THE ORANGE FREE STATE.--ITS EARLY HISTORY.
The history of the origin of the Orange Free State, as a certain
district of South Africa is called, is one which when really written
will not I think redound to the credit of England. This I say not
intending to accuse any British statesman of injustice,--much less of
dishonesty. In all that has been done by the Colonial office in
reference to the territory in question the attempt to do right has from
first to last been only too anxious and painstaking. But as is generally
the case when over anxiety exists in lieu of assured conviction, the
right course has not been plainly seen, and the wrong thing has been
done and done, perhaps, in a wrong manner.
Our system of government by Cabinets is peculiarly open to such mistakes
in reference to Colonial matters. At the Foreign office, as is well
known, there is a prescribed course of things and whether Lord Granville
be there or Lord Derby the advice given will probably be the same. At
the Home office the same course is followed whether the gentleman there
be a Liberal or a Conservative, and if one dispenser of the Queen’s
prerogative be more prone than another to allow criminals to escape, the
course of Government is not impeded by his proclivities. But in looking
back at the history of the Colonies during the last fifty years we see
the idiosyncrasies of the individual ministers who have held the office
of Secretary of State rather than a settled course of British action,
and we are made to feel how suddenly the policy of one minister may be
made to give way to the conscientious convictions of another. Hence
there have come changes each of which may be evidence of dogged
obstinacy in the mind of some much respected Statesman, but which seem
to be proof of vacillation in the nation.
It would be thought that a colonizing nation like Great Britain,--now
the only colonizing nation in existence,--should have a policy of
colonization. The Americans of the United States have such a policy,
though they do not colonize in our sense. They will not colonize at all
beyond their own continent, so that all the citizens of their Republic
may be brought into one homogeneous whole. The Spaniards and Dutch who
have been great Colonists have a colonial policy,--which has ever
consisted in getting what can be got for the mother country. Among
ourselves, with all that we have done and all that we are doing, we do
not yet know whether it is our intention to limit or to extend our
colonial empire; we do not yet know whether we purpose to occupy other
lands or to protect in their occupation those who now hold them; we do
not yet know whether as a nation we wish our colonial dependants to
remain always loyal to the British Crown or whether we desire to see
them start for themselves as independent realms. All we do know is that
with that general philanthropy and honesty without which a British
Cabinet cannot now exist we want to do good and to avoid doing evil. But
when we look back, and, taking even three liberal Colonial Secretaries,
see the difference of opinion on colonial matters of such men as Lord
Glenelg, Lord Grey, and Lord Granville, we have to own that our colonial
policy must vacillate.
Are we to extend or are we not to extend our colonial empire? That was a
question on which some years ago it did seem that our Statesmen had come
to a decision. The task we had taken upon us was thought to be already
more than enough for our strength, and we would not stretch our hands
any further. If it might be practicable to get rid of some of the least
useful of our operations it would be well to do so. That dream of a
settled purpose has, however, been very rudely broken. The dreamers have
never been able to act upon it as a policy. It will not be necessary to
do more than name the Fiji Islands,--not the last but one of the last of
our costly acquirements,--to show how unable the Colonial office at home
has been to say, “so far will we go but no farther.” Had the Colonial
office recognised it as a policy that wherever Englishmen settle
themselves in sufficient numbers to make a disturbance if they be not
governed, then government must go after them, then the Fiji Islands
might have been accepted as a necessity. But there is no such policy
even yet;--though the annexation of the Transvaal will go far to
convince men that such must be our practice.
It is because of our vacillation in South Africa,--vacillation which has
come from the varying convictions of varying Ministers and
Governors,--that I say that the history of the Orange Free State will
not be creditable to our discernment and statesmanship. Much heavier
accusations have been brought against our Colonial office in reference
to the same territory by Dutch, American, and by English censors. It has
been said that we have been treacherous, tyrannical, and dishonest. To
none of these charges do I think that the Colonial office is fairly
subject; and though I cannot acquit every Governor of craft,--or perhaps
of tyranny,--I think that there has on the whole been an anxious desire
on the part of the emissaries from Downing Street to do their duty to
their country. But there has been a want of settled purpose as to the
nature and extent of the duties which fell upon England when she became
mistress of the Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope.
There are some who think that we might have confined ourselves to Table
Mountain and Simon’s Bay, drawing a rampart across the isthmus which
divides the Cape from the mainland,--so as to have kept only a station
for the protection of our East India intercourse. But as the Dutch whom
we took upon ourselves to govern had already gone far inland when we
arrived, that would hardly have been possible, and a restriction so
selfish would have been contrary to our instincts. Others would have
limited our power at various boundaries,--especially towards the East,
where were the Kafir tribes, an evident source of coming trouble, should
we meddle with them. The Orange river as a northern boundary did seem to
offer a well-defined geographical limit, which would still allow us
enormous scope for agricultural and pastoral energy within its southern
banks and give sufficient room for every immigrant of whatever nation,
and for every Africander who wished to live under British rule, to find
a home within its borders.
But, as has been told before, the Dutch fled away across the Orange
river as soon as they began to feel the nature of British rule. Then
arose the question, which we have never yet been quite able to answer.
When they went was it our duty to go after them,--not to hinder them
from going but to govern them whither they went? Certainly not; we said,
when they went only in such numbers as to cause us no disturbance by
their removal. But how was it to be when they threatened, without any
consent of ours, to erect a separate nationality on our borders? They
tried it first in Natal, threatening us not only with the rivalry of
their own proposed Republic, but with the hostile support of Holland.
This was not to be allowed and we sent 250 men, very insufficiently, to
put down the New Republic. We did, however, put it down at last.
But the Dutch were determined to go out from us. Our ways were not their
ways. I am now speaking of a period nearly half a century back and of
the following quarter of a century. Our philanthropy disgusted them, and
was to their minds absolutely illogical,--not to be reconciled to that
custom of our nation of landing here and there and taking the land away
from the natives. The custom to them was good enough and seemed to be
clearly the intention of God Almighty. It was the purpose of Providence
that white men should use the land which was only wasted while in the
possession of black men;--and, no doubt, the purpose of Providence also
that black men should be made to work. But that attempt to strike down
the Native with the right hand and to salve the wound with the left was
to the Dutchman simply hypocritical. “Catch the nigger and make him
work.” That was the Dutchman’s idea. “Certainly;--if you can agree about
wages and other such matters,” said the British Authorities.
“Wages,--with this Savage; with this something more but very little more
than a monkey! Feed him, and perhaps baptize him; but at any rate get
work out of him,” said the Dutchman. Of course the Dutchman was
disgusted. And then the slaves had been manumitted. I will not go into
all that again; but I think it must be intelligible that the British
philanthropical system of government was an hypocritical abomination to
the Dutchman who knew very well that in spite of his philanthropy the
Englishman still kept taking the land;--land upon land.
It was natural that the Dutchman should go across the Orange River, and
natural too that the English governor should not quite know how to treat
him when he had gone. But it would have been well if some certain policy
of treatment could have been adopted. Many think that had we not
interfered with him in Natal, had we never established what was called
an Orange River Sovereignty subject to British rule, a Dutch-speaking
nation would have been formed between our Cape Colony and the swarming
native tribes, which would have been a protecting barrier for us and
have ensured the security of our Colony. I myself do not agree with
this. I think that a Dutch Republic if strong enough for this,
stretching from the confluence of the Vaal and Orange rivers down to the
shores of Natal would have been a neighbour more difficult to deal with
than Kafir tribes. My opinion on such a subject goes for very
little;--and there would at any rate have been a policy. Or, when we had
after much hesitation forbidden the Dutch to form a Republic in Natal
and had declared that country to be one among Her Majesty’s possessions,
we might have clung to the South African theory which was then
promulgated. In that case we should have recognized the necessity of
treating those wandering warlike patriarchs as British subjects and have
acknowledged to ourselves that whither they went thither we must go
after them. This, too, would have been a policy. But this we have not
done. At first we went after them. Then we abandoned them. And now that
they are altogether out of our hands in the Free State we are hankering
after them again. It is impossible not to see that the ideas as to
Colonial extension entertained by the late Duke of Newcastle are
altogether different from those held by Lord Carnarvon;--and that the
Colonial office lacks traditions.
In some respects the history of the Orange Free State has been similar
to that of the Transvaal. Its fate has been very different,--a
difference which has resulted partly from the characters of the men
employed, partly from their external circumstances in regard to the
native tribes which have been near to them. Mr. Boshof and Mr. Brand
have been very superior as Statesmen to Mr. Pretorius and Mr. Burgers,
and the Basutos under Moshesh their Chief,--though they almost
succeeded in destroying the Orange Republic,--were at last less
dangerous, at any rate very much less numerous, than Cetywayo and the
Zulus.
The Dutch when they first crossed the Orange River asked whether they
might go, and were then told that the law offered no impediment. “I am
not aware,” said Lieutenant Governor Stockenstrom in answer to a
deputation which appealed to him on the subject, “of any law which
prevents any of His Majesty’s subjects from leaving his dominions and
settling in another country; and such a law, if it did exist, would be
tyrannical and oppressive.” That was in 1835. It was in 1837 that the
migration across the river really began, when many of the wanderers
first found their way down to Natal. Some however settled directly
across the Orange River, where however they soon fell into difficulties
requiring government. While there was fighting with hostile tribes far
north across the Vaal, and while Dingaan was endeavouring to exterminate
the white men in Natal, the farmers across the Orange quarrelled in a
milder way with the bastard Hottentots and Griquas whom they found
there. But there were many troubles. When the Dutch declared themselves
to be supreme,--in reference to the Natives rather than the
British,--there came a British judge across the river, who happened then
to be on circuit in the neighbourhood, and told them that they were all
British subjects. But his assertion was very soon repudiated by the
Governor, Sir George Napier,--for at that time the idea was prevalent at
the Colonial office that England’s hands should be stretched no
further. This, however, did not stand long, and the next Governor, Sir
Peregrine Maitland, found himself compelled by growing troubles to
exercise authority across the rivers. He did not take possession of the
country, but established a resident at the little town of Bloemfontein.
The resident was to keep the peace between the Dutch and the various
tribes;--but had no commission to govern the country. The British had
found it impossible to allow the Dutch to drive the Natives from their
land,--and equally impossible to allow the Natives to slaughter the
Dutch. But yet we were very loth to declare the country British
territory.
It was in 1848 that Sir Harry Smith, who was then in Natal, whither he
had gone intending if possible to conciliate the Dutch would-be
Republicans in that country, at last found himself compelled to claim
for the mother country sovereignty over the region between the Orange
and the Vaal rivers, and this proclamation he had to support by arms.
Pretorius, who had become the leader of the Dutch in Natal, and who on
account of personal slights to himself was peculiarly hostile to the
English, came over the Drakenburg mountains, and put himself at the head
of his countrymen between the rivers. He gathered together an army,--a
commando, as it was then called in South African language,--and coming
near to Bloemfontein ordered Major Warden, the British Resident, to move
himself off into the Cape Colony south of the river with all that he had
about him of soldiers and officials. This the Major did, and then
Pretorius prepared himself to encounter with his Boers the offended
majesty of Great Britain in arms. The reader will perhaps remember that
the Dutch had done the same thing in Natal,--and had at first been
successful.
Then, on 29th August, 1848, was fought the battle of Boom Plats half-way
between the Orange River and Bloemfontein. Sir Harry Smith, the
Governor, had come himself with six or seven hundred English soldiers
and were joined by a small body of Griquas,--who were as a matter of
course hostile to the Dutch. There were collected together about a
thousand Dutch farmers all mounted. They were farmers, ready enough to
fight, but not trained soldiers. More English were killed or wounded
than Dutch. A dozen Dutchmen fell, and about four times that number of
English. But the English beat the Dutch. This decided the fate of that
territory for a short time,--and it became British under the name of the
Orange River Sovereignty. Pretorius with his friends trekked away north,
crossed the Vaal River, and there founded the Transvaal Republic,--as
has been told elsewhere. A reward of £2,000 was offered for his
apprehension;--an offer which might have been spared and which was
happily made in vain.
Major Warden was reinstated as governing Resident, and the British power
was supposed to be so well consolidated that many colonists who had
hitherto remained contented on the south of the river now crossed it to
occupy the lands which the followers of Pretorius had been compelled to
desert. But the British were not very strong. The Basutos, a tribe of
Natives who have now for some years lived in the odour of loyal sanctity
and are supposed to be a pattern to all other Natives, harassed the
Europeans continually. War had to be proclaimed against them. Basuto
Land will be found in the map lying to the north of Kafraria, to the
south east of the Orange Free State, south west of Natal, and north-east
of the Cape Colony,--to which it is bound only by a narrow neck, and of
which it now forms a part. How it became British shall be told
hereafter;--but at the time of which I am now writing, about 1850, it
was very Anti-British, and gave poor Major Warden and the Dutchmen who
were living under his rule a great deal of trouble.
Then, in 1851, the Sovereignty was declared to be to all intents and
purposes a separate Colony,--such as is the Transvaal at this moment. A
Lieutenant Governor was appointed, who with the assistance of a council
was empowered to make laws,--but with a proviso that such laws should
not be binding upon Natives. To speak sooth British laws are not
absolutely binding upon the Natives in any of the South African
Colonies. In the Cape Colony or in Natal a Native may buy a wife,--or
ten wives. There has always been the acknowledged impossibility of
enforcing Africans to live at once after European habits. But here, in
this new Colony which we had at last adopted, there was to be something
peculiarly mild in our dealings with the black men. There was to be no
interference with acts done within the limits of the jurisdiction of any
native Chief. The Lieutenant Governor or “Resident was instructed to
maintain the government of the native Chiefs over their people and lands
in the utmost integrity.”[11] It is odd enough that from this territory,
on which the British Governor or British Colonial Secretary of the day
was so peculiarly anxious to defend the Natives from any touch of
European tyranny, all the native tribes have been abolished, and here
alone in South Africa the European master is fettered by no native
difficulty;--is simply served by native servants. The native locations
were to be peculiarly sacred;--but every Native has been scared away.
The servants and workmen are foreigners who have come into the land in
search of wages and food. The remarkable settlement at Thaba ’Ncho, of
which I shall speak in a following chapter, is no contradiction to this
statement, as the territory of the Baralongs of which Thaba ’Ncho is the
capital is not a portion of the Orange Free State.
But with all our philanthropy we could not make things run smoothly in
our new Colony. Moshesh and the Basutos would have grievances and would
fight. The Governor of the Cape, who should have had no trouble with a
little Colony which had a Governor of its own, and a Council, and
instructions of a peculiarly philanthropic nature in regard to the
Natives, was obliged to fight with these Basutos on behalf of the little
Colony. This cost money,--of which the people in England heard the
facts. It was really too much that after all that we had done we should
be called upon to pay more money for an uncomfortable internal Province
in South Africa which was not of the slightest use to us, which added no
prestige to our name, and of which we had struggled hard to avoid the
possession. There was nothing attractive about it. It was neither
fertile nor pretty,--nor did it possess a precious metal of any kind as
far as we knew. It was inhabited by Dutch who disliked us,--and by a
most ungrateful horde of fighting Natives. Why,--why should we be
compelled to go rushing up to the Equator, crossing river after river,
in a simple endeavour to do good, when the very people whom we wanted to
serve continually quarrelled with us,--and made us pay through the nose
for all their quarrels?
It seems to have been forgotten then,--it seems often to have been
forgotten,--that the good people and the peaceable people have to pay
for the bad people and the quarrelsome people. There would appear to be
a hardship in this;--but if any one will look into it he will see that
after all the good people and the peaceable have much the best of it,
and that the very money which they are called upon to pay in this way is
not altogether badly invested. They obtain the blessing of security and
the feeling, not injurious to their peace of mind, of having obtained
that security by their own exertions.
But the idea of paying money and getting nothing for it does create
irritation. At home in England the new Colony was not regarded with
favour. In 1853 we had quite enough of fighting in hand without having
to fight the Basutos in defence of the Dutch, or the Dutch in defence of
the Basutos. The Colonial Secretary of that time was also War minister
and may well have had his hands full. It was decided that the Orange
Free State should be abandoned. We had claimed the Dutch as our subjects
when they attempted to start for themselves in Natal, and had subjugated
them by force of arms. Then we had repudiated them in the nearer region
across the Orange. Then again we had claimed them and had again
subjugated them by force of arms. Now we again repudiated them. In 1854
we executed, and forced them to accept, a convention by which we handed
over the Government of the country to them,--to be carried on after
their own fashion. But yet it was not to be carried on exactly as they
pleased. There was to be no Slavery. They were to be an independent
people, living under a Republic; but they were not to be allowed to
force labour from the Natives. To see that this stipulation was carried
out it would have been necessary for us to maintain magistrates all over
the country;--or spies rather than magistrates, as such magistrates
could have had no jurisdiction. The Republic, however, assented to a
treaty containing this clause in regard to slavery.
In 1854 we got rid of our Orange River Sovereignty, Sir George Clerk
having been sent over from England to make the transfer;--and we
congratulated ourselves that we had now two independent Republics
between us and the swarming hordes of the north. I cannot say how soon
there came upon Downing Street a desire to resume the territory, but
during the following troubles with the Basutos such a feeling must, one
would say, have arisen. When the Diamond Fields were discovered it is
manifest that the independence of the Orange Free State was very much in
our way. When we were compelled by the run of circumstances to have
dealings with native tribes which in 1854 seemed to us to be too remote
from our borders to need thought, we must have regretted a certain
clause in the convention by which,--we did not indeed bind ourselves to
have no dealings with natives north of the Vaal river, but in which we
declared that we had no “wish or intention” to enter into such treaties.
No doubt that clause was intended to imply only that we had at that time
no hidden notion of interference with the doings of the proposed
Republic by arrangements with its native neighbours,--no notion of which
it was to be kept in the dark. To think the contrary would be to suppose
that the occupants of the Colonial Office at home were ignorant of
language and destitute of honesty. But there soon came troubles from the
clause which must have caused many regrets in the bosoms of Secretaries
and Under Secretaries. Now at any rate we are all sure that Downing
Street must repent her liberality, and wish,--ah, so fruitlessly,--that
Sir George Clerk had never been sent upon that expedition. With a
Permissive South Africa Confederation Bill carried after infinite
trouble, and an independent State in the middle of South Africa very
little inclined to Confederation, the present holder of the Colonial
seals[12] cannot admire much the peculiar virtue which in 1854 induced
his predecessor to surrender the Orange territory to the Dutch in
opposition to the wish of all the then inhabitants of the country.
For the surrender was not made to please the people of the country. Down
in Natal the Dutch had wanted a Republic. Up in the Sovereignty, as it
was then called, they also had wanted a Republic when old Pretorius was
at their head. But since that time there had come troubles with the
Basutos,--troubles which were by no means ended,--and the Dutch were now
willing enough to put up with dependence and British protection. The
Dutch have been so cross-grained that the peculiar colonial virtue of
the day has never been able to take their side. “We have come here only
because you have undertaken to govern us and protect us,” said those of
the Dutch who had followed and not preceded us across the Orange. And it
was impossible to contradict them. I do not think that any body could
now dispassionately inquire into the circumstances of South Africa
without calling in question the wisdom of the Government at home in
abandoning the control of the territory north of the Orange River.
But the Republic was established. For some years it had a most troubled
life. Mr. Boshof was elected the first President and retained that
office till 1859. He seems to have been a man of firmness and wisdom,
but to have found his neighbours the Basutos to be almost too much for
him. There was war with this tribe more or less during his whole time.
There was a branch of the tribe of the Basutos living on a territory in
the Free State,--a people whom I will describe more at length in a
following chapter,--over whom and over whose property Moshesh the Chief
of the Basutos claimed sovereignty; but it was impossible for the Free
State to admit the claim as it could itself only exist by dictating
boundaries and terms to the Baralongs,--which they were willing enough
to receive as being a protection against their enemies the Basutos.
In 1860 Mr. Pretorius became President of the Free State,--the son of
the man who had been the first President of the Transvaal,--and the man
himself who was President of the Transvaal before Mr. Burgers. But the
difficulties were altogether beyond his power, and in 1863 he resigned.
Then Mr. Brand was appointed, the gentleman who now holds the office and
who will hold it probably, if he lives, for many years to come. His
present condition, which is one of complete calm, is very much at
variance with the early years of his Presidency. I should hardly
interest my reader if I were to attempt to involve them in the details
of this struggle. It was a matter of life and death to the young
Republic in which national death seemed always to be more probable than
national life. The State had no army and could depend only on the
efforts of its burghers and volunteers,--men who were very good for a
commando or a spasmodic struggle, men who were well used to sharp
skirmishes in which they had to contend in the proportion of one to ten
against their black enemies. But this war was maintained for four years,
and the burghers and volunteers who were mostly married men could not
long remain absent from home. And when a peace was made at the instance
of the Governor of the Cape Colony and boundaries established to which
Moshesh agreed, the sons of Moshesh broke out in another place, and
everything was as bad as before. All the available means of the Free
State were spent. Blue-backs as they were called were printed, and the
bankers issued little scraps of paper,--“good-fors,” as they were
called,--representing minute sums of money. Trade there was none and the
farmers had to fight the Basutos instead of cultivating their land. At
that time the condition of the Free State was very bad indeed. I think
I may say that its preservation was chiefly due to the firmness of Mr.
Brand.
At length the Basutos were so crushed that they were driven to escape
the wrath of their Dutch enemies by imploring the British to take them
in as subjects. In March 1868 this was done,--by no means with the
consent of the Free State which felt that it ought to dictate terms and
to take whatever territory it might desire from its now conquered
enemy and add such territory to its own. This was the more desirable
as the land of the Basutos was peculiarly good and fit for
cultivation,--whereas that of the Orange Free State was peculiarly bad,
hardly admitting cultivation at all without the expensive process of
irrigation. The English at last made a boundary line, to which the Free
State submitted. By this a considerable portion of the old Basuto land
was given up to them. This they have held ever since under the name of
the Conquered Territory. Its capital is called Ladybrand, and its
possession is the great pride of the Republic. In completing this story
I must say that the Republic has been most unexpectedly able to redeem
every inch of paper money which it created, and now, less than ten years
after a war which quite exhausted and nearly destroyed it, the Orange
Free State stands unburdened by a penny of public debt. This condition
has no doubt come chiefly from its good luck. Diamonds were found, and
the Diamond Fields had to be reached through the Free State. Provisions
of all sorts were required at the Diamond Fields, and thus a market was
created for everything that could be produced. There came a sudden
influx of prosperity which enabled the people to bear taxation,--and in
this way the blue-backs were redeemed.
There were other troubles after 1869;--but the little State has floated
through them all. Its chief subsequent trouble has been the main cause
of its prosperity. The diamonds were found and the Republic claimed the
territory on which they were being collected. On that subject I have
spoken in a previous chapter, and I need not again refer to the details
of the disagreement between Great Britain and the Republic. But it may
be as well to point out that had that quarrel ended otherwise than it
did, the English of the Diamond Fields would certainly have annexed the
Dutch of the Free State, instead of allowing the Dutch of the Free State
to annex them;--and then England would have obtained all the country
between the Orange and the Vaal instead of only that small but important
portion of it in which the diamonds lie. To imagine that Kimberley with
all its wealth would have allowed itself to be ruled by a Dutch
Volksraad at the little town of Bloemfontein, is to suppose that the
tail can permanently wag the dog, instead of the dog wagging the tail.
Diamond diggers are by no means people of a kind to submit quietly to
such a condition of things. It was bitter enough for the Volksraad to
abandon the idea of making laws for so rich and strong a
population,--bitter perhaps for Mr. Brand to abandon the idea of
governing them. But there can now, I think, be no doubt that it was
better for the Free State that Griqualand West and Kimberley should be
separated from it,--especially as Mr. Brand was sent home to England by
his parliament,--where he probably acquired softer feelings than
heretofore towards a nationality with which he had been so long
contending, and where he was able to smooth everything by inducing the
Secretary of State to pay £90,000 by way of compensation to his own
Government. I should think that Mr. Brand looking back on his various
contentions with the British, on the Basuto wars and the Griqualand
boundary lines, must often congratulate himself on the way he has
steered his little bark. There can be no doubt that his fellow citizens
in the Republic are very proud of his success.
Since Mr. Brand returned from London in 1876 nothing material has
happened in the history of the Free State. In regard to all states it is
said to be well that nothing material should happen to them. This must
be peculiarly so with a Republic so small, and of which the success and
the happiness must depend so entirely on its tranquillity. That it
should have lived through the Basuto wars is astonishing. That it should
not continue to live now that it is protected on all sides from the
possibility of wars by the contiguity of British territory would be as
astonishing. It seems to be expected by some politicians in England that
now, in the days of her prosperity, the Republic will abandon her
independence and ask to be received once more under the British ægis. I
cannot conceive anything to be less probable, nor can I see any cause
for such a step. But I will refer again to this matter when attempting
to describe the present condition of the country.
In this little sketch I have endeavoured to portray the Colonial
Ministers at home as actuated by every virtue which should glow within
the capacious bosom of a British Statesman. I am sure that I have
attributed no sinister motive, no evil idea, no blindness to honesty, no
aptitude for craft to any Secretary of State. There are I think no less
than eleven of them still living, all of whom the British public regards
as honourable men who have deserved well of their country. I can
remember almost as many more of whom the same may be said, who are now
at peace beyond the troubles of the Native Question. I will endeavour to
catalogue the higher public virtues by which they have endeared
themselves to their country,--only remarking that those virtues have
not, each of them, held the same respective places in the bosoms of all
of them. A sensitiveness to the greatness and glory of England,--what we
may perhaps call the Rule Britannia feeling,--which cannot endure the
idea that the British foot should ever go back one inch! Is it not
national ardour such as this which recommends our Statesmen to our love?
And then there has been that well-weighed economy which has been
acquired in the closet and used in the House of Commons, without which
no minister can really be true to his country. To levy what taxes be
needed, but to take care that no more is spent than is needed;--is not
that the first duty of a Cabinet Minister? But it has been England’s
destiny to be the arbiter of the fate of hundreds of millions of dusky
human beings,--black, but still brethren,--on distant shores. The Queen
has a hundred coloured subjects to one that is white. It has been the
peculiar duty of the Colonial Minister to look after and to defend the
weakest of these dark-skinned brothers; and this has had to be done in
the teeth of much obloquy! Can any virtue rank higher than the
performance of so sacred a duty? And then of how much foresight have our
ministers the need? How accurately must they read the lessons which
history and experience should teach them if Great Britain is to be saved
from a repetition of the disgrace which she encountered before the
American Colonies declared themselves independent? When we find a man
who can look forward and say to himself,--“while we can hold these
people, for their own content, to their own welfare, so long we will
keep them; but not a moment longer for any selfish aggrandisement of our
own;”--when we find a Statesman rising to that pitch, how fervently
should we appreciate the greatness of the man, and how ready should we
be to acknowledge that he has caught the real secret of Colonial
administration.
These splendid qualities have so shone over our Colonial office that the
sacred edifice is always bright with them. They scintillate on the brows
of every Assistant Secretary, and sit as a coronet on the shining locks
of all the clerks. But unfortunately they are always rotatory, so that
no one virtue is ever long in the ascendant. Rule Britannia! and the
Dutch Member of Parliament has to walk out of his Volksaal and touch his
hat to an English Governor. Downing Street and the Treasury have agreed
to retrench! Then the Dutch Member of Parliament walks back again. We
will at any rate protect the Native! Then the Boer’s wife hides the
little whip with which she is accustomed to maintain discipline over
her apprenticed nigger children. Let these people go forth and govern
themselves! Then the little whip comes out again. Among all these
British virtues what is a bewildered Dutch Colonist to do? If one virtue
would remain always in the ascendant,--though I might differ or
another,--there would be an intelligible policy. If they could be made
to balance each other,--as private virtues do in private bosoms when the
owners of those bosoms are possessed of judgment,--then the policy would
assuredly be good. But while one virtue is ever in the ascendant, but
never long there, the Dutch Colonist, and the English, are naturally
bewildered by the rotation.