "I am glad," he said, "that no one is with me
who cares for me. No really good thing can be carried out without
disturbing various interests. The Governor and Parliament have set
themselves against Lord Carnarvon. The whole country has declared
itself enthusiastically for him. The consequence is that the
opposition, who are mortified and enraged, now daily pour every sort
of calumny on my unfortunate head. I don't read more of it than I
can help, but some things I am forced to look at in order to answer;
and the more successful my mission promises to be, the more violent
and unscrupulous become those whose pockets are threatened by it. I
wait in Cape Town till the next English steamer arrives, and then I
mean to start for a short tour in the neighbourhood. I shall make my
way by land to Mossel Bay, and then go on by sea to Port Elizabeth
and Natal, where I shall wait for orders from home. Sir Garnet* has
written me a very affectionate letter, inviting me to stay with him.
Here the authorities begin to be more respectful than they were.
Last night there was a State Dinner at Government House, when I took
in Lady Barkly. Miss Barkly would hardly speak to me. I don't
wonder. She is devoted to her father; I would do exactly the same in
her place. I sent you a paper with an account of the dinner, and my
speech, but you must not think that the dinner represented Cape Town
society generally. Cape Town society, up to the reception at
Government House, has regarded me as some portentous object come
here to set the country on fire, and to be regarded with tremors by
all respectable people. Outside Cape Town, on the contrary, in every
town in the country, Dutch or English, I should be carried through
the streets on the people's shoulders if I would only allow it, so
you see I am in an 'unexampled situation.'+ The Governor's dinner
cards had on them 'to meet Mr. Froude.' I am told that no less than
eight people who were invited refused in mere terror of me ....
Things are in a wild state here, and grow daily wilder. I am
responsible for having lighted the straw; and if Lord Carnarvon has
been frightened at the first bad news, there will be danger of real
disturbance. The despatch has created a real enthusiasm, and excited
hopes which must not now be disappointed." "Never," he wrote a few
weeks afterwards, "never did a man of letters volunteer into a more
extraordinary position than that in which I find myself." Sir Garnet
Wolseley stood by him through thick and thin. After Sir Garnet's
departure he had no English friend. His local supporters were "all
looking out for themselves," and there was not one among them in whom
he could feel any real confidence."
--
* The present Lord Wolseley.
+ A favourite expression with Mrs. Carlyle.
--
Of Molteno he made no personal complaint, and he always considered
him the fittest man for his post in South Africa. But Colonial
politicians as a whole were "not gentlemen with whom it was
agreeable to be forced into contact." To give the Colony responsible
government has been "an act of deliberate insanity" on the part of
Lord Kimberley and the Liberal Cabinet. Froude endeavoured loyally
and faithfully to carry out the policy of the Colonial Office, and
his relations with Lord Carnarvon were relations of unbroken
confidence. His objects were purely unselfish and patriotic. It was
his misfortune rather than his fault to become involved in local
politics, from which it was essential for the success of his mission
that he should keep entirely aloof. Circumstances brought him into
much greater favour with the Dutch than with his own countrymen, for
it was thought, not without reason, that he had brought Carnarvon
round to see the truth about the Diamond Fields and the Free State.
He made them speeches, and they received him with enthusiasm. With
Molteno, on the other hand, he found it impossible to act, and the
Governor supported Molteno. Barkly was not unfavourable to
Federation. But he perceived that it could not be forced upon a
self-governing Colony, and that he himself would be powerless unless
he acted in harmony with his constitutional advisers. He, as well as
Molteno, refused to attend the dinner at which Froude on his arrival
was entertained in Cape Town. Molteno advised Froude not to go, or
if he went, not to speak. Froude, however, both went and spoke,
claiming as an Englishman the right of free speech in a British
Colony. The right was of course incontestable. The expediency was a
very different matter. Froude was not accustomed to public speaking,
and only long experience can teach that most difficult part of the
process, the instinctive avoidance of what should not be said. His
brilliant lectures were all read from manuscript, and he had never
been in the habit of thinking on his legs. In 1874 he could at least
say that he spoke only for himself. In 1875 he committed the
Colonial Office, and even the Cabinet, to his own personal opinions,
which were not in favour of Parliamentary Government as understood
either by Englishmen or by Africanders. He was accused of getting up
a popular agitation on behalf of the Imperial authorities against
the Governor of the Colony, his Ministers, and the Legislative
Assembly of the Cape. He did in fact, under a strong sense of duty,
urge Carnarvon to recall Barkly, and to substitute for him Sir
Garnet Wolseley, who had temporarily taken over the administration
of Natal.
Sir Garnet, however, had no such ambition. Soldiering was the business
of his life, and he had had quite enough of constitutionalism in
Natal. Barkly was for the present maintained, and Froude regarded his
maintenance as fatal to Federation. But Sir Bartle Frere, who
succeeded him, was not more fortunate, and the real mistake was
interference from home. To Froude his experience of South Africa came
as a disagreeable shock. A passionate believer in Greater Britain, in
the expansion of England, in the energy, resources, and prospects of
the Queen's dominions beyond the seas, the parochialism of Cape Colony
astonished and perplexed him. While he was dreaming of a Federated
Empire, and Paterson were counting heads in the Cape Assembly, and
considering what would be the political result if the eastern
provinces set up for themselves. If South Africa were federated, would
Cape Town remain the seat of government? To Froude such a question was
paltry and trivial. To a Cape Town shopkeeper it loomed as large as
Table Mountain. The attitude of Molteno's Ministry, on the other hand,
seemed as ominous to him as it seemed obvious to the Colonists. He
thought it fatal to the unity of the Empire, and amounting to absolute
independence. He did not understand the people with whom he had to
deal. Most of them were as loyal subjects as himself, and never
contemplated for a moment secession from the Empire. All they claimed
was complete freedom to manage their own affairs, to federate or not
to federate, as they pleased and when they pleased. They had only just
acquired full constitutional rights; and if they sometimes exaggerated
the effect of them, the error was venial. If Carnarvon, instead of
writing for publication an elaborate and official despatch, had
explained his policy to the Governor in private letters, and directed
him to sound Molteno in confidence, the Cape Ministers might
themselves have proposed a scheme; and if they had proposed it, it
would have been carried. Had Froude said nothing at dinners, or on
platforms, he might have exercised far more influence behind the
scenes. But he was an enthusiast for Federation by means of a South
African Conference, and he made a proselytising tour through the
Colony. The Dutch welcomed him because he acknowledged their rights.
At Grahamstown too, and at Port Elizabeth, he was hailed as the
champion of separation for the eastern provinces. The Legislative
Assembly at Cape Town, however, was hostile, and the proposed
conference fell through. Lord Carnarvon did not see the full
significance of the fact that the Confederation of Canada had been
first mooted within the Dominion itself.
An interesting account of Froude at this time has been given by Sir
George Colley, the brilliant and accomplished soldier whose career
was cut short six years afterwards at Majuba:
"I came home from the Cape, and almost lived on the way with Mr.
Froude .... It was rather a sad mind, sometimes grand, sometimes
pathetic and tender, usually cynical, but often relating with the
highest appreciation, and with wonderful beauty of language, some
gallant deed of some of his heroes of the fifteenth or sixteenth
centuries. He seemed to have gone through every phase of thought,
and come to the end 'All is vanity.' He himself used to say the
interest of life to a thinking man was exhausted at thirty, or
thirty-five. After that there remained nothing but disappointment of
earlier visions and hopes. Sometimes there was something almost
fearful in the gloom, and utter disbelief, and defiance of his
mind."*
--
* Butler's Life of Colley, p. 145.
--
The picture is a sombre one. But it must be remembered that the
death of his wife was still weighing heavily upon Froude.
A few days after his return to London Froude wrote a long and
interesting Report to the Secretary of State, which was laid before
Parliament in due course. Few documents more thoroughly unofficial
have ever appeared in a Blue Book. The excellence of the paper as a
literary essay is conspicuous. But its chief value lies in the
impression produced by South African politics upon a penetrating and
observant mind trained under wholly different conditions. Froude
would not have been a true disciple of Carlyle if he had felt or
expressed much sympathy with the native race. He wanted them to be
comfortable. For freedom he did not consider them fit. It was the
Boers who really attracted him, and the man he admired the most in
South Africa was President Brand. The sketch of the two Dutch
Republics in his Report is drawn with a very friendly hand. He
thought, not without reason, that they had been badly treated. Their
independence, which they did not then desire, had been forced upon
them by Lord Grey and the Duke of Newcastle. The Sand River
Convention of 1852, and the Orange River Convention of 1854,
resulted from British desire to avoid future responsibility outside
Cape Colony and Natal. As for the Dutch treatment of the Kaffirs, it
had never in Froude's opinion been half so bad as Pine's treatment
of Langalibalele. By the second article of the Orange River
Convention, renewed and ratified at Aliwal after the Basuto war in
1869, Her Majesty's Government promised not to make any agreement
with native chiefs north of the Vaal River. Yet, when diamonds were
discovered north of the Vaal in Griqualand West, the territory was
purchased by Lord Kimberley from Nicholas Waterboer, without the
consent, and notwithstanding the protests, of the Orange Free State.
But although Lord Kimberley assented to the annexation of Griqualand
West in 1871, he only did so on the distinct understanding that Cape
Colony would undertake to administer the Diamond Fields, and this
the Cape Ministers refused to do, lest they should offend their
Dutch constituents.
It was not till 1878, when all differences with the Free State had
been settled, and the Transvaal was a British possession, that
Griqualand West became an integral part of Cape Colony. In January,
1876, Brand was still asking for arbitration, and Carnarvon was
still refusing it.
When he explained the Colonial Secretary's policy to the Colonial
Secretary himself Froude came very near explaining it away. The
Conference, he said, was only intended to deal with the native
question and the question of Griqualand. Was Confederation then a
dream? Froude himself, in a private letter to Molteno, dated April
29th, 1875, wrote, "Lord Carnarvon's earnest desire since he came
into office has been if possible to form South Africa into a
confederate dominion, with complete internal self-government."* That
was the whole object of the Conference, which but for that would
never have been proposed. That, as Froude truly says in his Report,
was one of Molteno's reasons for resisting it. The Cape Premier
thought that South Africa was not ripe for Confederation. If Froude
had had more practice in drawing up official documents, he would
probably have left out this deprecatory argument, which does not
agree with the rest of his case. He attributes, for instance, to
local politicians a dread that the supremacy of Cape Town would be
endangered. But no possible treatment of the natives, or of
Griqualand West, would have endangered the supremacy of Cape Town.
The Confederation of which Froude and Carnarvon were champions would
have avoided tremendous calamities if it could have been carried
out. The chief difficulties in its way were Colonial jealousy of
interference from Downing Street and Dutch exasperation at the
seizure of the Diamond Fields. "You have trampled on those poor
States, sir," said a member of the Cape Legislature to Froude, "till
the country cries shame upon you, and you come now to us to assist
you in your tyranny; we will not do it, sir. We are astonished that
you should dare to ask us." Such language was singularly
inappropriate to Froude himself, for the Boers never had a warmer
advocate than they had in him. But the circumstances in which
Griqualand West were annexed will excuse a good deal of strong
language. At Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown Froude was welcomed as
an advocate of their local independence, which was what they most
desired. When, with unusual prudence, he declined to take part in a
separatist campaign, their zeal for Confederation soon cooled. On
the other hand, the Dutch papers all supported the Conference,
although Brand refused to lay his case before it, or to treat with
any authority except the British Government at home.
--
* Life of Molteno, vol. i. p. 337.
--
Neither Froude nor Carnarvon made sufficient allowance for Colonial
independence and the susceptibilities of Colonial Ministers. Many of
Froude's expressions in public were imprudent, and he himself in his
Report apologised for his unguarded language at Grahamstown, where
he said that Molteno's reply to Carnarvon's despatch would have
meant war if it had come from a foreign state. Yet in the main their
policy was a wise one, and they saw farther ahead than the men who
worked the political machine at Cape Town. Froude was too sanguine
when he wrote, "A Confederate South African Dominion, embracing all
the States, both English and Dutch, under a common flag, may be expected
as likely to follow, and perhaps at no very distant period." But he
added that it would have to come by the deliberate action of the
South African communities themselves. That was not the only
discovery he had made in South Africa. He had found that the
Transavll, reputed then and long afterwards in England to be
worthless, was rich in minerals, including gold. He warned the
Colonial Office that Cetewayo, with forty thousand armed men, was a
serious danger to Natal. He saw clearly, and said plainly that
unless South Africa was to be despotically governed, it must be
administered with the consent and approval of the Dutch. He dwelt
strongly upon the danger of allowing and encouraging natives to
procure arms in Griqualand West as an enticement to work for the
diamond owners. The secret designs of Sir Theophilus Shepstone he
did not penetrate, and therefore he was unprepared for the next
development in the South African drama. The South African Conference
in London, which he attended during August, 1876, led to no useful
result because Molteno, though he had come to London, and was
discussing the affairs of Griqualand with Lord Carnarvon, refused to
attend it. This was the end of South African Confederation, and the
permissive Act of 1877, passed after the Transvaal had been annexed,
remained a dead letter on the Statute Book.
Although the immediate purpose of Froude's visits to South Africa
was not attained, it would be a mistake to infer that they had no
results at all. Early in 1877 the annexation of the Transvaal, to
which Froude was strongly opposed, changed the whole aspect of
affairs, and from that time the strongest opponents of Federalism
were the Dutch. But the credit of settling with the Orange Free
State a dispute which might have led to infinite mischief is as much
Froude's as Carnarvon's, and as a consequence of their wise conduct
President Brand became for the rest of his life a steady friend to
the British power in South Africa. Ninety thousand pounds was a
small price to pay for the double achievement of reconciling a model
State and wiping out a stain upon England's honour.
More than four years after his second return from South Africa, in
January, 1880, Froude delivered two lectures to the Philosophical
Society of Edinburgh, in which his view of South African policy is
with perfect clearness set forth. He condemns the annexation of the
Transvaal, and the Zulu war. He expresses a wish that Lord
Carnarvon, who had resigned two years before, could be permanent
Secretary for the Colonies. "I would give back the Transvaal to the
Dutch," he said. Again, in even more emphatic language, "The
Transvaal, in spite of prejudices about the British flag, I still
hope that we shall return to its lawful owners."* What is more
surprising, he recommended that Zululand should be restored to
Cetewayo, or Cetewayo to Zululand. He had predicted in 1875 that
Cetewayo would prove a troublesome person, and few men had less of
the sentiment which used to be associated with Exeter Hall. The
restoration of Cetewayo, when it came was disastrous both to himself
and to others. Frere understood the Zulus better than Froude or
Colenso. The surrender of the Transvaal, which was a good deal
nearer than Froude thought, was at least successful for a time, a
longer time than Froude's own life. He did not share Gladstone's
ignorance of its value; he knew it to be rich in minerals,
especially in gold. But he knew also that Carnarvon had been
deceived about the willingness of the inhabitants to become British
subjects, and he sympathised with their independence. It illustrates
his own fairness and detachment of mind that he should have taken so
strong and so unpopular a line when the Boers were generally
supposed in England to have acquiesced in the loss of their liberties,
and when his hero Sir Garnet Wolseley, to whom he dedicated his English
in Ireland, had declared that the Vaal would run back to the Drakensberg
before the British flag ceased to wave over Pretoria.
--
* Two Lectures on South Africa, pp. 80, 81, 85.
--
Froude's South African policy was to work with the Dutch, and keep
the natives in their places. He had no personal interest in the
question. It was through Lord Carnarvon that he came in contact with
South Africa at all, and there were few statesmen with whom he more
thoroughly agreed. When Disraeli came for the second time into
office, and for the first time into power, Froude was well pleased.
In 1875, after his legal disqualification had been removed, he was
again invited to become a candidate for Parliament. But he did not
really know to which party he belonged.
"Four weeks ago," he wrote to Lady Derby on the 3rd of April, "the
Liberal Whip (Mr. Adam) asked me to stand for the Glasgow and
Aberdeen Universities on very easy terms to myself. I declined,
because I should have had to commit myself to the Liberal party,
which I did not choose to do. Lord Carnarvon afterwards spoke to me
with regret at my resolution. He had a conversation with Mr.
D'Israeli, and it was agreed that if possible I should be brought in
by a compromise without a contest. But it appeared doubtful
afterwards whether the Liberals would consent to this without fuller
pledges than I could consent to give. I was asked if I would stand
anyhow (contest or not), or whether I would allow myself to be
nominated in their interest for any other place when a vacancy
should occur. I said, No. (I would stand a contest on the
Conservative side, if on any.) I was neither Conservative nor
Liberal per se, but would not oppose Mr. D'Israeli. So there this
matter lies, unless your people have as good an opinion of me as the
others, and want a candidate of my lax description. But indeed I
have no wish to go into Parliament. I am too old to begin a
Parliamentary life, and infinitely prefer making myself of use to
the Conservative side in some other way .... I am at Lord
Carnarvon's service if he wishes me to go on with his Colonial
affairs. I came home from the Cape to be of use to him."
The Colonial policy of the Liberals Froude had always regarded with
suspicion. Even Lord Kimberley's grant of a constitution to the Cape
he interpreted as showing a centrifugal tendency, and Cardwell's
withdrawal of troops from Canada was all of a piece. Disraeli, on
the other hand, who never did anything for the Colonies, had been
making a speech about them at Manchester, wherein all manner of
Colonial possibilities were suggested. They did not go, if they were
ever intended to go, beyond suggestion, and in 1876 the sudden
crisis in Eastern affairs superseded all other topics of political
interest.
When the Eastern Question was first raised, Froude had taken the
side of the Government.
"I like Lord Derby's speech," he wrote to Lady Derby on the 19th of
September, 1876, "to the Working Men's Association. So I think the
country will when it recovers from its present intoxication. Violent
passions which rise suddenly generally sink as fast if there is no
real reason for them. It is impossible that the people can fail to
recollect in a little while that the reticence of which they
complain is under the circumstances inevitable.
"Gladstone and his satellites are using their opportunities,
however, with thorough unscrupulousness. It is possible that they
may force an Autumn Session, and even force the Ministry to resign-
but woe to themselves if they do. They will promise what cannot be
carried out, and will perhaps, in fine retribution for the Crimean
War, bring the Russians to Constantinople. It will not be a bad
thing in itself, but there will be an end of the English Minister
who brings it about."
Again, three days later, to the same correspondent:
"I admire the Premier's speech. It is what I expected of him. The
Liberal leaders are behaving scandalously, with the exception
perhaps of Lord Hartington. The Cabinet I trust will now decide on
an Autumn Session to remove so critical a matter out of the hands of
irresponsible mobs. I was surprised to hear the war in Servia
attributed to the secret societies. Cluseret I know has intended to
ask for service with Turkey, with a view to a war, against Russia,
and has been withheld only by some differences with General Klapha,
the Turco-Hungarian, from doing so. I had a long letter from him to-
day, in which he expresses his restlessness characteristically, J'ai
la nostalgic de la poudre."
Afterwards Froude followed Carlyle, and went with Russia against
Turkey. The "unspeakable Turk" was to be "struck out of the question
and Bismarck invited to arbitrate. Such was the oracular deliverance
from Cheyne Row, and Froude obeyed the oracle. He attended the
Conference at St. James's Hall in December at which Gladstone spoke,
and Carlyle's letter was read, sitting for the only time in his life
on the same platform with Freeman. Next May, when war between Russia
and Turkey had actually begun, when Gladstone was about to move his
famous resolutions in the House of Commons, there appeared in The
Times* another remarkable letter from the same hand. This time,
however, it was no mere question of style, though "our miraculous
Premier" was a phrase which stuck. Carlyle evidently had information
of some design for giving Turkey the support of the British fleet in
the neighbourhood of Constantinople, and was not very discreet in
the use he made of it. The Cabinet were supposed to be divided on the
question of helping Turkey by material means, which of course
meant war with Russia, and the Foreign Secretary, Lord Derby, was
known to be in favour of peace. A year later Lord Carnarvon and Lord
Derby had both left the Cabinet rather than be responsible for a
vote of credit which meant preparation for war, and for calling out
the Reserves.
--
* May 5, 1877.
--
Froude was in complete sympathy with the retiring ministers, and he
regarded it as a profound mistake for England to quarrel with Russia
on behalf of a Power which had no business in Europe at all. From
his point of view the presence at the Colonial Office of so
sympathetic a Minister as Carnarvon was far more important than the
difference between the Treaty of San Stefano and the Treaty of
Berlin. Of the Afghan War in 1878 he strongly disapproved.
The following extracts from letters to Lady Derby show the phases of
thought on the Eastern Question through which Froude passed, and are
interesting also because they represent him in an unfamiliar light
as the champion of parliamentary Government against the secret
diplomacy of Lord Beaconsfield. Arbitrary rule might be very good
for Irishmen. As applied to Englishmen Froude disliked it no less
than Gladstone or Bright.
"February 16th, 1877.--The Opposition have no hope of making a
successful attack on the present Parliament--but they are resolute.
They know their own minds, and Gladstone (I know) has said that he
has but to hold up his finger to force a dissolution and return as
Prime Minister. I too think you are deceived by the London Press.
Another massacre and all would be over. The Golden Bridge you speak
of I conclude is for Russia; but if it was possible for the Cabinet,
without changing its attitude, to make such a bridge, there would be
no need of one. England has been, and I fear still is, the one
obstacle to measures which would have long ago brought the Turk to
his senses. I cannot but feel assured that you have thrown away an
opportunity for securing to the Conservative party the gratitude of
Europe and the possession of office for a generation. If more
mischief happens in Turkey it will be on you that public displeasure
will fall, and you may need a bridge for yourselves and not find
one. I croak like a raven. Perhaps you may set it down to an almost
totally sleepless night."
"April 30th, 1877.--You destroy the last hope to which I had clung,
that Lord Derby, though opposed to Russian policy, would not consent
to go to war with her. I remain of my old opinion that England
(foolishly excited as it always when fighting is going on) will in
the long run resent the absurdity and punish the criminality of
taking arms in a worthless cause. I am sick of heart at the thought
of what is coming, here as well as on the Continent. I have begged
Carlyle to write a last appeal to The Times. We must agitate in the
great towns, we must protest against what we may be unable to
prevent. The Crimean War was innocent compared to what is now
threatened, yet three years ago there was scarcely a person in
England who did not admit that it was a mistake. I do not know what
may be the verdict of the public about a repetition of it at the
present moment. I know but too well what will be the verdict five
years hence, and the fate which will overtake those who, with
however good a motive, are courting the ruin of their party."
"December 22nd, 1877.---The passion for interference in defence of
the Turks seems limited (as I was always convinced that it was) to
the idle educated classes. The public meetings which have been, or
are to be, go the other way, or at least are against our taking a
part on the Turkish side. The demonstrations which Lord B. expected
to follow on the first Russian success have not followed. The
Telegraph and Morning Post have used their whips on the dead Crimean
horse, but it will not stir for them. It will not stir even for the
third volume of the Prince Consort's Life. But I am very sorry about
it all, for the damage to the Conservative party from the lost
opportunity of playing a great and honourable part is, I fear,
irretrievable."
"December 27th, 1877.--The accounts from Bulgaria and Armenia turn
me sick. These sheep, what have they done? Diplomalists quarrel, and
the people suffer. The management of human affairs will be much
improved when the people tell their respective Cabinets that if
there is fighting to be done the Cabinets must fight themselves, and
that the result shall be accepted as final. Nine out of ten great
wars might have been settled that way with equal advantage so far as
the consequences were concerned, and to the infinite relief of poor
humanity."
"March 10th, 1878.--I met Lord D. at the club the other night. He
looked As Prometheus might have looked when he was 'Unbound.' He was
in excellent spirits and talked brilliantly. Not one allusion to the
East, but I guessed that he had a mind at ease."
"April 8th, 1878.--I wish I knew whether the Cabinet has determined
on forcing war upon Russia at all events, or if Russia consents to
go into the Conference on the English terms; the Cabinet will then
bona fide endeavour after an equitable and honourable settlement.
Lord B.'s antecedents all point to a determination to make any
settlement impossible. He has succeeded so far without provoking the
other Powers, but such a game is surely dangerous, backed though he
by every fool and knave in England."
"July 15th, 1878.--I gather that the Opposition is too disorganised
to resist; and if Parliament endure to be set aside, and allow the
destinies of their country to be affected so enormously by the sole
action of the Crown and the Cabinet, a change is passing over us the
results of which it is impossible to estimate. We do, in fact, take
charge of the Turkish Empire as completely as we took the Empire of
the Moguls. In a little while we shall have to administer on the
Continent as well as in Cyprus, and then will arise a new Asiatic
army. This will bring wars with it before long, and a proportionate
increase of the power of the Executive Government. If Parliament
abdicates its authority now, what may we not anticipate? I have long
felt that the House of Commons could not long continue to govern the
great concerns of the British Empire as it has done. I certainly did
not expect that it would yield without a struggle--nor will it.
Sooner or later we shall see a fight against the tendency which is
giving so startling an evidence of its existence--and what is to
happen then?"
"July 21st, 1878.--Lord Derby's speech was as good as it could
possibly be. What he says now all the world will say two years
hence. How deeply it cut appeared plainly enough in the scenes which
followed. It must be peculiarly distressing to you--distressing in
many ways, for I feel as certain as ever that the end of it all will
be irreparable damage to the Conservative party. One would like to
know Prince Bismarck's private opinion of the Premier and private
opinion also of the nation which has taken him for their chosen
leader. Of course he will dissolve while the glamour is fresh; and
before the effects of the bad champagne with which he has dosed the
country begin to appear--first headache and penitence, and then
exasperation at the provider of the entertainment."
"November 24th, 1878.--The evil shadow of the Premier extends over
the most innocent of our pleasures. I had been looking forward to a
few days at Knowsley as the most enjoyable which I should have had
during the whole year. Yet I knew how it would be. Daring as he is,
he could not venture on an entire defiance of public opinion.
Parliament of course would have to meet, and equally of course you
and Lord D. would have to come up. I conclude the object to be to
get up a Russian war after all. The stress laid by Lord Cranbrook on
the reception of the Russian Embassy as the point of the injury will
make it very difficult for the Russians to be neutral. If this is
what the Ministry really intend, they may have their majority in
Parliament docile, but I doubt whether they will have the country
with them. I am sure they will not if Hartington and Granville
support Lord Lawrence.
"I interpret it all as meaning that the Premier knows that his
policy has thoroughly broken down in Europe, and at all risks he
means to have another try in the East."
It was Froude's opinion, right or wrong, that Lord Beaconsfield
might have settled the Irish question if he had left the Eastern
question alone. He understood it, as some of his early speeches
show, and he might have "established a just Land Court with the
support of all the best land-owners in Ireland."* Why the Land Court
established by Gladstone in 1881 was unjust Froude did not explain.
Some of the best landlords, if not all, supported it, and it
relieved an intolerable situation.
--
* Table Talk of Shirley, p. 180.
--