CAUSES OF THE AFRICANDERS’ SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
In one sense the causes of the Second War of Independence, like those
of the first, were as remote as the British seizure of Cape Colony in
1795, and as the years between 1814 and 1836, which saw the
accumulation of grievances that led to the “Great Trek.” Seeds of
dislike to the English were then sown in the Africander mind which have
never ceased to propagate themselves—an ominous heredity—from father to
son through all the intervening generations.
The immediate causes of that war were of a more recent date. Tracing
backward, the war was brought about by the alleged grievances of a
multitude of foreigners—vastly outnumbering the citizens—who, for their
own purposes, had entered the territory of the South African Republic
within a single decade; these foreigners went there in the pursuit of
wealth; the wealth that enticed them there was in the rich gold
deposits of the Witwatersrand district of the Transvaal. If the gold
had not been there, or had not been discovered, the excess of
foreigners would not have pressed into the country; if the foreigners
had not flocked into it in great excess of numbers over the citizens,
there would have been no alleged grievances to redress, and therefore
no war, unless one or both of the parties to it had predetermined to
bring about a conflict at this time and found some other pretext.
Tracing from cause to effect up to the war, we begin with unimportant
discoveries of gold near the eastern border of the Transvaal between
1867 and 1872. Though these were not rich in themselves, they
encouraged more vigorous and extensive prospecting than had been
practiced theretofore. This led to the discovery, in 1885, of the
marvelously rich deposits of the precious metal in beds of conglomerate
in the Witwatersrand district. The influx of strangers had been
considerable from 1882, but from 1885 to 1895 the foreign additions to
the population of the Transvaal threatened to submerge the native
Africander citizens, for the newcomers were mostly men, and largely
exceeded in number the entire Africander population, including the
women and the children.
The first result of the new mining industry and the rapid growth of the
towns was pleasant enough—the revenues of the needy republic were
increased, and there was a promise of unprecedented prosperity.
Nevertheless, in the tidal wave of incoming aliens from the British
colonies in South Africa, from Europe and from America—most of them
British, and nearly all speaking English—the far-seeing president, Paul
Kruger, and other leaders of political life in the Transvaal, early
recognized an element of peril to their cherished domestic
institutions.
As a defense against the passing of controlling power into the hands of
transient settlers, the electoral franchise was somewhat restricted. Up
to the convention of 1881 the probation of an alien seeking
enfranchisement in the Transvaal Republic was a residence in the
country for two years. At that time, with the arbitrary annexation of
1877 fresh in their minds, and knowing that the British authorities had
been solicited to take that step by English residents in the Transvaal,
it is a matter of no surprise that the Africanders extended the
probation for franchise to five years—the period required in the United
States of America. That provision was in force when the London
Convention was signed, in 1884; it passed unquestioned by the British
government, and was still in force in 1890. Up to that date the
franchise had kept the native Africander element in a safe majority.
As a concession to demands on the part of foreigners for a reduction of
the period of residence required for naturalization, Mr. Kruger
proposed, in 1890, to divide the volksraad, which consisted of
forty-eight members, into two chambers of twenty-four members each, the
first to retain supreme power, the second to be competent to legislate
in all matters local to the new industrial population gathered,
principally, in and about Johannesburg, and its acts to be subject
always to the veto of the first volksraad. The measure provided, also,
that in electing members of the second volksraad only two years’
residence and the ordinary process of naturalization should be required
of aliens, their franchise for the first volksraad still being subject
to an additional five years’ probation.
This measure was passed by the volksraad after a good deal of
opposition by the more conservative members. It has been condemned as
clumsy and inadequate; but it is worth while to weigh Mr. Kruger’s own
words explanatory of his purpose in it. “I intend this second
volksraad,” he said, “to act as a bridge. I want my burghers to see
that the new population may safely be trusted to take part in the
government of the country. When they see that this is done, and that no
harm happens, then the two volksraads may come together again, and the
distinction between the old and the new population can be obliterated.”
It should be remembered, however, that the two years’ franchise gave
the citizen no vote in the election of the president and the executive
council—for that privilege he had to fill out the additional five
years’ probation—and that no naturalized burgher could become a member
of the first volksraad.
Discontent continued to spread among the new industrial population, who
complained bitterly of exclusion from important political rights, and
of grievances which they and the mining industry suffered under the
existing laws and administration. As a means of redress a reform
association was formed in 1893. It is necessary to a correct judgment
of the situation at this time to consider the statements of both sides
as to the causes of complaint.
According to Canon Little, who cannot be accused of favoring the
Africanders—
“The grievances of the Uitlanders were these:
“1. That the customs tariff was excessive, making food shamefully dear,
and that the charges for railway freights were unduly heavy.
“2. That the duties on machinery and chemicals were extortionate.
“3. That these and the dynamite monopoly made the expense of all mining
operations excessive.
“4. The extreme unfairness as to the vexatious laws touching on
education and the use of language.”
Over against these allegations are the statements of Mr. F. Reginald
Statham in his “South Africa as It Is.” Mr. Statham writes from the
Africander viewpoint, but gives some guaranty of sincerity and of
confidence in his own averments by an appeal to figures—which can
always be verified. Speaking in a general way of the conditions
prevailing at this period, he says:
“The idea of the persecuted and oppressed Uitlanders has become so
fixed in the minds of English people—thanks to the efforts of those who
were occupied in preparing and justifying a revolt—that even the
plainest statement of facts seems powerless to dispossess it. No one
will claim, no one ever has claimed, that the government of the South
African Republic is perfect. Having regard to the extraordinary changes
that have come over the country during the last ten years, it is really
a marvel that the government is not much more imperfect than it is. The
present position of the Transvaal executive has been not inaptly
compared to the position of the crew of a collier brig who might
suddenly find themselves in control of a first-class mail steamer.
However desirous they might be of doing their best, they could hardly
avoid making some mistakes. If the foreign population had much more to
complain of than they have, it ought not to cause either surprise or
indignation.
“And what have they to complain of? Really, the life of the average
foreigner in Johannesburg is the freest imaginable. He can follow his
trade, he can follow his profession, no matter what it is, without any
question or hindrance from the government. His position as an Uitlander
in no way hinders him from investing in property, from practicing as a
lawyer in the courts, from undertaking, in fact, as freely as he could
undertake in his own country, any lawful kind of business or
occupation. If he pays a high rent for his house, that is not the fault
of the government, but of the land speculators who have bought up
building stands. If his water supply is somewhat defective, it is the
fault of the big foreign capitalists, who think more of the dividends
they put in their own pockets than of the water they put into the
people’s mouths.
“A government which depends on the goodwill of a strictly Sabbatarian
population allows the Uitlander to spend his Sunday exactly as he
pleases. He may play lawn tennis if he likes—and, indeed, he generally
does so; he may engage in cricket matches, he can attend so-called
sacred concerts, the programmes of which are drawn from the music hall
or the comic opera. If he is in a gayer mood he may witness on a Sunday
evening displays of “living pictures” which certainly would not be
tolerated at the Royal Aquarium. To put it shortly, allowing for little
drawbacks of climate and the expense of living, the Uitlander can live
more at his ease in Johannesburg or Pretoria than in almost any other
city under the sun.
“But he is taxed.
“How is he taxed? There is probably no one in the Transvaal, rich or
poor, whose personal taxes amount to more than £5 a year. If it is
complained that he is taxed through his interest in the gold industry
it is easy to make an appeal to published figures. In 1895 the Crown
Reef Gold Mining Company produced gold worth upward of £420,000, and
distributed nearly £97,000 in profits. Its payment to the Government
for rents, licenses, and all other privileges and rights amounted to
£1,191 9s 10d. In the same year the Robinson Company, which had
produced £651,000 in gold and distributed £346,000 in dividends, paid
to the government £395 11s 8d. The New Chimes Company, producing
£93,000 in gold and distributing £32,000 in profits, paid under the
head of rates and licenses, together with insurance premiums, £664 16s
5d. The Transvaal Coal Trust produced 266,945 tons of coal, and paid
the government £53 15s, while the Consolidated Land and Exploration
Company, in which the Ecksteins are the largest shareholders, and which
owns more than 250 farms of 6,000 acres each, paid to the government in
the shape of taxes, including absentee tax, no more than £722 2s 6d.
“These figures are sufficiently eloquent by themselves. They become
more eloquent when they are placed beside the 50 per cent impost
claimed by the Chartered Company on all gold-mining enterprise in
Rhodesia.
“But what about indirect taxation? Here are the facts:
“All machinery for mining purposes is subject to only 1½ per cent
impost dues, the term machinery being stretched by the government to
its uttermost possibilities to meet the mining industry, and it is made
to include sheet lead, cyanide, etc. All other articles not specially
rated are subject to an ad valorem duty of 7½ per cent, the Cape
Colonist paying an ad valorem duty of 12 per cent. Specially rated
articles affecting the white miners, such as tea, coffee, butter, rice,
soap, sugar, are in most cases subject to lower, and only in one
instance to higher, duties than in Cape Colony.
“Here is a comparison:
CAPE COLONY. TRANSVAAL.
Butter 3d per lb. 5s 0d per 100 lbs.
Cheese 3d per lb. 5s 0d per 100 lbs.
Coffee 12s 6d per 100 lbs. 2s 6d per 100 lbs.
Rice 3s 6d per 100 lbs. 1s 6d per 100 lbs.
Soap 4s 2d per 100 lbs. 5s 0d per 100 lbs.
Sugar 6s 3d per 100 lbs. 3s 6d per 100 lbs.
Tea 8d per lb. 2s 6d per 100 lbs.
Guns £1 per barrel. 10s 0d per barrel.
“As regards monopolies and concessions, the dynamite monopoly is often
quoted as an instance of the manner in which monopolies are granted, to
the detriment of the mining interest. It has been complained that the
government retains a right to charge 90s a case for what can be
produced for 30s a case. These figures, however, are exaggerated both
ways. The government charge is 85s a case, and as the dynamite used by
De Beers, at Kimberley, costs more than 60s a case laid down there, it
can hardly be held that 85s is a high charge in Johannesburg, having
regard to the much greater distance of Johannesburg from the sea. In
this matter of the dynamite concession, moreover, it was a choice
between a foreign monopoly and a local monopoly, while in the reports
of mining companies in which explosives are separately accounted for it
is shown that while total working expenses run up to over 30s per ton,
the cost of explosives is less than 1s 3d per ton.
“As regards the railway concessions, the truth of the matter is that
the Transvaal Railway Company—the Netherlands South African Railway
Company, that is—by providing competing routes to Johannesburg from
Natal and Delagoa Bay, keeps in check the monopoly which would
certainly be taken great advantage of by the Cape Colony if the only
route to Johannesburg was from Cape ports.”
It may be allowed—it must be—that the old saw, “figures will not lie,”
is unsound. In the hands of capable and unscrupulous persons they will
lie like Ananias and Sapphira. But, like that of Ananias and Sapphira,
the lie in figures brings swift detection and punishment. It ought to
be easy, therefore, for those who have filled the ears of the world
with charges of Africander oppression practiced upon the foreigners in
the way of “excessive customs tariff,” “extortionate duties on
machinery,” and the “dynamite monopoly that made the expense of all
mining operations excessive,” to convince the world-jury to which they
have appealed that they have a case. They ought at least to be able to
show that in British Rhodesia the impost on the profits of gold mining
was not 50 per cent, while in the Transvaal it was about 8 per cent
thereof; that in British Cape Colony the ad valorem duty on articles
not specially rated was not 12 per cent, while in the Transvaal it was
7½ per cent; that in British Cape Colony specially rated articles
affecting the white miner as to expense of living were not taxed all
the way from 100 to 500 per cent higher than in the Transvaal, with the
single exception of soap; that an import duty of 1½ per cent on mining
machinery was extortionate as compared with the tariff of other
nations, or that a higher duty than 1½ per cent was collected in the
Transvaal; and that a profit of 25s a case on dynamite, less the cost
of transportation from Kimberley to Johannesburg, and only causing the
expense for explosives used in mining to be 1s 3d per ton of ore out of
a total cost of 30s per ton, was an oppressive monopoly causing the
cost of mining to be excessive.
Concerning the other grounds of complaint Mr. Statham writes:
“There are, besides the material grievances alluded to above, what may
be called the political grievances, such as (1) the alleged government
of the country by a small faction of Hollanders, (2) the language
grievance, (3) the educational grievance, and (4) the franchise
grievance.
“As regards the first mentioned of these, an honest and impartial
person would search for evidence of it in vain. All the members of the
executive, with one exception, are South African born; so are the
majority of heads and sub-heads of departments. * * * The only
Hollander of any distinction in the government is the state secretary,
Dr. Leyds, a man of exceptional ability and integrity, who, in spite of
enormous difficulties and constant attacks, has deserved and retained
the confidence both of the president and the volksraad. To say that he
is the ablest and most cultured official in South Africa is to say what
is simply true, and if his ability has excited jealousy and resentment,
it is only what a general study of human nature would lead one to
expect.
“As regards the language question and the education question,
consideration has to be paid to the language most usually spoken in the
country. Entirely misleading ideas are liable to be formed on this
point, owing to the erroneous impression as to the relative strength of
the Dutch and the foreign population. A habit has arisen of speaking as
if the foreign population greatly outnumbered the burgher population.
The case is quite the opposite of this. The census of Johannesburg
taken in 1896 by the Johannesburg Sanitary Commission showed that the
population of the place had been greatly overestimated, the male
European population of all ages amounting to 31,000. As there are
25,000 burghers on the military register of the republic, it seems fair
to assume that the burgher population is at least 150,000, while the
foreign population is probably not more than half of that. Of the
150,000 burghers and their families fully two-thirds do not understand
English. Is it, then, unreasonable to claim that the official language,
the language of official documents, shall be the language spoken by
two-thirds of the people, or do the women and children count for
nothing? But although the official language by law is Dutch, there is
not a single government office in which there is not English or German
spoken to those who cannot speak Dutch. In the higher courts the judges
frequently shut their eyes to the use of the English language in the
witness-box, and in the lower courts English is invariably spoken by
English litigants.
“As regards the education question, there is not now much need to
discuss it. The volksraad during the session of 1896 passed a law in
further expansion of the principles laid down in the law of 1892, and
under the regulations drawn up in accordance with the law, as now
expanded, state schools, in which English-speaking children will be
taught in English, and which are placed under the control of
representative school boards, have been established in the gold-mining
districts.
“The franchise question has been made the subject of special complaint.
Here, however, there are several difficulties in the way. In the first
place, the majority of the foreign population do not want the
franchise, because they are quite content with their position as it is
and do not want to become—as they would have to do if they exercised
the franchise—burghers of the South African Republic. The very
agitation over the question has increased the difficulty, for the more
there seems to be a possibility of a serious misunderstanding between
the Transvaal and Great Britain, the less disposed British subjects
become to place themselves in a position which might compel them to
fight against their own countrymen. Meantime the government and the
volksraad have been compelled to the conclusion that the agitation for
the franchise is not genuine—that it has not been encouraged with the
view to obtaining a concession, but with the object of establishing a
grievance. They have seen, too, that to grant wholesale political
privileges to the foreign residents in Johannesburg, even if those
foreign residents were willing to become naturalized, would be to a
great extent to deliver up the interests of all the dependent
classes—the shopkeepers, the miners, the professional men—into the
hands of a small group of capitalists, who would use their influence,
as they have used it elsewhere, to corrupt the political atmosphere and
to subject the interests of every individual to their own. The
political tyranny that exists in Kimberley, where employes of De Beers
are compelled to vote to order on pain of dismissal, supplies a
sufficient illustration of what would happen in Johannesburg if once
the financial conspirators secured political control. A further and
most significant illustration is supplied by a well-known incident in
connection with the revolutionary movement in Johannesburg, when miners
under the control of the leading conspirators were ordered to take up
arms under penalty of forfeiting their wages. That in the great
majority of cases they preferred the latter course is in itself a
complete exposure of the hollowness of the whole revolutionary
movement. In all known cases of revolution arising from discontent on
the part of a mining population it has been the miners who have taken
the lead and dragged others in with them. In this case the miners, who
had never dreamed of discontent, were ordered to take up arms and
refused.
“Out of the facts of the position actually existing in Johannesburg and
other gold-mining centers it was utterly impossible for any honest man
to manufacture a serious complaint, least of all such a complaint as
would in any respect justify a revolution to secure redress. So far
from being treated with unfairness or hardship, the foreign residents
in the Transvaal have been treated with marked consideration. The
interests of the gold industry have been consulted in every possible
way. If the government has not in some instances been able to do all it
might have wished to do, it has been because the reckless language of a
portion of the press and the overbearing attitude of the capitalist
agitators have aroused the suspicion and the resentment of the
volksraad.
“Yet out of this position of things a case had to be got up against the
Transvaal government in order to justify the revolutionary movement
that had been planned in the interest of the small groups of
capitalists who had determined to make themselves as supreme over the
gold industry in Johannesburg as they had become over the diamond
industry in Kimberley.”
It has seemed necessary to quote Mr. Statham thus at length in order
that the alleged grievances of the foreigners in the Transvaal, and the
Africander answer thereto may be considered side by side. To say the
least, Mr. Statham has not dealt in vague generalities. His assertions
are specific and his figures can easily be investigated. It is for
those who sympathize with the complaints which led to prolonged
agitation and finally to war, to show that Mr. Statham was in error.
Until they shall have done so charges of “oppressive” and
“extortionate” imposts, taxes and tariffs will lie, not against the
South African Republic, but against the British administration in Cape
Colony, Natal and Rhodesia.
Mr. Statham’s contention that the Dutch ought to be the official
language of the Transvaal seems well founded. The account he gives of a
somewhat tardy provision—made after the raid of December, 1895—for the
instruction of English children in the English language evinces a
disposition to meet the reasonable demands of the foreigners in that
regard; but the delay in doing so is to be regretted. The matter of
franchise became the subject of acrimonious diplomatic negotiation and
the immediate cause of war, which will be treated of more fully in a
later chapter.