Development of Cape Colony.
[Sidenote: Gradual Growth of Cape Colony]
The dismemberment of South Africa, which commenced in the days of the
Great Trek, which was made more distinct by the Conventions of 1852-4,
and was destined to culminate in the Conventions of 1881-4, was at
first somewhat of a boon to Cape Colony. It removed about ten thousand
of the most discontented, restless and ignorant portion of its
population and left plenty of land and room for the occupation of
future immigrants. They came slowly, however, as the Kaffir wars had
given the country a bad name and the reputation of its climate was not
particularly good. But, between 1845 and 1850, some five thousand
British settlers were brought in under aid from the Government, and a
little later a number of Germans who had fought for England in the
Crimean war migrated to the Cape. In 1858, two thousand German
peasants were settled on lands near the southern coast of the Colony
which had once belonged to the Kaffirs. They made excellent settlers,
and in time merged with the British population, which came to
predominate in the eastern part of the country, as the Dutch did in the
western section.
[Sidenote: The Climate]
The climate was found to be reasonably healthful. To newcomers the
sudden change from heat to cold, owing to the south-east winds, was
found unpleasant, and in cases of weak constitutions somewhat
dangerous. But with proper care in clothing and gradual
acclimatization this difficulty soon moderated, and the peculiar
dryness of the climate was found to make strongly for health.
Sunstrokes were rare, and the only serious evil arising from the heat
was the drying up of the rivers in the interior of the country. In
most parts of the continent malarial fever was then an admitted and
serious danger, as it is to-day in the great lake region of Central
Africa and in the valley of the Nile. In German East-Africa, in parts
of the Transvaal and in the Delagoa Bay region there is still a similar
state of affairs. But Cape Colony, the Orange Free State and Natal
were then, and are at the present time, almost entirely free of this
dreaded disease. For weak lungs it was discovered that no finer
country exists in the world than the Cape, and for the development of
general healthfulness and vigour the settlers of the Colony soon found
themselves in an ideal region.
[Sidenote: Natural Resources, etc.]
Natural resources were not quite so apparent. A wealth of brilliant
flowers and tropical plants existed, but forests were few, timber was
scarce and costly, and it was years before the introduction of the
Australian Eucalyptus embowered many a village from the Cape to
Kimberley and from Buluwayo to Pretoria in groves of that useful tree.
The land in some cases was fertile, but, on the whole, was perhaps more
suited to the raising of sheep and cattle than to agriculture in the
American or Canadian sense. Farming of the latter kind involves severe
labour, and neither the original slaves, the coloured labourers of an
after-time, nor the Dutch farmers, were fitted by disposition or nature
for the work. But, as the population increased from 26,000 Europeans
in 1805 to 182,000 in 1865, and to 237,000 ten years later, the country
assumed a more civilized and prosperous appearance. Sheep and cattle
were literally scattered over a thousand hills, while various
collateral industries were developed by English settlers which the
slow-moving Dutch would never have dreamed of. Between 1812 and 1820
the Merino sheep was introduced, and its wool soon became a source of
profit and wealth. In 1865 ostrich farming was commenced, and speedily
developed great importance through the process of artificial
incubation. Roads were made, churches and schools were built,
municipal government in the towns and villages was introduced, and the
Colonial finances were put into shape despite the expenses of Kaffir
wars and native troubles--which were mainly charged to the Imperial
exchequer. The first railway was constructed in 1859, and wagon roads
were carried over various mountain passes and through much of the
settled part of the country.
[Sidenote: An Executive Council Created]
In 1834 an Executive Council had been created composed of members
nominated by the Governor, and therefore more or less dependent upon
his good-will. Perhaps at that time, and in view of the limited
population, the racial rivalry and religious and educational
complications, it was just as well that such a body should not be
elective, as some desired. Twenty years later, however, when
conditions had somewhat changed, a representative Legislature was
established composed of a Council and a House of Assembly. Members
were to be elected upon a wide franchise, with no distinction of race
or color, excepting that a Kaffir had to hold some small amount of
property and to have given up the tribal system. There were very few
natives in this condition. Meanwhile the dissensions between the Dutch
part of the population and the missionaries continued, and they
extended at times to the English settlers also. There can be no doubt
of the intense irritation aroused by this controversy. The Dutchman
looked upon the native as created and existing for his special benefit,
and through the effect of contiguity and similarity of conditions often
induced the English farmer to agree with him. The missionary, on the
other hand, believed himself appointed to guard the interests of the
weaker race, and was too apt to forget the suffering caused by Kaffir
raids from the outside, in his general sympathy for the downtrodden
representatives of the race in the Colony itself.
[Sidenote: A Long Struggle]
From about 1820 to 1860 this struggle lasted. It weakened the hands of
the Governors, who usually shared the Colonial view of the Kaffir wars,
as against the missionaries. It injured the reputation of the Colonial
Office throughout South Africa from the widespread belief that its
officials were inspired, or guided, by the friends of the missionaries
and by the impracticable sentiments of Exeter Hall, rather than by the
wishes of the people of Cape Colony. It seriously affected the
continuity of policy which should have marked the action of the British
Government, in these regions of all others, and which, unfortunately,
so seldom characterized their treatment of either Cape Governors or
native questions. In 1846 commenced the seventh Kaffir or Kosa war.
Sandili was the heir of Gaika, the Kosa chief who had figured in a
previous conflict, and he had for some time prior to this date
permitted raids upon the settlers of the Colony's eastern territory,
and had entirely disregarded pledges and arrangements. Finally, Sir
Peregrine Maitland sent a military force to occupy the region
controlled by Sandili and bring him to terms. With incomprehensible
but oft-repeated carelessness in South African warfare, a long
ammunition wagon train following the expedition was left practically
unguarded, and was, of course, surprised and seized by the Kaffirs.
[Sidenote: A Sweeping Raid] The result of the ensuing retreat of the
British troops was a combination of the Kosa and the Tembu tribes, a
sweeping raid along the entire frontier, the murder of settlers, the
capture of cattle, and the burning of dwellings. The local forces of
the Colony were hastily got together, and operations carried on in a
scattered sort of way for some months until the arrival of several
British regiments from abroad. A temporary submission was then made by
the natives with a view to the planting of their maize. As soon as
this was garnered the war broke out again.
[Sidenote: The province of British Kaffraria]
The Governor had meantime been recalled, and was succeeded for a few
months by Sir Henry Pottinger. Sandili, however, soon had enough of
the struggle, and, in 1847, peace was made after an enormous cost to
the British authorities and amid the clamor of ruined Eastern farmers.
At the end of the year Lieutenant-General Sir Harry Smith came out as
Governor and High Commissioner, with unusual personal powers and under
the awakening perception of the Colonial Office that it was better to
let the man on the spot guide affairs than to attempt the real
government of South Africa from six thousand miles away. It was not a
permanent awakening, but it was useful so long as it lasted. Sir Harry
Smith adopted the repudiated native policy of Sir Benjamin D'Urban;
proclaimed the territory between the Kei and the Keiskama as a British
possession for the absolute use of the western clans of the Kosa tribe;
appointed a Commissioner to exercise general authority over the Chiefs
and sent a strong body of troops to garrison various forts; and named
the region--which once for a brief season had been called after Queen
Adelaide--the Province of British Kaffraria. A few years later the
eighth Kaffir war took place. The tribes seem to have considered the
peace as nothing more than a truce, and as soon as the British
authorities began to suppress the worst of their savage
customs--notably the murders and tortures arising out of the hunt for
witchcraft--discontent very speedily developed into the war of 1850-51.
The usual struggle followed, with surprises, raids, murders and the
ravaging of the frontier. The war was the most costly of all the
conflicts with these restless tribes, and was specially marked by an
event memorable in the annals of British bravery--the loss of H. M. S.
_Birkenhead_ with 400 soldiers on board. It occurred near Algoa Bay,
where the ship had struck a reef in the middle of the night. The
women, children and sick people were sent away safely, in all the
available boats, while the troops remained drawn up in line as though
on parade, with the ship breaking up under them and a sea swarming with
sharks around them.
[Sidenote: An Extraordinary Incident]
For two years a large force of soldiers, farmers and auxiliaries of
various kinds were employed in trying to end a war with enemies who had
the fleetness of the antelope and powers of disappearance equal to that
of a bird. When their food was exhausted, and not before, the Kosas
gave in and asked for peace. As usual in such cases, the Governor was
recalled, and Sir George Cathcart appointed his successor. The
government of British Kaffraria was reorganized and the region
subdivided amongst the Tembus, a section of the Kosa tribe under a
chief named Kreli, the western clans of the Kosa and the loyal Fingos.
Several regiments of regular troops were maintained in the Province and
a body of local police formed from amongst the younger white colonists.
In 1857 there took place one of those extraordinary incidents which can
only occur in a region such as South Africa. The Kosas, prompted by
some wizard who professed to wield unknown and vast powers and to hold
communication with the unseen world, destroyed all their cattle and
stores of grain in the belief that their ancestors would, as a reward
for their faith, join them in driving the white man out of the country
and in creating for them a boundless stock of new cattle and a
limitless supply of fresh crops. Famine naturally followed, and some
30,000 natives perished of hunger or disease despite all that Sir
George Grey, who, in 1854, had become Governor at Cape Town, could do
for them in a hurried supply of provisions and work. Some good came
out of the evil. Large tracts of depopulated land were taken
possession of by European settlers, peace came to the exhausted region,
and in 1865 it was annexed to Cape Colony. It may be added here that
some small risings occurred in 1877, termed the ninth Kaffir war, and
that in 1880 the region held by the Pondos was formally annexed to the
Colony, and its borders thus became coterminous with those of Natal.
[Illustration: A GENERAL VIEW OF ESTCOURT, TWENTY-FIVE MILES SOUTH OF
LADYSMITH. GENERAL VIEW OF CITY OF LADYSMITH, NATAL (From Photo by
Henry Kisch).]
[Illustration: MAP SHOWING COUNTRY FROM DURBAN TO LADYSMITH]
[Sidenote: A Vexed Question]
Meanwhile, the history of Cape Colony was by no means confined to
conflicts with border natives or to the controversies with the Orange
Free State, which have been detailed in preceding pages. In 1850
occurred one ol the most striking illustrations of what mistakes a
fair-minded and well-meaning Home Government may at times be involved
in when dealing with far-away regions. There seems to have been no
perception in those days of the wrong which might be inflicted upon a
Colony by the exportation of convicts undergoing various terms of penal
servitude. Confinement in Australia or South Africa seemed to British
statesmen, and especially to Earl Grey, who presided over the Colonial
Office at this time, no more objectionable on principle than it would
be if they were kept at home in the British Isles. They forgot that on
being released these men--some punished for serious crimes, some for
slight offenses--were let loose upon a community widely scattered and
isolated and composed of many persons who, taken in this way, were easy
victims to robbery or attack. And they entirely overlooked the danger
of allowing hundreds, or in time thousands, of men without personal
responsibility or character, to roam at will amongst a large and
restless population of natives. They appear to have felt only that in
the vast and vacant spaces of the Colonies there was room and verge for
a released convict, or a ticket-of-leave man, to make for himself a new
career untrammelled by the past, or by the danger of drifting again
into the deeps of the great cities at home.
[Sidenote: Penal Settlement in the Colony]
When it was understood at the Cape that the Imperial Government
proposed to establish a penal settlement in the Colony, similar to the
one which had been formed at Botany Bay, the indignation aroused was
immediate and intense, petitions and protests were sent in great number
to London, meetings were held throughout the Colony, and when the
_Neptune_ arrived in Simon's Bay, Cape Town, with convicts on board,
nearly all the people of the Peninsula bound themselves together in a
pledge to supply nothing to the ship or to have any dealings with
persons connected with it. Sir Harry Smith, who was then Governor, had
expressed his own strong opposition to the plan; but he was compelled
to obey his orders from home and could not therefore send the vessel
back. For five months it lay in the Harbor, supplied from passing
men-of-war and treated by the Colonists as though the plague were
within its wooden walls. And then, at last, came the order--in frank
and acknowledged response to the petitions of the
Colonists--transferring its convict cargo to Tasmania.
[Sidenote: A New Constitution]
Four years after the satisfactory settlement of this vexed question
came the grant of Parliamentary institutions to the Colony. This
action was part of a general Colonial plan by which full responsible or
ministerial government was established in Canada, under Lord
Elgin--there had long been elective legislatures in the
British-American Provinces--and a system formulated in the Australias
similar to that of the Cape. The details of the proposed changes were
left by the Colonial Office largely in the hands of the Governor and
the appointive Legislative Council, which had been created in 1834, and
it was therefore not expected that the result would be extreme in a
democratic sense. The new constitution was promulgated on March 11,
1853, and by its terms an elective House of Assembly numbering
forty-six members was created--afterwards increased to seventy-six, and
with a five years' limit in time as against the earlier seven years
period. The Upper Chamber or Legislative Council was, to the surprise
of many, also made elective. It consisted of fifteen members, who were
afterwards increased to twenty-two, with the Chief Justice of the
Colony as an additional member and _ex-officio_ President. The right
to vote for both Houses was given to every male British subject over
twenty-one years of age who occupied a house or land worth $125, or was
in receipt of a salary or mixed remuneration valued at $250. There was
no distinction as to race, color, religion or mode of life, and this
pronounced measure of electoral liberty was a matter of constant
friction in the minds of the Dutch settlers--so far as they cared in
these years to think or trouble themselves about the affairs of an
alien rule. The legislation, however, was more important as the
enunciation of a principle than because of its working out in practice
at this particular period. There were few natives for many years in a
position to take advantage of even this low franchise, and, of course,
all who continued to share in the tribal system were absolutely
debarred. [Sidenote: Right to Vote Limited] In 1892 the right to vote
was limited by fresh legislation--resulting from the rising political
power of the Afrikander Bund and the Dutch dislike to the natives--to
such adult males as were able to sign their names and write down their
addresses and employment. The franchise qualification was raised to a
property one of $375, while the wage qualification was allowed to
remain as it had been.
[Sidenote: The First Parliament of the Colony]
The first Parliament of the Colony met in June, 1854, and from that
time onward all laws had to be sanctioned by both Houses and approved
by the Governor. As elsewhere in the Empire the right of disallowance
was reserved to the Queen for a given period after such laws reached
London, but in practice the power was, and is, seldom used. Like so
many of the apparently dormant prerogatives of the Crown it is,
however, available for an emergency. Following this creation of
Parliamentary institutions came the usual struggle for Parliamentary
control over the appointments to office, over the expenditure of money,
and over the _personnel_ of the Governor's Council. As in other
Colonies, it was found impossible to construct in a day, or a year, an
exact imitation of Great Britain's Cabinet and governmental system,
with all its complex Parliamentary code, its elaborate constitutional
checks and counter-checks, its numerous traditions and precedents. And
there was, of course, the same difficulty as Canada had already faced
and overcome--the presence of a large electoral population with no
hereditary or natural adaptability to the British constitutional
system, and without, in some cases, the basis of cordial loyalty which
is so essential to its successful operation. At first, therefore, the
officials of the Executive Council (or what afterwards became the
Ministry) were appointed by the Colonial Secretary. They framed the
financial legislation of the Government and introduced it to the House
of Assembly, and they held the right of discussion, though not of
voting, in both Houses. This system was maintained for eighteen years,
and, in view of England's heavy financial responsibilities in South
Africa, the racial condition of Cape Colony itself and the continuous
troubles everywhere with natives and Boers, it was, perhaps, as well
that the threads of government should be largely held in London. And
this may be said despite all the vacillations of the Colonial Office.
Had there been firmness and continuity in the general Home policy
concerning South Africa, there could be no question at all upon this
point.
[Sidenote: Wise Administration]
Meanwhile, Sir George Grey had been distinguishing himself by a
singularly wise administration between the years 1854 and 1859. He
conciliated the Hottentots of the Colony by granting certain claims
which had been long and fruitlessly pressed upon the authorities. He
settled tor a time the native troubles in Kaffraria, and founded a
great hospital for natives, in which, by 1890, more than 130,000 cases
had been treated, and the resulting cures heralded in many corners of
"Darkest Africa" as a proof of the Englishman's power and unexpected
beneficence. He despatched troops to India at a critical period of the
Mutiny and upon his own responsibility, settled the German Legion from
the Crimea in the Colony, and brought out a number of German families
for its members to marry into. Finally, during his first Governorship,
he urged the union of the Legislatures of the Cape, Natal and Orange
Free State in a common federal system, and at a time when the Free
State might easily have been persuaded to accept the policy. But the
Colonial Office would have none of it. Unfortunately, and to the
lasting injury of South Africa, the Home Government distrusted him, and
in 1858 he was recalled.
[Sidenote: Sir George Grey Reappointed]
The Derby Administration, however, met with defeat while Sir George
Grey was on the sea, and when he reached London it was to find that he
had been reappointed to his position. It long afterwards became known
that this was done by the personal command of the Queen, who had
appreciated the policy he pursued and had sympathized with his proposed
federal scheme.[1] But despite this fact the new Government, as a
whole, was so strongly opposed to the much-feared increase of
responsibilities, under a federation in South Africa, that Sir George
Grey was obliged to forego the hope of even attempting to carry his
schema further. During his second administration, which only lasted
until 1861, he entertained Prince Alfred (the Duke of Edinburgh), and
traversed with him a great part of Cape Colony, Kaffraria and Natal;
improved to an immense extent the splendid natural Harbor at Cape Town;
visited the Orange Free State and established at Bloemfontein, as a
token of friendship, the Grey Institute, in which so much has since
been done for the higher education of the youth of that State.
[Sidenote: Annexation of Basutoland] In 1861 he accepted the
Governorship of New Zealand, and was succeeded by Sir P. E. Wodehouse,
whose administration was chiefly distinguished for the annexation of
Basutoland. In 1870 Sir Henry Barkly took charge of affairs and
assumed possession for Great Britain of the Diamond Fields. With the
coming of Sir Bartle Frere, in 1877, arose new developments along the
lines of Sir George Grey's disappointed hopes and hampered policy.
This time, however, a check was to be given from within the Colony
instead of by the Colonial Office. The wheel of fate refused to
reverse itself.
[1] _Life and Times of Sir George Grey_. By W. L. Rees. London, 1892.
Vol. XI., p. 298.
[Sidenote: The First Cape Ministry]
The year 1872 had seen the grant of full responsible government to the
Colony and the crowning of its Parliamentary system by the
establishment of the first Cape Ministry. As in the British-American
Colonies, from 1854 onwards, the Ministry now had to obtain and hold
the confidence of a majority of the members of the House of Assembly,
and its defeat upon any important question necessitated immediate
retirement. The head of the Government, or Prime Minister, was
_ex-officio_ in charge of native affairs within the Colony, but, owing
to the complex position of South Africa in the relationship of its
various states to each other and towards the natives, the Governor of
Cape Colony remained High Commissioner in South Africa with the control
of British interests outside the bounds of Cape Colony. In such
matters he was responsible to the Crown and not to his own Colonial
Ministry. Parliament could be dissolved, constitutionally, at the
pleasure of the Governor, but practically and mainly upon the advice of
his Ministry. It could not sit longer than five years, so that the
people were, and are, able to turn out their Government either through
pressure upon their representatives at Cape Town, resulting in a
Parliamentary vote of want of confidence, or by their own votes at the
polls as the result of a general election. The following have been
successively Prime Ministers of Cape Colony:
1872, Sir John C. Molteno, K.C.M.G.
1878, Sir J. Gordon Sprigg, K.C.M.G.
1881, Sir Thomas C. Scanlen, K.C.M.G.
1884, Sir Thomas Upington, K.C.M.G.
1886, Sir J. Gordon Sprigg, K.C.M.G.
1890, The Hon. Cecil J. Rhodes.
1893, Right Hon. Cecil J. Rhodes, P.C.
1896, Right Hon. Sir Gordon Sprigg, P.C.
1898, Hon. W. P. Schreiner, Q.C., C.M.G.
[Sidenote: Lord Carnarvon's Scheme of Federation]
Upon the structure of these Governments and around the names of their
members turns much of the history of Cape Colony during these years;
although a man of the wide influence of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr never held
office except for a few months in 1881, while Sir John Henry de
Villiers has not been in a Ministry since 1873 when he retired from the
Molteno Cabinet to accept the Chief Justiceship of the Colony. The
first great question which had to be dealt with under the new
constitution was Lord Carnarvon's scheme of federation. This most
cultured representative of British statecraft had, curiously enough,
been Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies at the time when the
head of that Department, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, had refused any
favorable consideration to the policy proposed by Sir George Grey in
1858. He had then agreed with his chief; now he was at the head of the
Colonial Office, under the inspiration of Lord Beaconsfield's new
Imperialism, as a convert in the most enthusiastic degree to the
general principle of Colonial federations under the Crown.
Accordingly, in 1875, he addressed a despatch to the Cape Government
pointing out the complications of South African inter-state relations,
the advantages of unity and the willingness of the Imperial Government
to enact legislation bringing into effect a federal union of the
various communities. At the same time he sent out, as a sort of
confidential envoy to press the matter upon public attention, a man
who, with all his brilliant attainments as a writer and historian--the
late James Anthony Froude--seems to have been without that tact and
personal magnetism so essential to the success of a delicate mission.
His own record of the matter in _Oceana_ proves this conclusively. And
it was not a favorable moment for any general consideration of the
matter. The Orange Free State was in a somewnat exasperated condition
over the annexation of Griqualand West to Cape Colony, and had not yet
become mollified by the personal influence of President Brand and by
the results of the monetary return given for the loss of the Diamond
Fields. The Transvaal was in a position of such factional discontent
and general disintegration that its people could hardly have dealt
clearly with such an important issue had even their still keen hatred
of the English been eliminated from the question. Natal was in
imminent danger from the massing of Zulu spears upon its frontiers;
while the Dutch people in Cape Colony looked upon the whole matter with
suspicion and certainly without sympathy.
[Sidenote: Sir Garnet Wolseley as Governor]
Following Mr. Froude's mission to the Cape came the appointment of Sir
Garnet (afterwards Field Marshal Lord) Wolseley as Governor of Natal,
with the special object of studying the situation and promoting
federation. He returned to London after a few months without
accomplishing anything very definite, and on August 3, 1876, presided
over a Conference held in the metropolis and attended by several South
African delegates. Amongst them was Theophilus Shepstone, a clever and
ambitious man who had for years been in charge of native affairs in and
around Natal, and for some time prior to this date had been in London
urging a union of the various States as the only way out of existing
evils and difficulties. The meeting adjourned, however, without any
practical result, and in the succeeding year Sir Bartle Frere, a
brilliant Anglo-Indian administrator, was sent out as Governor and High
Commissioner with a special view to the promotion of confederation.
[Sidenote: Steps for Annexation of Transvaal] About the same time Mr.
(now created Sir) Theophilus Shepstone was given exceptional authority
as a Special Commissioner in Natal to steps for take steps for the
annexation of the Transvaal under certain possible conditions of
necessity or willingness on the part of its inhabitants. These
conditions appeared to present themselves and annexation followed; as
did the Zulu war and the war of 1881. Meantime Sir Bartle Frere found
himself and his policy opposed by practically the whole Dutch
population of Cape Colony. He was violently criticised by the press
and politicians of the Colonial Boers--who were now awakening to the
possibilities of racial power under the new institutions of the
country--and in 1880 had the mortification of having his carefully
prepared federal proposals thrown out of the Cape Parliament; chiefly
at the instigation of the Transvaal Boers, who were just then entering
upon their struggle for independence. Meanwhile the Beaconsfield
Government was defeated, Mr. Gladstone came into power, and in the
prompt recall of Sir Bartle Frere and the equally prompt repudiation of
his policy another unmerited grave was dug in the cemetery which South
Africa has provided for the reputations of many Governors.
[Illustration: THE LEICESTER REGIMENT RETREATING TO LADYSMITH BOMBARDED
BY THE BOERS]
[Illustration: THE NAVAL BRIGADE AT LADYSMITH SHELLING THE BOERS,
OCTOBER 30, 1899. The large gun mounted on Captain Scott's carriage is
shown in action.]
This action of the Cape Parliament was an effective evidence of the
growing political influence of the Dutch population in the Colony.
Another was the establishment in 1882 of the dual language system.
Prior to this date, and since 1828, the English language alone could be
used in Parliamentary debate, in the Courts of Law, or in the Public
Offices. But now the local Dutch farming population had awakened to
its real political influence--largely through the formation of the
Afrikander Bund in 1881--and its representatives in the Assembly soon
obtained a change in the law. Henceforward either language could be
used in any place or position, and it was also enacted eventually that
no one should be admitted to the ordinary branch of the Civil Service
without a perfect knowledge of both English and Dutch. Such a result
was inevitable, under the circumstances, but it is hard to see any real
advantage which has ensued. The measure did not improve the standard
of public life, and even Dr. Theal, who is disposed to give the
brightest view of Dutch development in the Colony, declares that it
would be incorrect to say that the change "raised the tone of debate in
Parliament or improved the administration of justice in the slightest
degree." As a matter of fact it helped still further to isolate the
Dutch people, encouraged the publication of Dutch newspapers, helped
the progress of Dutch political organization in Parliament and in the
Afrikander Bund, and promoted the use of a _patois_ which was very far,
indeed, from being the mother-tongue of the race.
[Sidenote: General Progress]
Meanwhile, Cape Colony was making considerable material and general
progress. It was largely an English development, as the Dutch
population still adhered to the slow-going ways of its ancestors, and
cattle and sheep remained the chief support of the farmers under
British rule as they did of those beyond the Orange or the Vaal. At
the beginning of the century, when the Colony finally came under the
control of Great Britain, its products had been limited to grain,
cattle and wine--the total exports being under half a million of
dollars in value. At present they include aloes, coffee, copper ore,
ostrich feathers, dried fruits, guano, angora hair, hides, horns,
skins, tobacco, wine, wool and diamonds. In 1875 the vines of the
Colony yielded four and a half million gallons of brandy. In the same
year three million pounds of tobacco were produced; while the Colony,
as a whole, possessed eleven million sheep, twenty-two thousand
ostriches, over three million goats and a million horned cattle. The
trade of the country has always been chiefly with Great Britain and
carried in British vessels. [Sidenote: Facts and Figures] Between 1861
and 1886 the imports doubled and the exports trebled. From 1872 to
1897 they rose by leaps and bounds--the imports increasing by
$67,000,000 and the exports by $66,000,000. Since English agricultural
settlement and work has increased the growth of grain in some of the
richer regions has been considerable. Wheat, maize, oats, barley and
millet are common crops, while rice and cotton are grown in certain
localities--the latter being still an experimental production. Merino
sheep have largely taken the place of the big-tailed sheep of the early
Dutch settlers. The following table,[2] beginning with 1854 and
including 1872, as the years marked by important constitutional
changes, will illustrate the general progress in this connection:
1854 1872 1897
Receipts, $1,479,010 $ 5,770,205 $ 36,949,830
Expenditures, 1,562,605 4,612,840 34,261,930
Public Debt, none 7,755,470 136,412,025
Shipping, tons (inwards), 1,202,715 2,412,780 32,101,005
" (outwards), 1,197,975 2,353,455 32,166,020
Imports, 7,740,185 21,943,640 89,659,390
Exports, 3,822,305 30,347,645 97,181,520
[2] Condensed from official figures in the _Statistical Register_.
Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. 1897.
In 1868 the declared value of diamonds exported was $750, while from
1881 onwards the export averaged twenty millions a year--in 1897 being
$22,271,880. In 1872 the export of wool reached its highest point, and
exceeded sixteen millions in value. Since then it has diminished,
owing to the effect of frequent droughts upon the sheep, and, in 1897,
was but little over seven millions. Of all the exports Angora hair is
now the most important, and excels gold, diamonds and precious stones.
In 1857 its export was about $5,000 in value; forty years later it was
$60,900,000. The population had meantime been growing slowly. The
Census of 1865 gave the Europeans as numbering 181,592, and the natives
314,789. Ten years later the figures were 236,783 and 484,201,
respectively, and in 1891 the Census of that year showed an increase to
382,198 Europeans and 1,217,762 natives. How far these figures are
accurate it is difficult to say. There has been an objection to
differentiating between European races in the official returns--partly
from the English portion not liking to appear in so marked a minority
and partly, perhaps, from the Dutch themselves not desiring to have
their full strength known. And it is not improbable that the last
Census very greatly understated the numbers of the latter; as seems to
have also been the case with the figures of Boer population in the two
Republics.
[Sidenote: Other Statistics]
In other branches of development there have been marked evidences of
advancement; though in the figures which follow, and notably in
connection with railways and banking, the English part of the
population is again the principal progressive element. In 1860 there
were 225 schools and 18,757 scholars, and in 1897 2,358 schools and
119,812 scholars. The railways were taken over by the Government in
1873 to the extent of 64 miles. In 1897 the railways under Government
control covered 1901 miles, with total receipts of $15,350,000 and
expenditures of $9,500,000. This particular branch of progress was
greatly assisted by the Orange Free State under President Brand.
Telegraph lines, with 19 stations, 781 miles of wire sending 15,500
messages in the year, were also assumed by the Government in 1873, and
in 1897 there were 426 stations, 18,631 miles of wire, and 2,392,503
messages despatched. The fixed and floating deposits in the banks of
the Colony amounted, in 1865, to ten million dollars and the bills and
notes under discount to over fifteen millions. In 1897 the fixed
deposits were $13,500,000, the floating deposits $24,000,000, and the
discounts $17,000,000, in round numbers. The chief railways in the
Colony start from Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London, and the
main line into the interior now reaches Buluwayo. If Mr. Cecil Rhodes
ever succeeds in the aim of his life, it will eventually reach Cairo,
and thus connect the Cape with Egypt.
[Sidenote: The Colony from a Religious Standpoint]
Until the discovery of gold in the Transvaal the British emigration to
South Africa was never extensive, and even since that time it has not
been greatly added to so far as Cape Colony is concerned. The total of
those sent from England between 1873 and 1884 was only 23,337. From a
religious standpoint the condition of the Colony is somewhat complex.
There are two Church of England Dioceses, and the Church is very
popular amongst the English part of the community, whilst its
organization is excellent--a fact largely due to the work done during
many years by Dr. Gray, Bishop of Cape Town. It is in close touch with
the Church at home, and in 1874 had 45,000 adherents, of whom 19,000
were colored people. The Roman Catholic Church at that time numbered
8,000, and the Dutch Reformed Church, which is, of course, the Church
of the Boers, included 132,000 adherents. In 1891 there were,
according to the Census, 186,073 white members of the Dutch Reformed
congregations in the Colony and 24,441 colored; 46,114 white adherents
of the Church of England and an equal number of colored; 20,215 white
adherents of Wesleyan Methodism and over a hundred thousand colored;
and 12,000 Roman Catholics, mostly white; with the balance of the
population scattering amongst minor denominations and the various
sections of the Lutheran Church.
The most prominent public man of British extraction in the earlier
period of the history of Cape Colony was the Hon. William Porter,
C.M.G., who died in 1880 after many years' seclusion at his home in
Ireland. A native and barrister of Erin, he was Attorney-General of
Cape Colony as far back as 1839, and held office for a long period
prior to the attainment of responsible government. The constitution of
1854 was largely his creation, and his personality, combined with great
natural eloquence, made him a strong place in the hearts of the people.
Three times he refused the position of Chief Justice, and, in 1872,
declined the office of Prime Minister under the newly established
system of complete self-government. Bishop Gray of Cape Town, who died
in the year just mentioned, was also one of its great public figures.
During quarter of a century, and amidst innumerable ecclesiastical
storms and political complications, he administered the affairs of the
Anglican Church, and left it in a strongly organized position as the
"Church of South Africa," with its own Synod, prosperous finances and
growing membership. Sir Walter Curry, of Cape Mounted Rifles fame; Sir
Sydney Smith Bell, a learned Judge of twenty-three years' labor; Sir
Christoffel Josephus Brand, the first Speaker of the House of Assembly;
the Hon. Robert Godlonton, M.L.C., and Thomas Burt Glanville, M.L.A.;
Hon. Saul Solomon, M.L.A., Sir Andries Stockenstrom, Bart., M.L.A.,
Hon. J. W. Leonard, M.L.A., Hon Jonathan Ayliff, M.L.A., Hon. George
Wood, M.L.C., the Hon. Andries Stockenstrom, Judge of the Supreme
Court, and John Noble, C.M.G., were all men who left their mark upon
the history of the Colony.
After William Porter, the most prominent of the earlier Colonists, was
the Hon. John Paterson. A Scotchman by birth, he went out to South
Africa in 1840, and became a teacher, a journalist, a capitalist, a
banker, and, finally, during many years was a keen politician. A
member of both Houses in turn, a strong advocate of Confederation and
railway development, a progressive leader in every sense of the word,
his death by drowning in 1880 left a serious void in the life of the
Colony. Of Sir John Charles Molteno, the first Premier at the Cape,
much might be said. An Englishman by birth, he was a Colonist from the
age of sixteen (1830) until his death in 1886. Participating in
different Kaffir wars, fighting for responsible government, struggling
for railway extension, sharing in all the ups and downs of local
political life, he became Prime Minister in 1872, and retired from
public life in 1883, after receiving the honor of knighthood from the
Queen.
In later years and in the development of Dutch individuality the
Afrikander Bund did some measure of good.
[Sidenote: Some Prominent Leaders]
Apart from its influence in arousing a racial passion which was innate,
but as yet sluggish, amongst the Cape Boers, it had detached them
somewhat from their previous position of absolute isolation, and, under
the local leadership of Mr. J. H. Hofmeyr and others, had brought them
into political and constitutional action. That this growing knowledge
and experience was ultimately twisted by the influence of President
Kruger of the Transvaal and President Reitz of the Free State into an
increased and active aversion to Great Britain and the English was the
misfortune of the situation. Meantime, however, the movement taught
the Dutch something of the freer life of British politics and brought
some able men to the front. Mr. Hofmeyr could have been Premier at
almost any time during these years, but seems to have been without
personal ambition of the official kind. Sir John Henry de Villiers was
the first Attorney-General under responsible government, President of
the Legislative Council for many years, and has been Chief Justice of
the Colony since 1873. He was a Delegate in 1894, with Mr. Hofmeyr, to
the Colonial Conference at Ottawa, and three years later was appointed
a member of the Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council--the
highest Court of Appeal in the Empire--as part of a new policy which
included Canadian, Australian and South African members in that
important body. He has long represented the best type of loyal,
cultured and able Dutchmen at the Cape. His name indicates the strain
of Huguenot blood which so curiously mingles with many of the Dutch
families of the Cape.
Sir Pieter Hendrik Faure, K.C.M.G., is another Dutch leader of the same
type--loyal to the finger-tips and progressive in ideal and in practice
and as a follower of Cecil Rhodes. He was in the latter's Ministry
from 1890 to 1896, and in the succeeding Government of Sir Gordon
Sprigg until 1898. The Hon. Jacobus Wilhelmus Sauer has been a very
different style of political leader. A thorough Dutchman and
enthusiastic member of the Afrikander Bund, he helped to break up the
first Rhodes' Ministry, in which he had been included as a part of the
Premier's conciliatory policy, and he is now a member of very doubtful
loyalty in the Schreiner Government. He has declined a knighthood.
Mr. Wilhelm Philip Schreiner has not had that opportunity, but he has
accepted a C.M.G., or Companionship in the Order of St. Michael and St.
George. He was a member of the second Rhodes' Ministry (1893) for a
short time, and, in 1898, when the Bund had become a strong political
factor and had overpowered Rhodes and his friendly successor--Sir
Gordon Sprigg--at the polls, he became, on October 14th of that year,
Premier of Cape Colony as well as the local leader of the Bund in
practical succession to Hofmeyr. As events developed in the direction
of racial hostilities in South Africa, and as political power at the
Cape came to centre in the hands of the Bund Ministry, Mr. Hofmeyr's
influence has naturally diminished and that of Messrs. Schreiner, Sauer
and Te Water increased. The latter, the Hon. Thomas Nicholas German Te
Water, B.A., M.D., has been, for some time, a leader of the Afrikander
party, and, though a graduate of Edinburgh University, a student of
Berlin, Vienna and other Universities and a man of culture, he also has
become enmeshed in the web of racial or Dutch ideals. He was for two
years in the last Sprigg Ministry, and is now in that of Mr. Schreiner.
[Sidenote: Mr. Cecil Rhodes]
First and foremost of all English leaders in South Africa, and ranking
higher in practical power and developed policy than any British
Governor or ruler in its history, is Mr. Cecil John Rhodes. He has
been in the Parliament of Cape Colony since 1880, and was for a short
time, in 1884, Treasurer in the Scanlen Ministry. He held no other
official post until he became Chairman of the British South Africa
Company in 1889, and Premier of the Colony in 1890. Of the other Prime
Ministers of the Cape Sir Thomas Upington was a clever Irish Roman
Catholic lawyer, a brilliant speaker and strong Imperialist, who became
Attorney-General in 1878, after he had only been a couple of years in
the Colony. Six years later he was Premier. Sir John Gordon Sprigg is
an Englishman by birth and a politician of acknowledged personal
probity. He is, however, described by a well-known writer on Colonial
affairs[3] as a political opportunist who has changed his opinions upon
various subjects, and who generally believes in being in accord with
the majority wherever an opening may occur. This opinion arises
somewhat from the fact that his policy of recent years has been in
accord with that of Rhodes--up to 1895--and was very conciliatory
toward the Dutch majority, while his own views were known to be
strongly British. [Sidenote: Sir James Sivewright] Sir James
Sivewright has not been Premier of the Colony, but was the pioneer head
and front of its telegraph system--a native of Scotland and a graduate
of Aberdeen--and was a member of the first Rhodes Ministry and the
third Sprigg Ministry. One other politician must be mentioned--the
Hon. John Xavier Merriman. A native of England, a son of Bishop
Merriman of Grahamstown, a graduate of Oxford, and an early Tory and
loyalist of strong views and enthusiastic adherence to Rhodes; he has
developed into a Radical and a follower of Schreiner and the Afrikander
Bund. It has been a remarkable change, presents a curious combination
of racial inconsistencies, and has made him intensely unpopular amongst
the Progressive, or Rhodes' party of recent years, as well as amongst
the English element of the troubled present. He has been a member of
the Scanlen Ministry, the first Rhodes Ministry, and belongs to the
present Schreiner Government.
[3] _Problems of Greater Britain_. By Sir Charles W. Dilke, Bart.,
M.P. London, 1890.
[Sidenote: The Parties of To-day]
Meanwhile the parties of to-day had been developing--the Afrikander
party and the Progressives. The former included Dutch leaders such as
Hofmeyr, Schreiner, Te Water and Sauer, and a few Englishmen like J. X.
Merriman. The latter was composed of English politicians such as
Rhodes, Sprigg and Upington, and a few Dutchmen like Sir P. Faure. The
policy of the former is and has been openly for some time voiced in the
phrase: "Africa for the Afrikander." The policy of the latter is that
of territorial expansion--as in the annexations to Cape Colony of
Griqualand West and Bechuanaland--and of British supremacy throughout
South Africa. Of course there have been many changes and developments,
and it has only been within the past few years (1896-1900) that the
policy of conciliating the Dutch has been in great measure dropped
owing to its apparent impracticability. For the time being the
Afrikander party is in power. It triumphed in the general elections of
1898, and the Legislative Assembly at Cape Town has a Dutch majority,
the Ministry is emphatically a Bund Government, and the Legislative
Council has fifteen Boer members to eight English. Such has been the
final development of equal rights and British constitutional freedom in
this South African Colony.