interests and base prejudices. The corn farmers and brandy producers
were banded together in an unholy compact. Heavy duties of five
shillings per hundred pounds on flour and half-a-crown on wheat were
levied, while excise was abolished on spirits made from the grape, in
order that members of the Bond who grew cereals and made very bad brandy
might be benefited. The shameful result was that bread became dear and
bad alcohol cheap. As a Nemesis the producers got into the hands of
middlemen, and their condition was rather injured than improved. In the
case of both wines and spirits, careless, unscientific methods were
generally adopted, quantity was preferred to quality, and in many cases
acetous fermentation resulted. Although spirit produced from the grape
paid not a farthing of excise, and was carried at a non-paying rate on
the railways, it was so miserably full of fusel oil and dangerous in
character as to be discarded generally by the white population, and sent
broadcast among the aboriginal natives for their degradation,
demoralisation, and destruction. In a shameful manner Mr. Hofmeyr and
the Bond politicians persistently resisted every proposed law for the
restriction of the sale of bad alcohol among aboriginal natives, and
indeed by insidious methods did all in their power to remove every
barrier between the native and the deadly poison made carelessly in
thousands of "pot stills" in the Dutch districts of the Western
Province.
At the same time the true Phariseeism of this people was demonstrated by
their fanatical observance of the Lord's Day, which they styled the
Sabbath, and their absurd opposition to any Sunday trains, even when
absolutely necessary in general public interests. Mr. Merriman, in one
of his saner moments, reprobated this hypocrisy.
[Illustration: Photo: Maull & Fox, London.
SIR H. J. GOOLD-ADAMS, C.B., C.M.G
Lieutenant-Governor of Orange River Colony.]
In South Africa the Native Laws Commission, which comprised such men as
Sir Thomas Upington, Sir Thomas Scanlen, and Sir Jacob Barry, took
evidence in a very complete form in the early eighties, and as a result
reported unanimously in favour of prohibiting the sale of intoxicants to
the aboriginal natives. Accordingly by Act of Parliament this
recommendation was given full effect to in the Transkeian Territories.
Subsequently the Drink Commission reported in favour of this prohibition
being extended to natives throughout the Colony. In Bechuanaland and
Basutoland, as well as in Natal, the law was adopted long ago, and
invariably worked well; nevertheless, to the shame of the Bond
organisation, it persistently preferred Mammon to God, and in the
strongest manner opposed any legislation whose result would be to save
the black man from destruction. Eventually an Act introduced by Sir
James Rose Innes was maimed before it was allowed to pass, so that
licensing Boards were only empowered to pass restrictive regulations on
the sale of alcohol to the coloured races "short of total prohibition."
During the entire term of Bond rule in the Cape Colony not a sixpence
could be obtained for the encouragement of emigration from the United
Kingdom to the Cape Colony--nor would any land be ever granted for the
purpose. "Africa for the Africanders" has a very real and exact meaning,
and this was shown to demonstration when even the petty vote for
granting assisted passages to domestic servants and artisans was
objected to and refused. These people might in many cases come from
England, and therefore must be shut out.
The subtlety and diplomacy of the Bond were evinced in voting a grant
for the British Navy, and Mr. Hofmeyr took many opportunities of posing
as a loyal subject, but, as we shall prove in the context, the one great
underlying principle of the organisation was to obtain the mastery in
South Africa. All nationalities were invited to join. Africa must be
made great by a union of all its people, but those who read between the
lines and ascertained the real opinions of those who were guiding the
movement knew perfectly well that although the Imperial power might be
allowed at first to be a _faineant_ king, the Mayor of the Palace with
real authority was to be the people of Dutch extraction--the
Africanders--throughout Southern Africa.
We now come to the last days before the war, when Lord Milner could have
been easily checkmated if Mr. Hofmeyr had been able to influence the
Republican Governments. As every one knew, Mr. Kruger had positively
promised equal franchise rights to British subjects at the retrocession
of the Transvaal, and this promise was shamefully broken. In a
constitutional manner the Uitlanders vainly endeavoured to obtain
redress, and now appealed to the Imperial Government. The High
Commissioner merely did his evident duty, when at the Bloemfontein
Conference he insisted that at least a portion of the franchise rights
promised should be given. No doubt Mr. Hofmeyr would have seen his
opportunity here, and have consented in such a manner, and with such a
purpose, as to really render British interference nugatory, but the
Dutch Republicans had now the bit between their teeth. They were the
Lord's people, they had made all their preparations, and were perfectly
sure of victory. Mr. Kruger himself could not now stop the war, and the
astounding ultimatum came forth from the little Republic to the great
Empire: "Recall your troops and send no more, or we will punish you." If
this gage had not been taken up the United Kingdom would have been
forced to take a back seat as a third-class power among the nations of
the world.
Having referred to the origin and growth of the Africander party, we
must now consider its aims. It must be admitted that its originators
were perfectly candid. We find them declaring in _De Patriot_ in 1882,
when referring to Confederation, that "There is just one hindrance, and
that is the British flag. Let them take that away, and within a year the
confederation under the free Africander flag will be established. The
British must just have Simon's Bay as a naval and military station on
the road to India, and give over all the rest of Africa to the
Africanders.... It is we on top or they on top. They must be under or we
under.... Two things are wanted, artillery for the Transvaal ... to make
their own ammunition and to be well supplied with cannon. Now that the
war against the English Government is over (at Majuba Hill), the war
against the English language must begin. By Anglifying the girls they
infect the whole family life with the English speech."
We must now put into the box witnesses of a very important character
whose testimony, so far as the aims of the Bond are concerned, is
perfectly unexceptionable. These witnesses are Mr. Burgers, President of
the South African Republic, Sir John Brand, President of the Orange Free
State, Mr. Reitz, State Secretary of the South African Republic and
previously President of the Orange Free State, and Mr. Steyn,
Attorney-General and subsequently President of the Orange Free State. In
1875 President Burgers stated at a meeting held in Holland to consider
the Delagoa Bay railway scheme, that he hoped to see a New Holland eight
millions strong in South Africa, whence England shall have been
expelled. It was President Brand who said, "Bartle Frere dreams of
United South Africa under the British flag; and so do I, but not under
the same flag." And when conducting a controversy with Kruger on the
subject of a Customs Union, Sir John Brand, disgusted with treachery,
cried aloud, "The Bond seeks to raise a Republican flag in a country
with which we are at peace."[4]
Mr. Theo. Schreiner, whose honesty and truthfulness no man in South
Africa will deny, furnishes us with a circumstantial account of an
interview between himself and Mr. Reitz in the early eighties.[5] Then
Mr. Reitz was a judge at Bloemfontein, and was one of that band of
Africander patriots whose aspiration and conduct remind us naturally of
the aims, objects, and aspirations of the Young Ireland party under
Smith O'Brien. After in vain trying to enlist Mr. Schreiner as a
recruit, Mr. Reitz asked him to state the reason of his refusal. The
reply was, "Because the ultimate object aimed at was the overthrow of
British power and the expulsion of the British flag from South Africa."
"Well, what if it is so?" was the rejoinder, to which Mr. Schreiner
replied, "You don't suppose, do you, that the flag is going to disappear
without a tremendous struggle and fight?" "Well," said Mr. Reitz, "I
suppose not, but what of that?"
Mr. Steyn, of the Orange Free State, made the following statement to the
Rev. W. Tees, Presbyterian Minister in Durban:--
"Great Britain has been completely taken by surprise."
"Sir, this has been preparing since the year 1884."[6]
"In both States?" asked the clergyman.
"Yes," was the reply, "in both, and in the Colony also. The Transvaal
has been the arsenal, but those in the know in the Free State and in the
Colony have worked in unison with Kruger. The object was to oust the
British from South Africa, but it was not intended to do it all at once.
The first step was the consolidation of the two Republics as a Sovereign
International State, and later on an Africander rising at the right
moment."
Mr. Tees then asked a very pertinent question. "Then do you mean to say
that when President Kruger attended the Bloemfontein Conference he knew
perfectly well that the proceedings were a farce, and that he really
meant to fight?"
Mr. Steyn's reply was "Yes."
At a conference between the Governments of the South African Republic
and Orange Free States held in 1887[7] relative to railways, we find Mr.
Kruger declaring: "If you hook on to the Colony you cut our throat....
Let us speak frankly; we are not going to be dependent on England." Mr.
Wolmarans, following, declared: "We have had much experience of her
Majesty's Government, and we will and must shake ourselves free. We are
still insufficiently prepared. We wish to get to the sea, especially
with an eye to future complications--you know our secret policy."
Subsequently the blunt soldier, General Joubert, said on the occasion of
an Uitlander complaining to him of the constant breach of Article 14 of
the 1884 Convention providing equality of treatment for the Uitlanders:
"Equality! We don't want equality! We want to see who is to be boss in
South Africa."
Apropos to this subject it is not uninteresting to note from the debates
in the Volksraad of the South African Republic (see the _Johannesburg
Star_ of August 17, 1895) that the laws of the Transvaal were intended
to make the acquisition of the franchise by Uitlanders morally
impossible, and that at the end of one debate Mr. Otto merely became the
mouthpiece of the Burghers when he said, without any rebuke from the
chairman, "Come on and fight. I say, come on and have it out; and the
sooner the better."
We must now put in documentary evidence to prove the real aims and
objects of the Africander Bond. The declaration of the Rev. S. J. Du
Toit, Judge Reitz, and Carl Borckenhagen is perfectly explicit. They
declare that "The object of the Africander Bond is the establishment of
a South African Nationality through the cultivation of a true love of
this our fatherland. This object must be attained by the promotion and
defence of the national language, and by Africanders, both politically
and socially, making their power to be felt as a nation."
After the retrocession of the Transvaal the "Africander Natie" took a
very definite shape, as we find the _Patriot_ newspaper declaring that
"God's hand has been visible in a more marked manner than ever before
seen since the days of the children of Israel. Proud England is
compelled to give the Boers back their land after they had been defeated
by a mere handful." The little respect which Africanders entertained for
British troops had entirely departed.
One of the articles of the Bond programme of principles contained the
following words: "In itself acknowledging no single form of Government
as the only suitable form, and whilst acknowledging the form of
Government existing at present, it (the Bond) means that the aim of our
national development must be a United South Africa under its own flag."
With the subtlety which always distinguished the party, a change was
made in this some years afterwards.
The language of the Bond organ, _De Patriot_, is perfectly explicit, and
shows very clearly the spirit and intentions of the party. The English
must be boycotted. There must be no English shops, signboards,
advertisements, or bookkeepers. Manufacture of munitions of war must be
started in the two Republics. "At Heidelberg there are already 4000
cartridges made daily, and a few skilful Africanders have begun to make
shells too. That is right; so we must become a nation." It must be
considered a disgrace to speak English, and war must be waged in the
Church against that language. "It is the Dutch Reformed Church. What has
England to do with it?" In family life no quarter was to be given.
[Illustration: THE LOW VELDT FROM BOTHA'S HILL
Photo by Wilson, Aberdeen]
As we have already said, the junction of the Farmers' Protection Society
with the Bond exercised a moderating influence, but the spirit,
intentions, and object of the party remained the same, although Mr.
J. H. Hofmeyr attempted, in a manner as astute as it was dangerous, to
unite the Dutch and English people in South Africa in a common
antagonism to Great Britain's power, influence, and presence. Even Mr.
Merriman saw through this trick, as he declared in a speech delivered at
Grahamstown in 1885. "It is now the cue of the Bond to pretend to be
loyal, and if it were not painful it would be ridiculous to hear the
editor of _De Zuid Afrikaan_ cheering the Queen, and to hear Du Toit
praying for her while resolutions are passed round to the branches in
direct opposition to the honour of England.... Each one of you will have
to make up his mind whether he is prepared to see the colony remain a
part of the British Empire, which carries with it obligations as well as
privileges, or whether he is prepared to obey the dictates of the Bond.
From the very first time, some years ago, when first the poison began to
be distilled in this country, I felt that it must come to this: Was
England or the Transvaal to be the paramount force in South Africa?...
What could they think of the objects of the Bond when they found Judge
Reitz advocating a Republic of South Africa under one flag?... No one
who wishes well to the British Government could have read the leading
articles of the _Zuid Afrikaan_ and _Express_ and _De Patriot_, in
expounding the Bond principles, without seeing that the maintenance of
law and order under the British Crown and the object they have in view
are absolutely different things.... My quarrel with the Bond is that it
stirs up race difference. Its main object is to make the South African
Republic the paramount power in South Africa."
To do justice to the Bond, we must quote Mr. Theron, their secretary,
who is reported by the _South African News_ of May 5, 1900, to have
said:--
"One other question may be asked, 'What is the object of the Bond?' My
reply is, its object, its only object, is expressed in sec. 2 of the
General Constitution, which is worded as follows: 'The nearest object of
the Bond is the formation of a South African Nationality by means of
union and co-operation, as a preparation for the ultimate object, a
united South Africa. The Bond tries to attain this object by
constitutional means, giving to respective governments and legislatures
all the support they are entitled to, and respecting everybody's
rights.'" This was perfectly understood. It was a Dutch Nationality and
a Dutch Republican South Africa that was aimed at, and the context fully
proved this assertion when the vast majority of the Bond party fought
against England, either as belligerents in the Republics or as
rebels--active and passive--within the Cape Colony. Nine out of every
ten ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church were rebels, according to
the testimony of one of their own number--the Rev. Mr. Vlok of
Piquetberg. In such circumstances it is impossible to come to any other
conclusion than that the departure from the original, straightforward
declaration of the aims of the Bond was nothing but a diplomatic effort
to throw dust in the eyes of the enemy.
Certainly such a man as Mr. Cronwright Schreiner was in no way deceived
by this attitude, as we find him saying in 1893[8] that the Africander
Bond is anti-English in its aims; its officers and its language are
Dutch, and it is striving to gain such power as absolutely to control
the Cape Parliament. It had "paralysed our political life." "In fact,"
he goes on to say, "the Bond has sacrificed the welfare of the country
for years to the selfish attainment of one object, namely, the supremacy
of the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of the Cape Colony, regardless of the
rights of others; the imagined good of an ignorant clique of the Dutch
has been preferred to the good of the country. These men must not have
power; they are wholly unfit to have it. The Bond is a body striving
solely for its own benighted ends, and founded and conducted on race
lines." This was a correct judgment passed from the English Cape Colony
farmer's point of view; men who, quite unlike the pro-Boers in England,
perfectly understood their subject by means of adequate evidence
obtained on the spot, as well as by bitter personal experience.
Can anything be more significant than the following facts. The Hon. Mr.
Bellingan, a Dutch member of the Legislative Council, in the session
immediately previous to the war is reported by the _Cape Times_ to have
said: "If the policy of annexation were adhered to, they (the
Africanders) would take advantage of England's calamity;" while the Bond
paper, _Ons Land_, reports the honourable member as saying that when the
Queen came to die and storms burst over the empire the Africanders would
not side with England if the Republics were annexed. Then the member
himself, in a letter to the _Cape Times_, declared that what he said
was: "He saw difficulty for the British Empire after the death of our
beloved Queen. By giving the Republicans their independence England
could reckon upon them as friends, but if the Republics were annexed she
could not do so."
The Bond undoubtedly during many years prepared the materials for a
conflagration. The great never-dying, ever-present aspiration was fully
expressed in its motto, "Africa for the Africanders." It was nothing if
not diplomatic, and professed very loudly a loyalty which showed itself
in its true colours when the Bond party was in power just prior to the
war. Then we find its aims exhibited by the Bond party in Parliament,
backed up by the Bond Congress, fighting most strenuously against the
absurdly lenient provisions of the Treason Bill.
As Mr. Theo. Schreiner aptly says, "Rebellion in fact is no rebellion in
the eyes of the Bond so long as it be in accord with the Africander
national ideal." The ministers of their political party allowed
ammunition and guns to be carried to the Republics over the railways of
the Colony in immense quantities, and the W. P. Schreiner ministry was
split up rather than consent to the very mild punishment of deprivation
of the franchise being inflicted on rebels. Then came the war, when a
large majority of the Bond party were either active or passive rebels.
But no one more clearly points out the real objects of the Bond than Mr.
Reitz, one of its original founders, and to the end one of its principal
leaders. He does not hesitate to say in his brochure entitled "A Century
of Wrong," largely circulated in more than one language over the
continent of Europe:--
"May the hope which glowed in our hearts during 1880, and which buoyed
us up during that struggle, burn on steadily. May it prove a beacon of
light in our path, invincibly moving onwards through blood and through
tears until it leads us to a real union of South Africa.... Whether the
result be victory or death, liberty will assuredly rise in South Africa
... just as freedom dawned over the United States of America a little
more than a century ago. Then from Zambesi to Simonstown it will be
'AFRICA FOR THE AFRICANDER.'"
A Bond object-lesson was really to be seen in a practical manner in the
South African Republic under the rule of Dutch Africanders. There indeed
the Transvaal portion of Africa was clearly ruled for one section of the
population--the Africander--to the utter exclusion of the rights of the
English population largely in a majority within Johannesburg. There was
an election system leading to the corrupt and unjust rule of Boer Raads
and a Boer oligarchy. Protection, Concessions, the Master and Servants
Acts were all managed in accordance with Africander ideas. Bond views of
native policy were carried out in such a way that no coloured person
however civilised could vote, nor hold title to fixed property nor trade
freely, nor even marry as white people might. All this found
encouragement in the Cape Colony, and eventually the absurd fiction of
Boers fighting for liberty in the Transvaal was proclaimed as a fact
over all Europe, although literally they commenced a war in which they
felt sure of success for the purpose of subverting liberty and obtaining
complete freedom to carry on government by a section of the people
purely for the interests of a section--the Africanders--ignoring
altogether equal rights for all other men.
When we consider clearly and definitely all the facts, remember that
history repeats itself and that the Africanders are profoundly tenacious
of their political opinions and have proved themselves to be a people
who are able to wait, can we not see at once how desirable it is to
suspend temporarily the constitution of the Cape Colony? The body
politic requires a physician. No one better understands the subject or
is more competent to prescribe than Lord Milner. Why do we not take his
advice? Nothing is more significant than the fact that in the Cape
Colony two years ago heated parliamentary debates and a violent
political agitation, following immediately upon the suppression of the
first rebellion, were in their turn succeeded by a second rebellion more
ruinous than the former one.
In asking for suspension there is no idea of defection from the
principle of responsible government. The Imperial system requires local
independence, and in due course this will be extended to all parts of
South Africa. A necessary interregnum is required for purposes of true
liberty and sound rule, in order that breakdown may be prevented and
true constitutionalism take the place of the tyranny of any section of
the population. The Imperial Government is no step-mother, and the
federation of Southern Africa will doubtless be on similar lines to
those of the Canadian Dominion. Certainly no system will be forced upon
the people contrary to their wishes, but the resurrection of Bond power
in the Cape Colony would absolutely prevent any well-considered and
statesmanlike plan, in which all men would receive fair play utterly
regardless of race extraction. In fact the British and the Africander
Bond theories are diametrically opposed. The first makes every civilised
man equal from the Zambesi to Cape Town, the other specially and always
means "Africa for the Africanders."
Heated discussions in Parliament, and the intense excitement connected
with contested elections, cannot but accentuate race hatred in the Cape
Colony. Surely South Africa should have a rest. As in the Transvaal and
in the Orange Colony, so at the Cape, the great healer, time, ought to
be allowed to do its work.