A GLANCE AHEAD
CAPE TOWN, _September 20th, 1899_.
To be in Cape Town in September would seem to be visiting the capital
of Cape Colony in its least enjoyable month; since, more especially
than at any other time in the year, the place be thronged with
bustling people, who plough their way through streets which, by the
stress of recent bad weather, are choked with mud and broken by pools
of slush and rain-scourings. The rain is falling with a determination
and force of penetration which soaks the pedestrian in a few minutes
and makes life altogether miserable. Moreover, there are signs of
further foul weather. There is a white mist upon the mountain and a
sea fog enshrouds the shipping in the harbour: everywhere it is cold,
colourless and damp. Everywhere the people are depressed. It is as
though the wet has drenched the population of the town to the bone and
drowned their spirits in the cheerless prospect which the rainy
season in Cape Town provides. If the sun were to shine the aspect
might be brighter, a little warmth might be infused in the character
and disposition of the constantly shifting streams of mud-splashed,
bedraggled pedestrians who, despite the rain and mud and an air of
general despondency, impart some little animation to the dirty
thoroughfares.
Other than this air of depression there is but little external
evidence of the momentous crisis which impends. It may be that the
Cape Town colonist has forgotten the responsibilities of his colony in
the cares of his own office, and is become that mechanical development
of commerce, a money-making man. Who can tell? Is it even fair to
hazard an estimation of the man in his present environment? But it
would assuredly seem that the troubles of the Government, the menace
which is imposed upon the colony by the Bond Ministry, do not touch
him, do not even stir his loyalty to the ebullition of a little
doubtful enthusiasm. Just now, although there may be war upon his
borders, although the spirit of disturbed patriotism be in the air,
and although his neighbours may be thinking of joining some one of the
Irregular Corps who are advertising for recruits, the ordinary
inhabitant of Cape Town is unmoved. He is too lethargic, or is it that
his loyalty is not of that degree which regards with concern the
arming of the border republics, the near outbreak of bloody war? It
would seem that each, after his own caste, be happy if he be left
alone; the money grubber to gain more shekels, the idler and the
casual to bore each other with their stupendous, even studied
indifference to the propinquity of the latest national crisis. Within
a few days, it may even be within a few hours, our questions with the
Pretorian Government will have reached their final adjustment or their
perpetual confusion, and it may be that we shall be at war. It may be
also, although it be difficult to believe, that a peaceful solution
will be derived. At this moment the services of such pacific measures
as can be adopted should be utilised, since if war should come within
a brief measure the position of the people of this country will indeed
be grave--the utter absence of adequate defensive measures, the entire
lack of efficient military preparations being factors which are
calculated to incite to rebellion those who incline to the Dutch
cause, and indeed, most positively, their name is Legion. There is, I
think, the essence of revolt beneath this heavy and depressed
condition of the people: it were not possible otherwise, to exist
within such intimate proximity to a state of war and be unmoved; it is
not possible either to find other explanation. It may be that in their
hearts, as in their heads, they are weighing the consequences of
revolt, succouring one another in their distress of mind and body with
seditious sympathies, maintaining a spirit of antagonism to the
Imperial fusion under pretence of the mere expression of a lip
loyalty. And in their immediate prospect there is everything which may
be calculated to disturb their equanimity, and to force upon them the
consciousness of their impotency. It is perhaps this knowledge of
their actual weakness which subdues them since they cannot afford to
openly avow feelings which are inimical to us and which would betoken
their own hostility. Nevertheless, Great Britain can do nothing which
could encourage these people in their loyalty; nor can they
themselves, in reality, assist to remove their unfortunate
predicament, since they must needs sacrifice their possessions to
substantiate their views, and to do this implies complete
disintegration of their fortunes. This they will not do; since they
cannot suffer it. They will remain discontented partisans, however;
slaves of commerce, restrained by the possibilities of further
aggrandisement from declaring their mutual connection, and manacled by
the bonds of free trade and crooked dealings. They will be neutral, as
indeed the greater proportion of the inhabitants of the towns along
the coast and within the littoral zone will be, since with every
feeling of unctuous rectitude in relation to the values of their
trade, they will leave to the provincial areas, which lie between the
borders of the Orange Free State and the metropolitan circuits, the
onus of the situation, the work of supplying active and more potential
supporters of the Republican arms.
This is the middle of September, and I am assured that the crisis
should not be expected before the middle of October, inclining to the
first two weeks of the coming month. If this be possible, and the
information is difficult to discount, our sin of indifference is the
greater, our apathy the more criminal. Indeed, everywhere there is
nothing doing--God forbid that the steady warlike preparations of the
Transvaal Government should intimidate us, but let us at least be
heedful and not over sleepy. If we can gauge the situation by the
public press of the Empire it is most critical, and the time is rather
overripe in which we also should indulge in a few military exercises.
There is a situation to be faced which will tax all the resources of
the Castle, and strain even the vaunted excellence of the home
administration--that army for which Lord Wolseley has claimed such
splendid mobilisation, such insensate volition. If these fifty
thousand men were here now the turns of the political wheel would not
be regarded with such intense apprehension, while in their absence
there lies perhaps the answer to the rain-drenched dulness of the
population. The land is naked; from Basutoland to Buluwayo and back to
Beira, mile upon mile of smiling frontier rests without protection of
any sort. We are inviting invasion, and it is impossible that such a
movement will not be attempted. To invade our territory--it will sound
so well round the camp fires of the Boer laagers--a mere scamper
across the frontier, a pell-mell, hell-for-leather retreat to their
own lines, and the manoeuvres would be executed felicitously and with
every sign of success. But such a contingency is submerged under an
accumulation of theories and official explanations each of which deny
the possibility of the Boer taking upon himself the responsibility of
rushing the situation. Moreover, it does not seem that the Boers
require much instigation to attempt such an act. We have laid open our
borders to such an enterprise, even taking the trouble to leave
unguarded many towns whose adjacency to the border is singularly
perilous. In many cases a Boer force need only make a short march to
arrive in the very heart of some one of these border towns, when,
should they appear, the turn of affairs could be said to be complex;
and some emotions might be felt by those worthy and effete military
noodles who so persistently shout down the "pessimists" who, knowing
the country, the ambition and resourcefulness of the Boers, persist in
declaiming upon the hideous neglect which characterises our frontier
defences, and strenuously assert the probability of Boer invasion into
those districts which superimpose themselves upon the borders of the
Transvaal and Orange Free State Republics, and which, possessing
values of their own, can be held as hostages against the slings and
arrows of an outrageous fortune elsewhere.
It is the duty of the Crown at the present juncture to bear this
contingency in mind, to confront it with the determined resolution to
repair the negligence of the past at once and at all costs, and to
allow neither the opinion of the Bond Ministry, nor the ignorance of
the existing military advisers to the Governor, to persuade the
Executive from adopting the only course which remains to us, which is
to push men and materials of war to the border with the least possible
delay. If we do not take these steps now it will be too late in a
little time, and the course of the war must necessarily be the more
protracted. There are many who would have us delay lest our premature
acts should expedite the despatch of the ultimatum, and we should lose
the opportunity, which the next few days will give to us, of receiving
delivery of the troops who are already upon the water. But the
presence of these men means little and forebodes, in reality, a slight
accentuation of the gravity of the actual situation. It is with the
forces that we can control at this moment that we must count, and it
is with them that we must deal. It does not suffice to have
parade-ground drills in Cape Town as a preliminary flourish; we should
at least show ourselves as ready as the Boers be willing. This of
course we cannot do, since, with a handful of exceptions, we have not
a modern piece of artillery in the country. Moreover we do not quite
know what armaments the Transvaal Government possess; it is with a
pretty display of pretence that we conceal the nakedness of our
borders and bolster up the situation. There is Kimberley,
Ramathlabama, and Buluwayo--what _is_ to happen upon the western
frontier?--and although it be doubtful if the Boers would pierce the
Rhodesian border and seize Buluwayo, it is not too much to expect that
if they should inaugurate any movement into the Colony from the Orange
Free State, even if their activity only should assume the shape of a
demonstration against Kimberley, that this southern advance would
receive sympathetic co-operation from a parallel movement in a
northerly direction by which they might temporarily secure possession
of our line of communication and menace Buluwayo by encroaching upon
Rhodesia.
Then there is the position of Natal, which must be more or less
hampered by the war in the Transvaal if it does not become actually
and potentially concerned. That Natal will play an important _role_ is
elaborately evident from the Boer patrols who, even now, are reported
to be in possession of all strategical points in the mountains, and
who are also said to be busily engaged in fortifying the rocky
fastnesses of the Drakensburg Mountains, and to dominate Laing's Nek
tunnel as well as the line of railway which curvets through the chain,
by having emplaced some heavy ordnance upon prominent and immediate
commanding slopes. It would seem as though Natal may play a part, so
distinctive and so vitally important in its own history as a colonial
dependency, that the prospect of the war there may become a campaign
in itself, and one which will be almost detached and isolated from the
movements in the Orange Free State and Transvaal, where I have reason
to believe there is some intention of formulating, what may be
regarded as a dual campaign, which will avoid all invasion of the
Transvaal territory until the Orange Free State has been completely
pacified and the lines of communication effectively and securely held.
In support of this scheme it is generally conceded that it will be
impossible to carry war into the Transvaal until every provision has
been made against the risk of local rising in the areas of the Orange
Free State, and thus endangering our lines of communication, as well
as our flanks.
These, then, are the signs of the day, and in such signs do we read
something of the terrible struggle upon which we are so soon to be
engaged, and in appreciation of which, local opinion is in such marked
contrast--I almost wrote conflict--with the opinion and views of the
special service officers from India and England. To whom, then,
belongs the honours of accurate estimation; to the man from home as it
were, or to the man who has passed his life in South Africa and
understands the Dutchman as the mere military interloper can never
hope to understand him? There is, I think, no doubt as to what point
of view be erroneous, and it is because we so persistently ignore the
worth and reliability of the men who are upon the spot, that we shall
have the falsity of our intelligence some day brought home to us by
the tidings of a terrible disaster. South Africa is already the grave
of too many fine reputations; but let us, at least, hope that we shall
not add to the disgrace of the private individual any loss of national
prestige. The wind soughs ominously just now, however, while there is
a note in it which I do not like, and which I cannot understand. At
the Castle they talk airily of being home by Christmas! If they be
sailing within twelve months they will be lucky, and at Government
House Sir Alfred Milner is beset with the difficulties of his very
onerous position. For the moment he takes--I am glad to be able to say
it, since I would have him upon the side of sound common sense--a
somewhat depressed view of the general outlook. Kimberley and
Ramathlabama were his especial concerns when I called there to-day,
insomuch that they extend an especial invitation to the mobility of a
Boer commando, while it is quite beyond his powers to save them from
their fate. It seemed to me that he despairs of these towns in
particular, but I will withhold his remarks upon them until I myself
have been there. Yet it may be taken as granted that, should Sir
Alfred Milner be concerned for their immediate and eventual safety,
the gravity of their situation is extreme, pointing even to the
closeness of the danger which would arise from a Boer invasion into
those areas.
But in this hurried letter I am dealing with the colony, and
singularly enough we have to consider how our colonists will behave,
what may be their attitude, and how near are we to rebellion? It is of
course an all-important question, and one which, in relation to a
British colony, is untoward. If I were asked to localise the possible
area of revolt I should decline, since the question be so serious and
infringes so much upon the life and existence--the central forces--of
the colony that it would be difficult, definitely and evenly, to
demarcate any zone of loyalty, as opposed to any area of disaffection,
without unduly trespassing upon the sentiments of less favoured
districts. But I do think that the possibilities of this question are
enormous, emanating as it does from the life teachings and doctrines
of the people of the country, and however much we try to draw a line
between what constitutes due loyalty and what infringes the spirit as
well as the letter of the individual's allegiance, we must
unconsciously perpetrate much injustice either upon the one or upon
the other side of the question, which, owing to the dualistic
temperament and inclinations of no small majority of the people, it is
impossible to avoid, and which will have to be endured by individuals,
loyal or disloyal, as their penalty. The spirit of the Dutch pioneers
still impregnates much of Cape Colony; its presence south of the
Orange Free State and in the actual territory of the colony receiving
direct support and sympathy by the increasing numbers of the Dutch
population in these African Republics; an increase which, being
unrestricted in its development, has spread far and wide until it has
created a partial exodus from the recognised centres of Dutch
influence and Dutch population into those areas from which the traces
of the earliest Dutch occupation were rapidly vanishing--if they have
not altogether disappeared--and which has been the medium of
resuscitating a feeling of sympathy and clanship which, augmented by
still closer ties of commerce, has promoted the functions of matrimony
and friendship and gradually released a current of feeling throughout
the district which was avowedly Dutch, and, equally avowedly, in
silent and semi-subdued opposition to the instincts and ideals of the
Anglo-Saxon colonist. And it is against the rapid spread of this
feeling which we have to contend, much as we must guard against the
conversion of these prejudices into tacit support and effective
co-operation with the armed burghers of the sister Republics should
their arms secure any initial successes. With this danger in our
midst, in itself an almost insurmountable obstacle, no precaution
which could render the safety of these districts the less precarious
should be omitted; and to effect this--and it is quite essential to
our temporal salvation--men and materials of war should be in
readiness to forestall, or, at least, to circumvent, the consummation
of the Boer operations. If we can accomplish even so little, it maybe
possible to prevent the no small proportion of the colonists
discharging their obligations to the Crown by combining with the Boer
forces. To this end our efforts will have to be seriously directed,
and the sooner this simple fact is realised by the authorities in
South Africa as in London, the more convincing will the scope and
measures of our policy become. At present it is chimerical, and we
hesitate.