POLITICAL ECONOMY
MAFEKING, _March 15th, 1900_.
Colonel Baden-Powell has recently issued an order to all ranks in his
command requesting the names of those who are willing to enlist in the
special corps which are to be raised for purposes of patrolling the
country when the war is terminated. If this be a sign of the times, a
token by which we may read the lines of the policy by which Africa
will be governed during the next few years, it is satisfactory at
least to understand that we do not propose to take the risk of
successful risings in the months to come in different Dutch centres.
This war has shown us the folly of courting "compromise and Exeter
Hall" in dealing with dissatisfied areas of the Empire. We have
policed Burma, we patrol Ireland (but in a different sense), and in
India we have incorporated and turned into admirable efficiency many
of the hill tribes, but we cannot translate the native-born Republican
nor convert the rebel Dutch without the almost certain contingency
arising of their proving traitorous. There are many who know the Boer,
and, knowing him and appreciating his strange strategy, his curiously
warped mind, his natural aptitude for breaking his bond, would not
trust him in any transaction where integrity of character and probity
were the essential complement. There has been much opinion among
colonials that the Imperial Government might, anxious to be as
conciliatory as possible, enrol the Dutch for constabulary duties,
giving, indeed, to the younger generation the preference, and thus
enabling them to possess an employment definite, if not altogether
lucrative. But in this we should be perpetrating against the loyal
colonists of Cape Colony a grave injustice, for until the present
generation of Dutch has passed away, taking with it the memories of
the war, it will be unsafe, it will be unwise, to employ in any
administrative capacity whatsoever, those men who, themselves nursing
a rancour against Great Britain, will omit no opportunity to foster
the traditional hatred of their forefathers. We have in France, and in
the French animosity against Germany, a case which is identical,
proving, as it does, how the prejudices of a people can be nurtured
and kept evergreen through the sheer force of malignant sentiment; and
there can be little doubt that time, and time only, is capable of
removing from the minds of the Republican Dutch that feeling of
detestation and contempt which has maintained them in their attitude
of hostility towards us for so many decades. To them, for many years
to come, the British will be a nation of iconoclasts; we may banish
them, we may wipe out all traces of their misrule, and so obliterate
the signs of their existence that historians may find it difficult to
believe that they once lived. We may do all these things, but it will
be impossible to govern their instincts by Act of Parliament, to curb
their impulses by the rulings of the High Commissioner. It would
therefore be thrice foolish to employ them in their own country and
among their own people, and such action would imply that we intended
to ignore uses to which the younger colonists can be so conveniently
put. In South Africa, as in Australasia and in Canada, there is a
large army of young men who loaf their hours away in the idleness of
an agricultural life rather than seek some trade in the offices of the
big cities. They achieve little that is profitable upon their farms,
clinging tenaciously to such a livelihood, since it possesses finer
natural elements in its intimacy with the life of the veldt than any
form of metropolitan activity could give to them. There are, of
course, many men who have been driven to the towns through the failure
of their holdings, but in this present state of war these especially,
and all those others, have answered eagerly to the call for
volunteers, and in proving themselves worthy, have rendered excellent
services to the State. The great majority of these men would willingly
take service in the forces to which the order of the colonel
commanding makes reference, and by this we have at hand an army
extraordinarily adapted to colonial purposes, and needing only to be
called out. Moreover, at a time when the Empire has seen how its
various units have hastened to the aid of the Mother-country, would it
not be well to create in each colony a permanent militia from the men
who have so unanimously come forward; a force which would be to the
colonies what the Imperial army is to India, and which would supersede
the local defence forces in Australasia, approaching in its conception
a fixed soldiery rather than one to which is given a certain number of
exercises in the year? There would be no lack of numbers in any of the
colonies, and in Africa we could make use of the Zulu, the Matabele,
and the Cape Boys. We have long rested in fancied security, and not
until China falls a prey to Russia and India passes from us, need we
fear that Australasia can be taken from us by the combined fleets of
the Powers of Europe; nevertheless, since we must reorganise our army,
it would be no mean policy to place, once and for all, upon their true
foundation the defences of our colonies.
To those who know the life of the mounted police in Burma, of the
constabulary in the West Indies, and of the police in Canada, the
duties of the corps that are raised for South Africa will be at once
comprehended. They would both police and administer the areas of the
Transvaal and the Orange Free State, and it may be that they will be
affiliated with the British South Africa Police corps that are already
enrolled. The life is enjoyable, there is much sport, and for a few
years to come there is sure to be trouble, at odd intervals, among the
Dutch. It is, perhaps, doubtful whether the man from home will be
quite adapted to such work, since, in a very high degree, a knowledge
of the Dutch language will be indispensable, and much valuable time
will be lost in acquiring some smattering of this tongue and in
teaching the recruits to ride, to shoot, and to drill. But life in the
mounted constabulary has also possessed so great a fascination for the
average Englishman that, should the Government decide to make eligible
the men from home, any paucity among the colonial applicants can be at
once remedied. Care, however, should be taken that the colonial men
who came forward on behalf of the colony in its hour of peril, should
be given the first refusal, and a greater financial consideration
should be meted out than, with the exception of the Canadian police,
has hitherto been customary. The economy of Africa is high priced, and
it will be eminently difficult for men to live upon their pay should
they have to forfeit any large proportion of it for extras, the cost
of which might well be borne by the Government itself. There has been
a great outcry about the higher rates of pay which are drawn by the
colonial corps now serving at the front as compared with the
wretchedly inadequate wages of the regulars, and it is a great pity
that we, who can be so foolishly magnanimous, cannot disavow the petty
economies of the service at a moment like the present. Five shillings
a day is small enough when men have to provide their entire equipment,
but to argue that because the War Office is supplying the kit the rate
should be reduced, since the main source of expenditure be removed, is
to incline towards a policy of expenditure which is penny wise and
pound foolish. We read recently, and with infinite zest, that the
artillery by which Mafeking is defended includes a battery of field
guns and four heavy pieces. This, of course, is a grotesque
exaggeration. We have no heavy ordnance, and our field pieces are
obsolete muzzle-loading monstrosities. Had the War Office paid
attention to its work, and supplied this advanced outpost of the
Empire with efficient artillery, instead of rushing up to Mafeking an
improvised field battery, it would be possible to ignore the attempt
to curtail the pay of the colonial forces, since, if Africa had been
prepared for war, it is improbable that Great Britain would have been
compelled, in order to crush the combined forces of the Republics, to
summon to her aid men from her colonial dependencies. But we did not
do this, and if we be now reaping the fruits of an impotent
administration, we should be sufficiently generous to accept the
responsibility for the expenditure, and to desist from an endeavour to
bolster up accounts by imposing upon the colonial contingents the
effects of an economy which aims at sparing a few thousand pounds by
saving some portion of their pay. Moreover, if it be true that the
colonial contingents which have been enrolled since war began, are
receiving ten shillings a day, why should not that rate be accepted as
the standard of pay for all colonial forces under arms? In relation to
Mafeking, where the question of compensation has become acute, such
addition to the pay of the defenders of the town as would increase
their rate to ten shillings would be a felicitous manner of
recognising the gallant work which the garrison has performed, and
provide at the same time, a practical exposition of official
appreciation for the units of the defence.
If this be the one question of moment, in reference to the other
problem--the pastoral and agricultural future of the country--there is
little doubt that Africa--more especially these western districts,
where agricultural and pastoral pursuits are widely followed--will
require the assistance of the capitalist before the mere emigrant from
England can make much headway. In a sense Mafeking is the central
market for farm produce for areas which stretch far into the
Transvaal, and which, lacking the propinquity of a local market, are
compelled to send their products across the border. Many of these
districts have proved to possess valuable mining qualities, so that it
is possible we shall see in a few years the development of towns
which, owing their existence to the mines, will attract the trade
which now finds its bent in the Mafeking market. But the hope here is
of railway communication with Johannesburg and Pretoria, and the
consequent opening out and settlement of the Bechuanaland
Protectorate, and it is in this respect the capitalist will be the
Alpha and Omega of the countryside; for the youngster who goes to
Australasia with five hundred pounds and leases a property will be
unable to obtain a hearing up here until the economy of daily life has
been reduced to a less expensive order. There is a golden future here,
but much gold will have to be poured into the lap of Mother Nature
before any very satisfactory results are gained. The cost of transit
is prohibitive, and there is a scarcity of water, which will make
wells a necessity. There is much cheap labour, but the present mode of
existence of the farming class is one which favours a bare
sufficiency, and for the remainder a state of placid idleness.
The insufficient development of South Africa in respect to its
agricultural and pastoral resources is largely due to the
unprogressiveness of the Boer or South African farmer. He personifies
useless idleness, and contents himself with raising a herd of a few
hundred head of cattle; he seldom plants a tree; seldom digs a well;
seldom makes a road; and has an unmitigated contempt for agriculture
and agriculturists. His ploughs, harrows, and utensils of husbandry
are clumsy, ill-formed, and, where they exist at all, are hopelessly
antiquated. He cannot be prevailed upon to make any alteration
whatsoever in the system of his agriculture. His ancestors were
farmers, and he himself does not conceive it to be his duty to alter
methods which were already obsolete when he was a child. The English
farmer, with good training, active disposition, and accurate
knowledge of how and where to institute radical reforms, possessing
capital, might find both home and fortune in these areas. It is a good
cattle country, and with a careful reorganisation in the management of
the cattle-farms across the border--a reorganisation which should
extend throughout all agrestic or nomadic communities in the
Transvaal--it should receive material assistance from the farms of the
western border of the Transvaal that are already stocked. The Dutch
farmer, living the life of the patriarch of old, leaves everything to
nature, and does not, as a rule, combine the varieties of farming
which his property would sustain. He remains a stock-breeder, or a
grower of cereals: the combination of the two is usually too complex.
It will be therefore a good thing should a different basis of
management be inculcated, and when this be accomplished, greater
facilities for stocking their farms will be held out to the intending
colonists who may favour the country, but for the time the new-comers
should check their eagerness, since, above all things, capital will be
necessary to their salvation.