"An over-sensitive English sentiment is at the root of many of the past
disturbances. When I was going to South Africa on the _Norman_ the
great question of the hour was the indenturing of the Bechuanaland
rebels. I talked a good deal with Colonial people on board, and they
were not disposed to be reticent about their feelings. They frankly
said the British people were just beginning the same old game of
meddlesomeness. `Here,' they said, `are rebels whom we have caught in
the act of fighting against us, raiding and murdering our
fellow-colonists. We pay for the forces to suppress that rebellion; we
have taken hold of the prisoners who have surrendered. We do not know
what to do with them better than to distribute them, with their own
consent, among the farmers for a term of five years, instead of
imprisoning them, and thereby making them non-productive and a burden to
the State. If we had sent them back to their own country, they would
simply have died, or made it very dangerous for anyone with property to
go near their country, and we should have had to begin again. You
English say it is a form of slavery. We deny it. It is no more than
Sir Charles Warren did in 1878. What the British Government did in 1878
we are doing now. Don't you suppose that, having given us an almost
independent Government, we have got plenty of pious, well-educated,
intelligent men as capable of looking after our morals as the civilised
people of England? Why do you all the time place English sentiment in
opposition to us, with a view of tyrannising over us? We make our laws,
and can correct them if they are wrong. We do not want you to interfere
all the time. Our lives and our property, the welfare of our wives and
children, depend upon good government. But immediately we do anything
you raise the cry that we are barbarous and wicked, and are reducing
rebels to the state of slaves, and thus you excite and disturb the
people.' `Supposing,' said one of the speakers, `that the majority of
the British nation were inclined to that opinion, and believed that we
were so wickedly disposed as to subject our coloured people to a
condition of slavery, Parliament would raise the question, and very
possibly, if the sentiment has taken deep hold of your people, would
pass a law to prevent it. Then a collision of interests would take
place--Boers against English. The English would probably follow the
British Government, except a few who have been resident in South Africa
and understand those questions as well as the born Colonists. Thus the
Colonists would become divided. The Boers and Afrikanders could not
trek again, as Bechuanaland and Rhodesia shut them off from the north.
They therefore would demand a republic, to cut themselves adrift from
the Imperial Government. The same question would be raised as was
raised in the United States when they separated from Great Britain.
Danger only can arise from the English habit of interfering in Colonial
matters which they do not understand, and from not giving the Colonists
credit for being able to manage their own affairs.'"
"Then, in your opinion, the remedy for that is to reinforce the English
population in South Africa, and for Exeter Hall here to exercise more
reserve?"
"Precisely," replied Mr Stanley. "If you have a manager of an estate
and you suppose he is a man of ability and you entrust him with the
management of your estate, and then cavil at everything he does, he will
resign. That is just the sort of feeling that is so apt to be raised in
South Africa--the incompatibility of temper between the people of South
Africa and the too sentimental people of Great Britain. There are two
parties in South Africa, Boer and British, and if the former are
inclined to be tyrannical to the natives and subject them to slavery,
you have the English party, which is as clever and intelligent as people
here, ready to preach to and convert the oppressors and to act in
opposition to them. Therefore, the English criticism at home is not
needed, and it should not interfere with the Colonists' domestic
concerns. England must give the Colonists credit for their
intelligence, and for a desire to act like civilised people. There
would be no need then for a Republican, or a Separatist party at the
Cape."
A Great Emigration Company Wanted.
"What do you propose as a means towards the end you speak of?"
"It is natural," replied Mr Stanley, "that the English of Cape Colony
should be anxious for the future of the country in case of a separation
from Great Britain, and that they should fear the establishment of a
Boer Republic. I see in this a very strong reason why someone with
power, wealth and influence should step forward and try to lead them to
do something to prepare for maintaining the balance of power. Rhodesia,
the Transvaal, the Orange Free State and Natal draw away from the Cape
Colony a large number of enterprising Englishmen, and consequently the
Boers, not being so enterprising, nor so very fond of running from one
home to another unless a great political principal is at stake, prefer
to stay on their farms and multiply there, whereas the English are all
the time thinned down by those everlasting discoveries and developments
in the north and north-east, so that they remain numerically inferior to
the Dutch. If there was a Company with a man like Mr Rhodes at the
head of it, which would buy land and settle on it new colonists of
English birth, they would be all the time keeping up the equality that
is necessary to prevent the English from being Boer-ridden."
"Do you think Rhodesia would adapt itself to such a policy as well as
the Cape Colony."
"Quite as well. With the opening of all those mines reported to be so
promising, and with the vast advertisement of the opening of the
railway, Mr Rhodes ought to see that more miners have been coming into
the country than agriculturalists, and something ought to be done to
provide for the provisioning of so many people and keeping the prices of
food down by multiplying the producers of food. The country is just as
well adapted for them as any other in South Africa. If the Government
of Rhodesia neglect this, the Boers will go on filtering through the
Transvaal to Rhodesia, and the same mistakes will recur that have been
made in the Cape Colony and the Transvaal, where the settled population
is Dutch and the moving English."