grant responsible government to the Transvaal, but it is not wise to
give it to the Orange River Colony. Why should you give it to the
Orange River Colony too?" I say, "Why not?" Let us make it quite clear
that the burden of proof always rests with those who deny or restrict
the issue of full Parliamentary liberties. They have to make their case
good from month to month, and from day to day. What are the reasons
which have been advanced against the issue of a Constitution to the
Orange River Colony? Various reasons have been put forward. We have
been told, first, that the Colony is not ripe for self-government. When
you have very small communities of white men in distant and immense
territories, and when those communities are emerging from a wild into a
more settled condition, then it is very necessary and very desirable
that the growth of self-governing institutions should be gradual. But
that is not the situation in the Orange River Colony. The Orange Free
State was the model small republic of the world. The honourable
traditions of the Free State are not challenged by any who take the
trouble to study its history, either in the distant past, or in the
years immediately preceding the South African war. The right hon.
gentleman the Member for West Birmingham himself, speaking in this
House on December 7, 1900, used language which, I think, should go far
to dissipate the idle fears which we hear expressed in various quarters
upon the grant of self-government to the Orange River Colony:
"We do not propose," said the right hon. gentleman, "that the
Constitution of the Orange River Colony should necessarily be the same
as the Constitution of the Transvaal Colony, either at starting or in
the immediate future. It will be dealt with upon its own merits, dealt
with separately, and we think it possible"--I ask the House to mark
this--"from the circumstances with which every one is familiar, that
an earlier beginning to greater political liberty may be made in the
Orange River Colony than in the Transvaal. That is due to the fact
that the Government of the Orange River Colony previous to the war was
by common consent a very good Government, and consequently, speaking
generally, of course, and not of individuals, we shall find there
probably the means to creating a satisfactory administration more
quickly than we can do in the case of the Transvaal Colony."
Then we have been told that responsible government presupposes Party
government, and that in the Orange River Colony there are not the
elements of political parties, that there is not that diversity of
interests which we see in the Transvaal, that there are not the same
sharp differences between town and country, or the same astonishing
contrasts between wealth and poverty which prevail in the Transvaal.
And we are told that, in order that responsible government should work
properly, and Party government should be a success, there must be the
essential elements of Party conflict. I suppose we are, as a majority
in this House, admirers of the Party system of government; but I do
not think that we should any of us carry our admiration of that system
so far as to say that the nation is unfit to enjoy the privilege of
managing its own affairs unless it can find some one to quarrel with
and plenty of things to quarrel about.
Then we are told that--"The country is prospering as it is. Why change
now? The land is tranquil, people are regaining the prosperity which
was lost in the war. It is a pity to make a change now; now is not the
moment." I admit the premise, but I draw exactly the opposite
conclusion. It is just for that reason that we should now step forward
and, taking occasion by the hand, make an advance in the system of
government. How often in the history of nations has the golden
opportunity been allowed to slip away! How often have rulers and
Governments been forced to make in foul weather the very journey which
they have refused to make prosperously in fair weather!
Then we are told that Imperial interests will be endangered by this
grant. I do not believe that that is so. The Boer mind moves by
definite steps from one political conception to another. I believe
they have definitely abandoned their old ambition of creating in South
Africa a United States independent of the British Crown, and have
accepted that other political ideal which is represented by the
Dominion of Canada and the Commonwealth of Australia. At any rate, no
people have a greater right to claim respect on the ground of their
loyal adherence to treaty engagements than the people of the Orange
River Colony; for every one knows that it was with a most faithful
adherence to their engagements, with almost Quixotic loyalty, that
they followed--many of them knowing where their fortune was going to
lead them, knowing full well what would be the result of their
action--their sister State into the disastrous struggle of the South
African war.
It is quite true that there is in existence at the present time--and I
think Lord Milner has pointed it out--no bond of love between the men
who fought us in that war and this country. I was reading the other
day a speech by Mr. Steyn. Mr. Steyn is, of course, one of the most
clearly avowed opponents of the British power. But Mr. Steyn is quite
clear upon this point. He says there is no bond of love, and it would
be untruthful and dishonest on their part to say that such a bond
existed. But, he says, there is another bond; there is such a thing as
a man's word of honour. "We gave our word of honour at Vereeniging,
and it is our intention to abide strictly by that." I state my opinion
as to the safety of the step we propose to take, but I cannot expect
the Members opposite to set much store by that, although it is an
honest and sincere opinion. But I will quote them an authority which I
am sure they will not dismiss without respect. As soon as the right
hon. Member for West Birmingham returned from South Africa, while his
experiences in that country were fresh in his mind, while he had but
newly been conversing with men of all parties there on the spot, the
scene of the struggle, he made a speech in this House which really
ought not to be overlooked by persons dealing with this question.
"Great importance," said the right hon. gentleman, "seems to be
attached to the view that in the interests of the two Colonies it is
desirable that a certain time, not a long time in the history of a
nation, but still a certain time should elapse before full
self-government is accorded. Whether a long time will elapse I really
cannot say. One thing is clear: if the population of the Transvaal and
Orange River Colony, both Boer and Briton, by a large majority,
desire this self-government, even although it might seem to us to be
premature, I should think it unwise to refuse it. I do not myself
believe there is any such danger connected with Imperial interests
that we should hesitate to accord it on that ground. The ground on
which I should desire that it might be delayed is really the interest
of the two Colonies themselves, and not any Imperial interest."
The peace and order of the Orange River Colony establish this case on
its merits. It is a State bound to moderation by the circumstance of
its geographical position. In all its history in South Africa it has
been largely dependent on the goodwill of its neighbours--goodwill and
friendly relations maintained with Natal and the Transvaal, on the one
hand, and with the Cape Colony on the other. It is inconceivable that
a State so situated in regard to its railways and its economic
position generally should be a disturbing influence from the point of
view of the different States of South Africa. But there is another
fact which justifies this grant, and that is the extraordinary
crimelessness in a political sense of the whole of that country. Let
the House remember that there had been three years' war, of which two
years were fierce guerilla fighting, and that on all sides there were
to be found desperate men who had been for a long period holding their
lives in their hands and engaged on every wild and adventurous foray.
Peace is agreed on, and what happens? Absolute order exists and
prevails throughout the whole country from that moment. There has not
been a single case of violent crime except, I believe, one murder
committed by a lunatic--hardly a case of sedition--and not a single
case of prosecution for treason of any kind. I say without hesitation
that in order to find a similar instance of swift transition from
violent warfare to law-abiding peace you have got to look back to the
days when the army of the Parliament was reviewed and disbanded at the
Restoration.
I submit to the House that a case for conferring responsible
government on the Orange River Colony is established on its merits.
But that is not the whole question before us this afternoon. We have
not merely to decide whether we will give a Constitution to the Orange
River Colony, but whether, having given a Constitution to the
Transvaal, we will deliberately withhold one from the Orange River
Colony; and that is an argument which multiplies the others which I
have used. On what ground could we refuse that equal treatment of the
Orange River Colony? There is only one ground which we could assign
for such a refusal, and that is that in the Orange River Colony there
is sure to be a Dutch majority. I cannot conceive any more fatal
assertion that could be made on the part of the Imperial Government
than that on this specific racial ground they were forced to refuse
liberties which otherwise they would concede. I say such a refusal
would be an insult to the hundreds and thousands of loyal Dutch
subjects the King has in all parts of South Africa, I say that this
invidious treatment of the Orange River Colony would be the greatest
blunder, a fitting pendant to all that long concatenation of fatal
mistakes which has marked our policy in South Africa for so many
years; and I say it would be a breach of the spirit of the terms of
peace, because we could not say, "We promised you self-government by
the terms of peace, but what we meant by that was that before you were
to have self-government, enough persons of British origin should have
arrived in the country to make quite sure you would be out-voted."
If we were to adopt such a course we should be false to that
agreement, which is the great foundation of our policy in South
Africa. I hope the House will earnestly sustain the importance of that
Vereeniging agreement. For the first time in many years the two white
races dwelling together in South Africa have found a common foundation
on which they can both build, a foundation much better than
Boomplaats, or the Sand River Convention, or the Conventions of 1880
and 1884, far better than Majuba Hill or the Jameson Raid. They have
found a foundation which they can both look to without any feeling of
shame--on the contrary, with feelings of equal honour, and I trust
also with feelings of mutual forgiveness.
On those grounds, therefore, we have decided to give to the Orange
River Colony full responsible government. We eschew altogether the
idea of treating them differently from the Transvaal, or interposing
any state of limited self-government between them and the full
enjoyment of their right. There is to be a Legislature which will
consist of two Chambers, as in the Transvaal. The First Chamber will
be elected upon a voters' basis and by manhood suffrage. The
residential qualification will be the same as in the Transvaal, six
months. The distribution of seats has been settled by general consent.
The Committee which we sent to South Africa, and which was so very
successful in arriving at an adjustment between the parties in the
Transvaal, has made similar investigations in the Orange River Colony,
and I think we may accept with confidence their recommendation. They
recommend that the number of members should be thirty-eight. The old
Volksraad had sixty members, but it was found to be much too large for
the needs of the country, and on several occasions efforts were made
to reduce the representation. Those efforts were not successful, from
the fact, which we can all appreciate, that it is very difficult
indeed to get a representative body to pass a self-denying ordinance
of that character which involves the extinction of its own members.
There will be separate representation of towns in the Orange River
Colony. In the Volksraad there was such a representation: there were
forty-two rural members and eighteen urban members. Out of the
thirty-eight we propose that there shall be twenty-seven rural
members and eleven urban members; rather less than a third of the
representation will be that of the small towns. That is a proportion
which is justified by the precedent of the old Constitution, and also
by the latest census.
There will be a Second Chamber, and, as in the Transvaal, it will be
nominated, for the first Parliament only, by the Governor, under
instructions from the Secretary of State. It is not an hereditary
Chamber; and it may be, therefore, assumed that the distribution of
Parties in that Chamber will be attended by some measure of
impartiality, and that there will be some general attempt to select
only those persons who are really fit to exercise the important
functions entrusted to them. But even so protected, the Government
feel that in the ultimate issue in a conflict between the two
Chambers, the first and representative Chamber must prevail. The other
body may review and may suspend, but for the case of measures sent up
in successive sessions from the representative Chamber on which no
agreement can be reached, we have introduced the machinery which
appears in the Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth, that both
Chambers shall sit together, debate together, vote together, and the
majority shall decide. The whole success of that operation depends
upon the numerical proportion observed between the two Chambers. In
the Australian Commonwealth the proportion of the First Chamber is
rather more than two to one; in the Transvaal the proportion will be
more than four to one, namely, sixty-five to fifteen; and in the
Orange River Colony it will be thirty-eight to eleven.
The other provisions of the Constitution will mainly follow the lines
of the Transvaal Constitution. The Constitution of the Orange River
Colony will become effective as soon as possible; and I should think
that the new Parliament might assemble in Bloemfontein some time
during the autumn of next year. When that work has been completed, and
the new Parliament has assembled, the main direction of South African
affairs in these Colonies will have passed from our hands.
Sir, it is the earnest desire of the Government to steer colonial
affairs out of English Party politics, not only in the interest of the
proper conduct of those affairs, but in order to clear the arena at
home for the introduction of measures which affect the masses of the
people. We have tried in South Africa to deal fairly between man and
man, to adjust conflicting interests and overlapping claims. We have
tried so far as possible to effect a broad-bottomed settlement of the
question which should command the assent of people even beyond the
great party groupings which support us.
Other liberties besides their own will be enshrined in these new
Parliaments. The people of South Africa, and, in a special measure,
the Boers, will become the trustees of freedom all over the world. We
have tried to act with fairness and good feeling. If by any chance our
counsels of reconciliation should come to nothing, if our policy
should end in mocking disaster, then the resulting evil would not be
confined to South Africa. Our unfortunate experience would be
trumpeted forth all over the world wherever despotism wanted a good
argument for bayonets, whenever an arbitrary Government wished to deny
or curtail the liberties of imprisoned nationalities. But if, on the
other hand, as we hope and profoundly believe, better days are in
store for South Africa, if the words of President Brand, "All shall
come right," are at length to be fulfilled, and if the near future
should unfold to our eves a tranquil, prosperous, consolidated
Afrikander nation under the protecting aegis of the British Crown,
then, the good also will not be confined to South Africa; then the
cause of the poor and the weak all over the world will have been
sustained; and everywhere small peoples will get more room to breathe,
and everywhere great empires will be encouraged by our example to step
forward--and it only needs a step--into the sunshine of a more gentle
and a more generous age.
LIBERALISM AND SOCIALISM
ST. ANDREW'S HALL, GLASGOW, _October 11, 1906_
(From _The Dundee Advertiser_, by permission.)
The first indispensable condition of democratic progress must be the
maintenance of European peace. War is fatal to Liberalism. Liberalism
is the world-wide antagonist of war. We have every reason to
congratulate ourselves upon the general aspect of the European
situation. The friendship which has grown up between Great Britain and
France is a source of profound satisfaction to every serious and
thinking man. The first duty of a nation is to make friends with its
nearest neighbour. Six years ago France was agitated in the throes of
the Dreyfus case, and Great Britain was plunged in the worst and most
painful period of the South African war; and both nations--conscious
as we are of one another's infirmities--were inclined to express their
opinion about the conduct of the other in unmeasured terms, and keen
antagonism resulted. What a contrast to-day! Ever since the King,
whose services in the cause of international peace are regarded with
affection in every quarter of his dominions, ever since by an act of
prescience and of courage his Majesty went to Paris, the relations
between Great Britain and France have steadily and progressively
improved, and to-day we witness the inspiring spectacle of these two
great peoples, the two most genuinely Liberal nations in the whole
world, locked together in a league of friendship under standards of
dispassionate justice and international goodwill. But it is absurd to
suppose that the friendship which we have established with France
should be in any degree a menace to any other European Power, or to
the great Power of Germany.
If the prospects on the European continent are bright and tranquil, I
think we have reason to feel also contentment at the course of
Colonial affairs. We have had unusual difficulties in the Colonies;
but in spite of every effort to excite Colonial apprehension for Party
purposes against a Liberal Ministry through the instrumentality of a
powerful press, the great States of the Empire have felt, and with
more assurance every day, that a Liberal Administration in Downing
Street will respect their rights and cherish their interests.
But I am drawn to South Africa by the memory that to-night, the 11th
of October, is the anniversary of the declaration of war; and I think
it is in South Africa that we have especial reason to be satisfied
with the course which events have taken, since we have been in any
degree responsible for their direction. One great advantage we have
had--a good foundation to build on. We have had the Treaty of
Vereeniging, by which peace was established between the Dutch and
British races in South Africa upon terms honourable to both. We have
had that treaty as our foundation--and what a mercy it is, looking
back on the past, to think that the nation followed Lord Rosebery's
advice at Chesterfield to terminate the war by a regular peace and a
regular settlement, and were not lured away, as Lord Milner would have
advised them, when he said that the war in a certain sense would never
be over, into a harsh policy of unconditional surrender and pitiless
subjugation.
The work of giving these free Constitutions to the two Colonies in
South Africa, so lately independent Republics, is in harmony with the
most sagacious instincts, and the most honoured traditions of the
Liberal Party. But I notice that Lord Milner, who, as we remember, was
once a Liberal candidate,--and who now appears before us sometimes in
the guise of a silent and suffering public servant, sometimes in the
aspect of an active, and even an acrid, political partisan, haranguing
his supporters and attacking his Majesty's Ministers,--Lord Milner
describes all this improving outlook as "the dreary days of reaction."
Progress and reaction are no doubt relative terms. What one man calls
progress another will call reaction. If you have been rapidly
descending the road to ruin and you suddenly check yourself, stop,
turn back, and retrace your steps, that is reaction, and no doubt your
former guide will have every reason to reproach you with
inconsistency. And it seems to me not at all unnatural that to one who
regards three years' desolating civil war as a period of healthy and
inspiring progress, a good deal of what his Majesty's Government have
lately done in South Africa must appear very dreary and reactionary
indeed.
But I would recommend you to leave this disconsolate proconsul alone.
I do not agree with him when he says that South Africa is passing
through a time of trial. South Africa is emerging from her time of
trial. The darkest period is behind her. Brighter prospects lie before
her. The improvement upon which we are counting is not the hectic
flush of a market boom, but the steady revival and accumulation of
agricultural and industrial productiveness. Soberly and solemnly men
of all parties and of both races in South Africa are joining together
to revive and to develop the prosperity of their own country. Grave
difficulties, many dangers, long exertions lie before them; but the
star of South Africa is already in the ascendant, and I look
confidently forward to the time when it will take its place, united,
federated, free, beside Canada and Australia, in the shining
constellation of the British Empire.
When we have dealt with subjects which lie outside our own island, let
us concentrate our attention on what lies within it, because the
gravest problems lie at home. I shall venture to-night to make a few
general observations upon those larger trendings of events which
govern the incidents and the accidents of the hour. The fortunes and
the interests of Liberalism and Labour are inseparably interwoven;
they rise by the same forces, and in spite of similar obstacles, they
face the same enemies, they are affected by the same dangers, and the
history of the last thirty years shows quite clearly that their power
of influencing public affairs and of commanding national attention
fluctuate together. Together they are elevated, together they are
depressed, and any Tory reaction which swept the Liberal Party out of
power would assuredly work at least proportionate havoc in the ranks
of Labour. That may not be a very palatable truth, but it is a truth
none the less.
Labour! It is a great word. It moves the world, it comprises the
millions, it combines many men in many lands in the sympathy of a
common burden. Who has the right to speak for Labour? A good many
people arrogate to themselves the right to speak for Labour. How many
political Flibbertigibbets are there not running up and down the land
calling themselves the people of Great Britain, and the social
democracy, and the masses of the nation! But I am inclined to think,
so far as any body of organised opinion can claim the right to speak
for this immense portion of the human race, it is the trade unions
that more than any other organisation must be considered the
responsible and deputed representatives of Labour. They are the most
highly organised part of Labour; they are the most responsible part;
they are from day to day in contact with reality. They are not mere
visionaries or dreamers weaving airy Utopias out of tobacco smoke.
They are not political adventurers who are eager to remodel the world
by rule-of-thumb, who are proposing to make the infinite complexities
of scientific civilisation and the multitudinous phenomena of great
cities conform to a few barbarous formulas which any moderately
intelligent parrot could repeat in a fortnight.