remember among the staple attacks upon capitalism quite a series of
articles intended to decoy mining artisans and operatives to Boer views.
Secret agents were also employed for that purpose, and to induce the
belief that the Government was the enemy of capitalism, and would
champion its victims (the mining operatives) in the State. It would
support miners and the working class generally against attempts to
curtail the just rights of labour, and to parade its sincerity actually
passed a law constituting eight tours a legal day's labour. With such
coquettings it was hoped to gain the miners' confidence and adhesion.
Those men were, however, not to be taught by quasi-socialistic
professions of concern, and when, some months later, the exodus prior
to the war occurred, they nearly all left, much to the disgust and
discomfiture of the Government, which had counted upon them to stay to
work the mines for its own account when the moment should arrive.
The appropriation of gold mines and their exploitation for Government
benefit bring about a singular anomaly for a nation engaged in war,
viz., that of a plethora of gold and a scarcity of paper currency, the
Transvaal mint coining the sinews of war at the expense of its victims,
but the plundered gold after all not equalling commercial paper values.
In connection with the foregoing remarks the following may also be said.
States professing neutrality still permit themselves to trade with the
Transvaal to a large extent. It is notorious that that State possesses
no funds available for payments except the gold derived from the
misappropriated mines. The output is seized in its entirety, and not
limited to the extent accruing to British scrip holders only. The
hustling rivalry of doing business with the Transvaal thus involves
receiving stolen money in payment of trade accounts. We see the
receivers eager to stand upon the same platform as the thief, thus not
only as his political partisans, but also as his accomplices.
DISLOYALTY OF COLONIAL BOERS
The Boer section in the Cape Colonies represents nearly one-half of the
white population there. Their representatives in the administration were
ever profuse and assertive in professions of loyalty to the Queen and to
the English Government, and any aspersions to the contrary were always
indignantly and stoutly repelled. The Afrikaner Bond was averred to
include nothing to clash with loyal sentiments, no severance from
England, but, on the contrary, that its principal objects were to
strengthen the lines of amity and joint solidarity in view of a general
federation of South Africa upon Imperial bases. In support of such
sentiments one of the first acts of the Bond party when recently come
into power was a vote of £30,000 per year towards British naval outlays,
and in grateful recognition of naval protection; it was at the same time
mooted, in fact almost pledged, that the Transvaal would similarly offer
£12,000 as well.
The sequel has proven these to be Athenian gifts, for no sooner had the
Republican commandoes invaded the Cape Colonies in November last than
those identical men enthusiastically welcomed the Queen's enemies as
their friends and deliverers from hateful English dominion. There they
stood--self-avowed and unmasked traitors. Members of the Legislative
Assembly met those Boer invaders with addresses and speeches, assuring
them of their own and of every other true Afrikaner's aid and fidelity
in their common cause. "The star of liberty," they said, "had arisen at
last--it had been the nation's desire and prayers during the past
fifteen years." "He could thank God with tears of joy for having granted
those prayers." Such were the words of Mr. van der Walt, M.L.A., uttered
at Colesberg. Mr. de Wet, M.L.A., Mr. van den Heever, M.L.A., and other
colonial notables were spokesmen in similar terms of enthusiasm on other
occasions as the invasion advanced. All this is sadly notorious, but
still it seems a hard task to convince people who prefer to remain blind
or only see a presumptuous adversary in any one who seeks to enlighten
them upon this glaring and premeditated treachery.
October and November were months of unrestrained exultation to the Boer
party, to judge from letters and articles which appeared in the
_Standard and Diggers' News_, Johannesburg, dated 22nd November, 1899,
and in the Pretoria _Volksstem_, dated 20th November, 1899.[10] There
one sees the mask off, in language of defiant insult and of scurrilous
mendacity against all that is English, avowing that the present
Anglo-Boer War has been the outcome of preparations during the past
thirty years. That letter is not all suitable reading for the tender
sex, but should serve as evidence to the still unconvinced sceptic that
the Boers are fighting for something more than their mere independence
and liberty, viz., for conquest and the domination of Afrikanerdom. His
Excellency Dr. Leyds may deny all those too previous intentions with
his placid effrontery of assumed innocent calm. He may denounce Mr.
Chamberlain, Rhodes, Jameson, and even the Prince of Wales, and he may
use the old device of posing as innocent by accusing others. The
detected robber, however, does not always escape with his booty by
running off himself, whilst shouting "Stop, thief!"
Something refreshingly analogous to such attempts of screening and
exculpation has been extemporized in Cape journals of late. There, in an
ingeniously pretended dissertation, it is invented how ill founded the
aspersions are against Mr. Premier Schreiner, and that the acts, upon
which he was so wrongly suspected as an amphibious helmsman, are really
attributable to another person--by the way, to one at a safe distance,
viz., to Mr. F.W. Reitz, the Transvaal State Secretary; whilst this
gentleman again, when lecturing at Johannesburg in July last, naively
deplored the confusion of people's ideas who see anything wrong in the
Afrikaner Bond, adding: "Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they
do or talk about."
"The peace of South Africa is only possible under Boer supremacy," is
the Bond shibboleth. The end justifies the means, even to sedition, to a
war of conquest and the wholesale plunder of investors.
Many of the younger Boers in the Cape Colony and Natal had shown a
singular ardour in joining the several volunteer corps. They were
equipped with uniforms and best weapons, were drilled into efficiency,
received pay, and all went on well until the oath of allegiance was to
be tendered. This they refused, preferring to resign and to provide arms
from other sources--Mauser rifles by preference. This happened some
considerable time before the outbreak of the war.
Boer Arguments Denying Uitlanders' Complaints
Many plausible arguments are proffered to prove that Uitlanders'
grievances and irritations are purely fictitious, but few, I venture to
say, will bear examination. Taxation, for example, is stoutly averred to
fall alike upon burgher and Uitlander, but a glance at the long rubric
of articles specially taxed will show that the selection is contrived to
hit the latter and to spare, or even to protect and benefit, the burgher
section.
The gold industry is not charged with a royalty as is customary in other
gold-producing countries, but with 5 per cent. only upon the net
profits; but here an intolerant and corrupt domination proves much more
prejudicial than a heavy royalty would be.
Proper representation would be the remedy and afford contentment, even
with higher taxation, but that is refused upon Bond principles.
The Anglo-Boer War is attributed to base motives on the part of the
British Government, operating in collusion with capitalism--to England's
passion for annexation, her rapacious greed for the Transvaal gold, her
inordinate ambition to universal commercial supremacy, etc. What a
confusion of assertions and of self-refuting contradictions!
Would England really acquire the Transvaal gold by the annexation of
that State, seeing that its mines are already capitalized and as good as
expropriated in favour of the host of shareholders, some of whom are
English, but the greater portion German, French, and of other nations?
What advantage would accrue to shareholders? Would England, in case of
forcible annexation, not be under the necessity of incurring a heavy
charge in the increase of her South African garrisons, and so be
justified in levying a considerable royalty upon the output, which would
materially reduce the dividends? What advantage would arise to England
by substituting an unproductive and costly war in South Africa for
conditions of peace and prosperity, which alone can yield her commerce
profit? England can only derive profit from wars waged between other
peoples. And as to the incentive of commercial supremacy, England, while
possessing that to a large extent already, freely and voluntarily allows
all comers from other nationalities to share the benefits with her by
her principle of free trade.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 10: Extract from Pretoria _Volksstem_, 20th November, 1899,
from a long letter averred to have appeared in the London _Times_, dated
12th October, 1899, said to have been signed by a well-known Cape Boer,
then in England:--
"We have desired delay, and we have had it, and we are now practically
masters of South Africa from the Zambesi to the Cape. All the Afrikaners
in the Cape Colony have been working for years past for this end.
"For thirty years the Cape Dutch have been waiting their chance, and now
their day has come; they will throw off their mask and their yoke at the
same instant, and 200,000 Dutch heroes will trample you tinder foot. We
can afford to tell you the truth now, and in this letter you have got
it."]
PORTUGUESE TERRITORY--TRANSVAAL LOW VELDT--MALARIA--HORSE SICKNESS
Between the north-eastern borders of the Transvaal and the coast lies
the Portuguese colony Mozambique. Its frontier railway station, Ressario
Garcia, is near that of the Transvaal, viz., Komati poort, which is 53
miles from Delagoa Bay. A low-lying country extends from the coast about
100 to 200 miles inland, and is tropical. Except some elevated spots,
the whole of it is almost uninhabitable in summer by whites on account
of malaria. During some specially bad seasons natives even succumb to
that malady. The only comparatively safe months are from June to
November. Marshy localities, and wherever there is shaded rank
vegetation in low-lying parts, are dangerous all the year round; in such
places the water is deadly at all times unless first boiled.
This malarial poison is distinct from that which produces yellow fever
in America, and is so far unlike it as it is not contagious. The theory
is that the poison is produced below the surface by decaying vegetable
matter in low and dank parts during the more inactive but still warm and
sunny winter season and during the hot months preceding the summer
rainfall. Upon the first rains the malarial poison escapes through the
then softened crust in the shape of vapoury miasms. This happens during
the night, after the surface of the earth has been cooled off. Those
miasms are dissipated or neutralised by the action of the sun. The dewy
grass retains the poison until it is thoroughly dried to the root. All
surface water is liable to that poisonous impregnation. Malarial
manifestations occur all over South Africa, but in progressive degrees
of virulence with the advance to warmer latitudes, and with the descent
from the high table-lands to the coast levels. On the Transvaal high
veldt, for example, a mild form is developed which, in midsummer, to a
small extent, affects and kills sheep. It is called _blaauwtong_, and
does not affect horses. Descending further, this danger to sheep
increases and begins earlier. Below 5,000 feet altitude in the Transvaal
the summer season is dangerous to sheep, and horses and mules are
subject to horse sickness; whilst lower still the same malaria attains
sufficient virulence to attack human beings, and becomes very deadly
upon levels nearing the coast. Komati poort, the frontier railway
station already mentioned, is dreaded as a still worse death-trap than
even Delagoa Bay, where it is very unsafe, say, from December to end of
April. The season of horse sickness terminates upon the appearance of
the first sharp frost in May. The safeguards for human beings consist in
avoidance at night and early morning of low-lying localities, or such
elevated places even which are subject to be invaded by miasmatic
emanations produced on and wafted from dangerous lower levels. Drink no
unboiled water except that from deep wells or rain-water; maintain
careful and moderate diet, active habits, but avoiding extreme exertions
and excitements; a very sparing use of alcoholic drinks, preferably
taken with the regular meals, is admissible.
Donkeys, horned cattle, and goats are exempt from malarial risks.
For horses and mules no certain remedy appears as yet to be known. The
best research, on behalf of the Transvaal Government, by specially
requisitioned French bacteriologists, assisted by that famous
microbe-hunter, Dr. Theiler (Dr. Theiler is the Transvaal veterinary
surgeon and chief of the Medical Laboratory, Pretoria, a noted Swiss
savant, who, with the aid of the said French experts, discovered the
rinderpest inoculation remedy), has failed to find the bacillus of horse
sickness. Barely five per cent, of the horses attacked recover, and
about ten per cent, of mules. These are then called salted, and are
immune from horse sickness; they can after that be safely used in the
worst localities, and are correspondingly more valuable. They are,
however, liable periodically to light after-attacks, when it is safer to
exempt them from work for a day, or for a few hours at least.
Some proprietors of mail coaches are in the habit of administering doses
of arsenic to their horses and mules, which are said to operate in
lessening the death rate and to favour the salting process.
As safeguards for horses and mules, the following rules have been found
to minimise losses in dangerous tracts where the low clinging miasmatic
vapours are so deadly during the night and earlier parts of the morning.
(During rainfall there is hardly any danger, nor is there after a
night's rain for the day following):--
Do not traverse low suspicious tracts during the hours between 9 p.m.
and, say, two hours after sunrise, lest poisonous vapours be
encountered and inhaled by man or horse.
Choose the most elevated spots for camping out at night. No grazing to
be allowed from 10 p.m. to about 10 or 11 a.m., unless it is raining.
Dewy grass is fatally poisoned; the heavy moist air close to the surface
is also suspected. Grazing is only safe after the soil and grass are
dried of all dewy moisture.
Avoid all water of at all a stagnant nature; rather let the animals
remain thirsty.
If the animals have been fed with dry fodder during the night, let the
first morning stage be moderate and not exhausting. With empty stomachs
the task might be somewhat increased, but even then it should be less
than any other succeeding stage. When the first symptoms of sickness are
noticed they may pass over if the animal is at once freed from work and
allowed to rest, or is at most led when marching. Among the most
dangerous places for horse sickness and for fever to human beings are
the luxurious dongas, ravines, and valleys which abound along the long
stretches of mountains and broken country immediately below the high
plateaux.
The passes leading up to the high veldt are few in number, and so
precipitous as to be almost impracticable for vehicles. Of late years
those roads have been allowed to fall into disrepair, in order, it may
be supposed, to check wagon traffic and to promote that by railway;
apart from the railway, communication with Delagoa Bay would now be
impossible. What with the fever climate in summer, and the formidable
mountain barriers, the Transvaal high veldt is well protected from
aggression from the direction of Delagoa Bay. A few thousand men
distributed at the few mountain passes, blocking the tunnel at one of
these (at Waterval Boven), and breaking up some few bridges, would
effectually arrest the progress of any invading force.
CLIMATE AND TOPOGRAPHY
From the tropical Zambesi regions and the torrid Kalahari plains, down
to the 34th parallel at Cape point, a great diversity of climatic
conditions is met with. To the north and north-east are the steaming,
death-breeding low lands, abounding with dank virgin forests and scrubby
stretches; and to the north-west extend the arid, sandy, and stony
levels. There are the temperate and fruitful inland reaches along the
southern and south-eastern littoral, and again further inward the vast
plateaux at 2,000 to 6,500 feet elevation, which represent nearly
one-half of the sub-continent with quite other climatic aspects. In the
southern and western provinces of the Cape Colony the rainy season
occurs during the winter months, probably because of the proximity to
the trade wind influences prevailing over the South Atlantic; over the
rest of South Africa the winters are dry and sunny, the rains falling in
summer, most copiously in December and January, the effect being that
there are hardly any winter rigours, and the heat of summer is
minimised. The most agreeable climate is that on the higher plateau
levels: never hot nor altogether cold, and yet virile and bracing;
something like the climate on sunny days found in the higher Alpine
regions in summer and in the mild Algerine winters. This climate is
found from the Queenstown district at about 3,000 feet elevation,
extending north and westwards over the Stormberg, the Orange Free State,
and along the lordly Drakensberg range and its spurs some 200 to 300
miles into the Transvaal, where the highest plateau levels occur between
Ermelo and to near Lydenburg, viz., 6,500 feet. The Harrismith district
near that mountain range is at a similar altitude with an identical
climate.
These high tracts are called _hoogeveldt_ or highlands. Their altitude
rises steadily with the advance northwards towards warmer latitudes, and
with the compensating effect that the climate in the Queenstown
district, Bontebok Flats for example, at 3,000 feet elevation, is
exactly similar to that in the eastern portions of the Orange Free State
at 5,500 feet, right up to near Lydenburg at 6,500 feet altitude, and
being some six degrees further north than Queenstown. The northern half
of Natal also partakes of that character, though there, as well as over
the rest of the eastern slopes of the Drakensberg mountains, the country
is more broken and hilly than on the western side. The Cape Colonial
high veldt near the Drakensberg range is intersected by high
continuations or spurs, but north and westwards those plateaux assume
more the real aspect of continuous high plains. There is a gradual
descent to the west; from occasional hilly ranges those dwindle to
kopjes, and to still less elevated "randjes" occurring in clusters more
and more apart, until yet further westwards one gets to the merely
undulating sterile approaches of the Karoo and the plains around and
beyond Kimberley, which merge at last in the still lower Kalahara
desert.
Within 200 or 300 miles from the Drakensberg slopes the country is
well-watered, and the rainfall ample and generally regular, but
westwards this abundance progressively decreases with a more tardy and
precarious rainy season, occasioning at times severe droughts
accompanied with correspondingly protracted and very hot weather.
Those high plains make up one vast green sward from the time of the
spring rains in September to April. From May the absence of rain,
together with the night frosts, shrivel up the herbage, giving the
country a pale-brown aspect. This continues until the return of spring,
varied with large expanses of black, caused by accidental or intentional
grass fires, and here and there a few green spots in specially sheltered
and moist localities.
Those burnt spaces may extend for miles, and are for the time veritable
deserts. The landscape being quite black and the atmosphere generally
very clear, it is obvious that objects of any lighter colour would be
conspicuous at very long distances: an ideal background for khaki
targets.
Most of the land is well suited for agriculture, but by far the largest
proportion is as yet used only for raising sheep, horses and cattle.
Angora goats also thrive in the hillier parts. About forty years ago the
Karoo plains, the Orange Free State, and Transvaal were, so to say,
monopolised by milliards of game. Standing upon an eminence or a swell
one could see in all directions, as far as the eye could reach,
innumerable herds of all sorts of game grazing, resting or gambolling;
the different kinds would be ranged in separate groups and could be
distinguished by their special colours--the black-looking wildebeest
(gnu) next to the striped quag-gas, the white-flanked springbocks,
blesbocks with a blaze on their foreheads, the larger elands and other
kinds of the antelope species. Almost all those vast herds have
disappeared since, having been killed off by natives and Boers for their
hides and for food, or else scared away farther north, where rinderpest
extirpated nearly all the rest in 1895-1897.
In the earlier days, and even not so long ago in some parts, the
farmers' crops required guarding during the night against the
depredations of game. This is still so in the north-western plains of
the Cape Colony, as already remarked. In May most of the Harrismith
district farmers and those of the Transvaal high veldt move their sheep,
horses and cattle to winter in Natal, Swaziland, and to the other
extensive low lands most adjacent, to return after the spring rains in
September or October. Sheep and horses could not with safety remain
longer in those warm regions, as then the fatal malarial _blaauwtong_
begins there to attack sheep, and horse sickness becomes virulent as
well. The high veldt, as said before, is exempt from that danger.
Some of the wealthier farmers can arrange it so that they and their
families can winter at their comfortable high-veldt homes and send
attendants with their cattle to the low veldt, while others, not so
well favoured, must close up their houses and accompany their flocks to
winter in the warm tracts, where they live in their wagons and tents and
escape the outlay for winter clothing.
Owing to the scarcity of wood on the high veldt, kraal fuel used
formerly to be the staple substitute. This would be obtained by penning
up sheep over-night. The deposits were after a month or two dug out in
thick flags, which, after being stacked and dried over the kraal wall,
would burn nearly as well and as brightly as wood. The discovery of coal
beds in so many accessible places in the Cape Colony, Natal, and in the
two Republics has since superseded that sort of fuel to a great extent.
The small divergence between summer and winter temperature upon the high
table lands will be seen from the following table taken from
observations at 5,500 to 6,000 feet altitude in the Transvaal:--
Fahr. Fahr.
In winter--28° to 40° at night; 35° to 70° by day in the shade.
In summer--40° to 60° at night; 50° to 90° by day in the shade.
It is not often that 85° is reached, and rarely above. This applies
equally to the more southern and thus colder latitudes of Queenstown, at
3,000 feet elevation, and to the eastern half of the Orange Free State,
at 4,000 to 5,000 feet, the warmth increasing, as said before,
proportionately with the descent in altitude, and on occasions of tardy
summer rains.