THE TRANSVAAL.--ANNEXATION.
I have endeavoured in the last chapter to tell very shortly the story of
the South African Republic and to describe its condition at the moment
when our Secretary of State at home took the unusual step of sending a
British Commissioner,--not with orders to take possession of the land
but with orders which have been held to justify the act when done. I
doubt whether there is a precedent for so high-handed a deed in British
history. It is as though the rulers of Germany were to say that in their
opinion the existence of a Switzerland in Europe was deleterious and
dangerous, and that therefore they would abolish Switzerland as a
Republic, and annex its territory. It will be said that the case would
be different because Switzerland is well governed and prosperous. But
the Germans in such a case would say that they thought otherwise,--which
is what we say here,--and that they therefore took it. It was we who
found fault with the management of that other Republic and we who have
taken possession of the land. It is well that the whole truth as to the
matter should be understood. If we had done this act in compliance with
the expressed wish of the inhabitants generally, that would be a
justification. But it cannot fairly be said that such was the case
here. A nation with a popular parliament can only be held to express its
opinion to another nation by the voice of its parliament;--and the
Volksraad of the Transvaal was altogether opposed to the interference of
Great Britain. I will touch upon this matter again presently when
alluding to the words of the Commission given to the British
Commissioner by the Secretary of State at home;--but I think it must be
acknowledged that no other expression of opinion, unless it be a general
rising of a people, can be taken as national. In nine cases out of ten
petitions ought to be held to mean nothing. They cannot be verified.
They show the energy of the instigators of the petition and not of the
petitioners. They can be signed by those who have and by those who have
not an interest in the matter. The signatures to them can be readily
forged. At home in England the right of petitioning is so dear to us
from tradition that we still cling to it as one of the bulwarks of our
freedom; but there cannot be a statesman, hardly a Member of Parliament
among us, who does not feel that pen and ink and agitating management
have become so common that petitions are seldom now entitled to much
respect.
It may perhaps be said that we have repeatedly done the same thing in
India. But a little thinking will show that our Indian annexations have
been quite of a different nature. There we have gone on annexing in
opposition to the barbarism and weakness of native rule against which
our presence in India has, from the first, been a protest. Each
annexation has been the result of previous conquest and has been caused
by non-compliance with the demands of the conquerors. In the Transvaal
we have annexed a dominion which was established by ourselves in express
obedience to our own requisitions, which was in the possession of
European rulers, which was altogether independent, and as to the
expediency of annexing which we have had nothing to guide us but our own
judgment and our own will. It is as though a strong boy should say to a
weak one, “It is better that I should have that cricket bat than you,”
and should therefore take it.
The case will seem to be still stronger if it shall appear, as I think
it will, that Sir Theophilus Shepstone, the Commissioner appointed to
this work, did what he did do without complete authority. It is evident
that there was doubt in the Colonial Office at home. The condition of
the Transvaal was very bad. Slavery was rampant. The Natives were being
encouraged to rebellion. The President was impotent. The Volksraad was
stiff-necked and ignorant. There was no revenue, no order, no obedience.
The Dutch seemed to have forgotten even the way to fight. What were we
to do with such neighbours,--for whose inefficiency we were in a measure
responsible, having ourselves established the Republic? That we must
interfere for our own protection in regard to the Natives seemed to be
necessary. As has been said so often, there was a house on fire next
door to us, in the flames of which we might ourselves be enveloped.
Remonstrances had been frequent and had been altogether ineffectual. The
Republic was drifting,--nay, had drifted into Chaos. If any other people
could have assisted us in putting out the fire, French, Germans, or
Italians,--so that we might not seem to tyrannise,--it would have been
so comfortable! But in South Africa we had none to help us. And then
though this Republic was more than half Dutch it was also only less than
half English.
Something must be done; and therefore an order was sent out directing
Sir Theophilus Shepstone to go to Pretoria and see what he could do. Sir
Theophilus was and for many years had been Minister for Native Affairs
in the Colony of Natal, and was credited,--no doubt correctly,--with
knowing more about the Natives than any other European in South Africa.
He was a man held in special respect by the King of the Zulus, and the
King of the Zulus was in truth the great power whom both Dutch and
English would dread should the natives be encouraged to rebel. When men
have talked of our South African house being in danger of fire, Cetywayo
the King of the Zulus has been the fire to whom they have alluded. So
Sir Theophilus started on his journey taking his Commission in his
pocket. He took a small body of policemen with him as an escort, but
advisedly not a body that might seem by its number to intimidate even so
weak a Government as that of the South African Republic.
The writing of the Commission must have been a work of labour, requiring
much thought, and a great weighing of words. It had to be imperative and
yet hemmed in by all precautions; giving clear instruction, and yet
leaving very much to the Commissioner on the spot who would have his
work to do in a distant country not connected with the world by
telegraph wires. The Commission is long and I will not quote it all;
but it goes on to say that “if the emergency should seem to you to be
such as to render it necessary, in order to secure the peace and safety
of Our said Colonies and of Our subjects elsewhere that the said
territories, or any portion or portions of the same, should
_provisionally and pending the announcement of Our pleasure_,{A} be
administered in Our name and on Our behalf, then _and in such case
only_{A} We--” authorize you to annex so much of any such territories as
aforesaid.
But the caution against such annexing was continued much further.
“Provided first--that”--no such annexation shall be made--“unless you
shall be satisfied that the inhabitants thereof, _or a sufficient number
of them, or the Legislature thereof_[4] desire to become Our subjects,
nor if any conditions unduly limiting Our power and authority are sought
to be imposed. And secondly, that, unless the circumstances are such as
in your opinion to make it necessary to issue a Proclamation forthwith,
no such Proclamation shall be issued by you until the same has been
submitted to and approved by----” the Governor of the Cape Colony, all
whose titles are given at great length.
Could anything be more guarded, or less likely one would say on the mere
perusal of the document, to lead to an immediate and permanent
annexation of the whole country. The annexation if made at all was to be
provisional only and pending the Queen’s pleasure, and then it was only
to be made if the inhabitants, or a sufficient number of them, or the
Legislature should wish it. What the sufficient number might be was
left to the discretion of the Commissioner. But he was only to do this
in compliance with the wishes of the people themselves. He was to take
temporary possession,--only temporary possession,--of a part of the
Transvaal should the people desire it, and in the event of such a
measure being approved by a distant Governor,--unless the circumstances
were such as to make him think it expedient to do it without such
approval. Such was the nature of the Order, and I think that any one
reading it before the event would have said that it was not intended to
convey an authority for the immediate and permanent annexation of the
whole country.
But Sir Theophilus, after a sojourn of ten weeks at Pretoria, in which
the question of the annexation was submitted to the Volksraad and in
which petitions and counter-petitions were signed, did annex the whole
country permanently, without any question of provisional occupation, and
without, as far as I have been able to learn, any sanction from the
Governor of the Cape Colony. As to conditions limiting Her Majesty’s
power, the mere allusion to such a condition of things seems to be
absurd now that we know what has been done. “Now therefore I do ...
proclaim and make known that from and after the publication hereof the
territory heretofore known as the South African Republic ... shall be,
and shall be taken to be, British territory.” These are the words which
contain the real purport of the Proclamation issued by Sir Theophilus
Shepstone at Pretoria on 12th April, 1877. Was ever anything so decided,
so audacious, and apparently so opposed to the spirit of the
instructions which the Commissioner had received? When the Secretary of
State received a telegram from Madeira, the nearest telegraph station,
saying that the Transvaal had been annexed, which he did in the
following May, he surely must have been more surprised than any other
man in England at what had been done.
Was the deed justifiable? Has it been justified by what has occurred
since? And if so how had come about a state of things which had made
necessary a proceeding apparently so outrageous? The only man I have met
in all South Africa who has questioned the propriety of what has been
done is Mr. Burgers, the ousted President. Though I have discussed the
matter wherever I have been, taking generally something of a slant
against Sir Theophilus,--as I must seem to have done in the remarks I
have just made, and to which I always felt myself prompted by the
high-handedness of the proceeding,--I have never encountered even a
doubtful word on the subject, except in what Mr. Burgers said to me. And
Mr. Burgers acknowledged to me, not once or twice only, that the step
which had been taken was manifestly beneficial, to the Natives, to the
English,--and to the Dutch. He thought that Sir Theophilus had done a
great wrong,--but that the wrong done would be of great advantage to
every one concerned. He made various complaints;--that the Natives
around him had been encouraged to rebel in order that an assumed
difficulty might be pleaded;--that no national petition, and indeed no
trustworthy petition, had been sent forward praying for
annexation;--that the deed was uncalled for and tyrannical;--and that
the whole proceeding was one in which the courtesy due to a weaker
nation was neglected and omitted. He then asserted that fresh emigrants
would not flock into a land governed under a European crown as they
would have done into a Republic. But he repeated his admission that for
Dutchmen, Englishmen, and Natives as at present settled in the country,
the British rule would be the best.
He alleged as to himself that when Sir Theophilus stated to him his
intentions, three courses appeared to be open to him. He might use his
influence and his words in assisting the transference of the country to
the British. This as President of the Republic he could not do;--and the
less so as he did not think that it should be done. Or he might cause
Sir Theophilus and his twenty-five policemen to be marched back over the
border, treating them on their way as unauthorized intruders. This he
would not do, he said, because he knew it to be useless to wage war with
Great Britain. Or he might yield and remonstrate;--yield to power while
he remonstrated against injustice. This, he said, that he did do. The
words and personal bearing of the man recommended themselves to me much.
Whether he is to be regarded as a banished patriot or a willing placeman
must depend on a delicate question which has not as far as I know yet
been answered, though it has been broached,--to which, delicate as it
is, I will refer again before I have ended my story.
I had not the pleasure of meeting Sir Theophilus and have the less
repugnance therefore to surmise the condition of his mind when he
received the order to go to Pretoria. Had he told me his mind I might
have been unable to publish my own surmises. He knew that the native
races of the Transvaal unless convinced of the superiority of their
white neighbours would ever struggle to prove them inferior,--and that
such inferiority if proved would at once be their death-warrant. The
Natives had long learned to respect the English and to hate the
Dutch;--but even that respect would not restrain them if once they had
asserted their masterhood to a white race. And now this state of things
was at hand. He was aware that though English troops could be supplied
to maintain English authority, English troops would not be lent to fight
the battles of the Dutch. There might, nay there probably would be, a
native triumph just across our borders which he as a minister in Natal
could not interfere to quell,--but which, when a rumour of it should
spread among the Zulus on our border, might induce 300,000 coloured
subjects to think that they could free themselves by a blow from 20,000
white masters. And he knew the condition which I have attempted to
explain,--that these Dutch people in the Transvaal would not pay a
stiver of tax, that there was in fact no government, that the gaols were
unlocked in order that prisoners might find elsewhere the bread which
their gaolers could not get for them, that the posts could not be
continued because the Contractors were not paid, that no one would part
with a coin which he possessed, that property was unsaleable, that
industry was unprofitable, that life was insecure, that Chaos was come
upon the land. I do not suppose that Sir Theophilus doubted much when he
read the Commission which had been sent to him, or that he thought very
much of all the safeguards and provisions. He probably felt, as did
everybody else, that the South African Republic had from the first been
a failure,--almost a farce,--and that the sooner so expensive a failure
could be brought to an end, the better. If indeed the Volksraad would
have voted their own extermination that would have been very well; but
he could hardly have expected it. As for petitions, and the wish of a
“sufficient number” of the inhabitants,--I should imagine that he must
have been a little indifferent to that. His mind probably was made
up,--with a resolve to give the Volksraad what time might be needed for
their deliberations. They did not deliberate,--only deliberated whether
they would deliberate or not, and then declined even to deliberate.
Whereupon Sir Theophilus said that then and from thenceforth the
Transvaal should be British property. So he put up the Queen’s
flag;--and the Transvaal is and probably will remain British property.
I have to acknowledge, with all my sympathies strongly opposed to what I
call high-handed political operations, that I think Sir Theophilus was
justified. A case of such a kind must in truth be governed by its own
merits, and cannot be subjected to a fixed rule. To have annexed only a
part of the Transvaal would have been not only useless, but absurd. Not
only would the part which we had spared have been hostile to us, but the
Dutch within our assumed borders would have envied the independence we
had left to others. We shall have trouble enough now in settling our
boundaries with the Natives. We should then have had the worse trouble
of settling them with the Dutch. To have waited for authority from the
Governor of the Cape Colony would have shown a weakness in his own
authority which might have been fatal to Sir Theophilus as he was then
placed. No other Governor could know the condition of the matter as well
as he did. To get the authority needed he must have wasted six weeks
during which it would have been known to every member of the Volksraad
that he was waiting. To carry him through it was needed that the Boers
should understand that when he said that the land should be annexed,
Great Britain was saying so. They did so believe. The President so
believed. And therefore the surrender was made without a struggle.
So much for Sir Theophilus and his instructions. In the larger matter
which regards Great Britain and her character, we have to enquire
whether this arbitrary act has been justified by what has occurred
since. In discussing this there are at least four parties concerned, if
not more. Mr. Burgers spoke of three, and in South Africa it is natural
that reference should be made to those three only. As regards the
Natives there can be no question. No friend of theirs can wish it to be
otherwise unless they have a friend so foolish as to desire for them an
independence which can be obtained only by the extermination or
banishment of the European races. That the Natives generally respect the
English and do not respect the Dutch is certain. This had come to such a
pitch in the Transvaal that it had produced war,--and that war if
continued would have meant the destruction of the tribe which was waging
it. Permanent success against white men is impossible for Natives in
South Africa. Every war between a tribe and its white neighbours ends in
the destruction of the tribe as an independent people. And here, if
Secocoeni had been successful against the Dutch,--if the English could
have allowed themselves to sit by and see the house all in
flames,--Cetywayo, the King of the Zulus, would at once have been at war
with Secocoeni. As far as the Natives were concerned, it would indeed
have been to “let slip the dogs of war.” It has been one of our great
objects in dealing with the Natives,--perhaps that in accomplishing
which we should be most proud of what we have done,--to save the tribes
from being hounded on to war among themselves by their Chiefs. The Dutch
rule in the Transvaal was an incentive to war which was already
operating. The house was on fire and could only have been put out by us.
As to the good done to the English of the Transvaal it is hardly
necessary that any arguments should be used. We had abandoned the
country to Dutch rule in 1852, and it was natural that the Dutch should
consider only themselves--and the Natives. After what we had done we
clearly had no right to take back the Transvaal by force in order that
we might protect the interests of Englishmen who were living there. But
it is matter of additional satisfaction that we have been enabled to
re-establish a basis of trade in the country;--for the trade of the
country has been in the hands of English, Germans, or newly arrived
Hollanders, and not in those of the Boers to whom the country was given
up. I do not remember to have found a shop or even an hotel all through
the Transvaal in the hands of a Dutch Boer.
But the man who has cause to rejoice the most,--and who as far as I
could learn is wide awake to the fact,--is the Boer himself. He is an
owner of land,--and on the first of January 1877 his land was hardly
worth having. Now he can sell it, and such sales are already being made.
He was all astray even as to what duty required of him. Ought he to pay
his taxes when no one around him was paying? Of what use would be his
little contribution? Therefore he did not pay. And yet he had sense
enough to know that when there are no taxes, then there can be no
government. Now he will pay his taxes. Ought he to have fought, when
those wretched Natives, in their audacity, were trying to recover the
land which he had taken from them? Of what use could fighting have been
when he had no recognised leader,--when the next Boer to him was not
fighting? Now he knows that he will have a leader. Why cultivate his
land, or more of it than would feed himself? Why shear his sheep if he
could not sell his wool? Now there are markets for him. It was to this
condition of not paying, not fighting, and not working that he was
coming when British annexation was suggested to him. He could not
himself ask to be expatriated; but it may well be understood that he
should thoroughly appreciate the advantage to himself of a measure for
which as a Dutchman he could not ask. What was wanted was money and the
credit which money gives. England had money and the Boer knew well
enough that English money could procure for him that which a national
flag, and a gold coinage, and a code of laws, and a promised railway
could not achieve. It was almost cruel to ask him to consent to
annexation, but it would have been more cruel not to annex him.
But the condition of the fourth party is to be considered. That fourth
party is the annexing country. It may be very well for the Natives and
for the Dutch, and for the English in the Transvaal, but how will it
suit the English at home? It became immediately necessary for us to send
a large military force up to the Transvaal, or to its neighbourhood.
Something above two regiments have I believe been employed on the
service, and money has been demanded from Parliament for the purpose of
paying for them. Up to this time England has had to pay about £125,000
for the sake of procuring that security of which I have spoken. Why
should she pay this for the Boers,--or even for the English who have
settled themselves among the Boers? And then the sum I have named will
be but a small part of what we must pay. Hitherto no violent objection
has been made at home to the annexation. In Parliament it has been
almost as well received by the Opposition as by the Government. No one
has said a word against Lord Carnarvon; and hardly a word has been said
against Sir Theophilus. But how will it be when other and larger sums
are asked for the maintenance of the Transvaal? Surely some one will
then arise and say that such payments are altogether antagonistic to our
colonial policy,--by which our Colonies, as they are required to give
nothing to us, are also required to support themselves.
The answer to this I think must be that we have been compelled thus to
deviate from our practice and to put our hands deeply into our pockets
by our folly in a former generation. It is because we came to a wrong
judgment of our position in 1852,--when we first called upon the Dutch
Boers to rule themselves,--that we are now, twenty-five years
afterwards, called upon to pay for the mistake that has since occurred.
We then endeavoured to limit our responsibility, saying to ourselves
that there was a line in South Africa which we would not pass. We had
already declined to say the same thing as to Natal and we ought to have
seen and acknowledged that doctrine of the house on fire as clearly then
as we do now. The Dutch who trekked across the Vaal were our subjects as
much as though they were English. Their troubles must ultimately have
become our troubles,--whereas their success, had they been successful,
might have been as troublesome to us as their troubles. We repudiated
two territories, and originated two Republics. The first has come back
upon our hands and we must pay the bill. That is the Transvaal. The
other, which can pay its own bill, will not come back to us even though
we should want it. That is the Orange Free State. I have now answered
the three questions. I think the annexation was justifiable. I think
that it has been justified by the circumstances that have followed it.
And I have given what in my opinion has been the cause for so
disagreeable a necessity.
There is one other matter to be mentioned,--that delicate matter to
which I have alluded. A report has been spread all through South Africa
that the late President of the South African Republic is to be gratified
by a pension of £750 per annum out of the revenues of Great Britain. I
trust for every one’s sake that that report may not be true. The late
President was the chief officer of his country when the annexation was
made, and I cannot think that it would be compatible with his honour to
receive a pension from the Government of the country which has
annihilated the Republic over which he had been called on to preside.
When he says that he yielded and remonstrated he takes a highly
honourable position and one which cannot be tarnished by any
incapability for ruling which he may have shown. But were he to live
after that as a pensioner on English bounty,--the bounty of the country
which had annihilated his own,--then I think that he had better at least
live far away from the Transvaal, and from the hearing of the sound of a
Dutchman’s voice.
And why should we pay such a pension? Is it necessary that we should
silence Mr. Burgers? Have we done him an injustice that we should pay
him a compensation for the loss of his office? It is said that we pay
dethroned Indian Princes. But we take the revenues of dethroned Indian
Princes,--revenues which have become their own by hereditary descent.
Mr. Burgers had a month or two more of his Presidency to enjoy, with but
little chance of re-election to an office the stipend of which could not
have been paid for want of means. But this argument ought not to be
required. An expensive and disagreeable duty was forced upon us by a
country which could not rule itself, and certainly we should not
convict ourselves of an injustice by giving a pension to the man whose
incompetence imposed upon us the task. I trust that the rumour though
very general has been untrue.