Imperial Policy in South Africa.
[Sidenote: The Early Governors of Cape Colony]
Like most of England's Colonial Governors those of the Cape were, from
the time of Lord Caledon's arrival in 1807, men of character, standing
and ability. They might make mistakes in policy, they might
occasionally be led astray by local advisers and they were always
liable to censure or recall from a Colonial Office which too often
judged local conditions from the standpoint of Downing Street rather
than by a clear comprehension of the difference between struggling
pioneer communities and a wealthy and matured home society. But their
intentions were good, they were never known to be, or even charged with
being corrupt, and they usually had a degree of experience in public
life which was naturally useful to a new country with crude
institutions. Lord Caledon improved the postal system and established
Circuit Courts for the better administration of justice in outlying
districts. Sir John Cradock, who came out in 1811, established schools
in the country regions and tried to control the nomadic tendencies of
the Dutch farmers by making them freeholders of farms ranging from 6000
to 20,000 acres in extent. Lord Charles Somerset--a brother of the
Duke of Beaufort and of Lord Raglan, the well-known Crimean General of
after-years--was appointed in 1814 and carried out many measures of
value to the infant Colony. He founded new townships, promoted
industrial development, encouraged the importation of sheep and himself
brought out Merinos whom he established in sundry breeding-farms. At
the same time he broached and carried out the important scheme of
immigration known in its result as the Albany Settlement and as one of
the chief factors in the progress of the period. His large salary of
fifty thousand dollars, paid by the Local Government was, therefore,
well earned and though an unpopular and arbitrary man he certainly
appears to have done good service to the community.
[Sidenote: Good Service to the Community]
In 1826 Sir Lowry Cole succeeded to the position and attempted for a
time the difficult and dangerous task of Anglicizing the population.
Eight years afterwards General Sir Benjamin D'Urban, who had seen
military service in Canada, and elsewhere, was appointed to carry out
the slave emancipation policy. Then came Sir George Napier, under
whose régime a splendid system of roads was created and, in 1847,
General Sir Harry Smith, a most popular and able Governor. He was
followed by Sir George Cathcart in 1852. All of these rulers had to
deal with native or Boer wars and none of them had much time to spare
for the cultivation of material progress in the generally harassed
country. From 1854 to 1862, however, Sir George Grey administered the
affairs of the Colony and to this remarkable man South Africa owes
much, and would have owed more had he not been hampered and overruled
at every turn by Imperial fears of a policy of expansion and Imperial
objections to the assumption of further responsibilities.
This was the period when Little Englanders abounded in the mother
country; when Tories and Radicals were agreed in opposing any added
links to the chain of Empire; when the masses believed that the
manufacturing industries and commerce which they saw advancing by leaps
and bounds on every side were entirely independent of political
boundaries and national allegiance; when the markets of the world
seemed for a time to belong to England, and the markets of the Colonies
were in comparison absolutely insignificant; when public men like John
Bright and Richard Cobden, Cornewall Lewis and Sir William Molesworth,
Lord Brougham and Lord Ellenborough, Robert Lowe and even Lord John
Russell, spoke of a future in which the Colonies would be independent,
and of a present which was simply preliminary to a destiny which they
did not regret. The popular idol of that day was Trade, as the popular
idol of the last days of the century is Empire. The swing of the
pendulum has come indeed, but it has brought with it a war which the
acceptance of Sir George Grey's policy at this time would have
prevented.
[Sidenote: England's Unsettled Colonies]
There is, of course, much to excuse this view of the Colonies in, and
about, 1850. The British-American Provinces were still in a
dissatisfied and disorganized condition from the Rebellion of 1837, the
racial troubles of 1848, and the fiscal difficulties which followed the
repeal of the Corn Laws and Preferential duties by England. The value
and resources of Australia were practically unknown. It was still the
home of convicts, and had only just entered upon a period of rushing
settlement and turbulent mining successes in which the problems of
government were extremely complicated. South Africa had been the scene
of nothing but war and trouble. All the later Governors had been
recalled one after the other, and their policy frequently reversed
without either conciliating the Colonists or controlling the restless
masses of native population along the ever-changing frontiers. As a
rule the earlier policy toward the Kaffirs had been one of
half-measures. The first plan of alliances with native chiefs broke
down, and in Lord Charles Somerset's time had ended in conflict. Then
came the Boer wars with the Zulus in Natal and a British effort to
protect the natives against the invaders' onslaughts. Sir Benjamin
D'Urban's policy in 1835, after the Kaffir war of that time, was the
establishment of a living frontier along the east of Cape Colony, which
should be sufficiently strong to resist the pressure of the savage
masses from beyond. A line of European settlers was to be established,
and beyond that a body of loyal Kaffirs supported by a string of forts.
Before a Committee of the House of Commons this was afterwards declared
by D'Urban's successor, Sir G. Cathcart, to have been a wise and
necessary policy. But, unfortunately, it involved an advance from the
Fish to the Kei River, and such a thing the Colonial Office would not
tolerate. The policy was reversed and the territory in question given
back to the Kaffirs.
[Sidenote: England's Unsettled Colonies]
Sir George Grey (1854-61) took a different line of action and policy.
Everything that he did was bold and determined. He acted first,
assumed the responsibility next, and made it necessary for the Colonial
Office to either approve, or else recall, a Governor who had for the
first time in a quarter of a century proved a successful South African
ruler. This statement is not necessarily a reflection upon previous
Governors. Sir Benjamin D'Urban was overruled by Downing Street. Sir
George Napier went out simply to reverse a certain policy under
detailed instructions. General Sir Peregrine Maitland had
distinguished himself as a soldier, had made an excellent Governor of
Upper Canada and of Nova Scotia, and was no more responsible for the
Kaffir war which caused his inevitable recall than was the Premier of
Great Britain. General Sir Harry Smith, the victor of Aliwal in India,
and the only British officer who before 1899 had won a direct victory
over the Boers, had in him the making of a statesman, as his annexation
of the Orange River region proved. But the war with Sandili brought
about his recall, and a very few years also saw the reversal of his
policy toward the Boers, the creation of the independent Free State,
the establishment of the Transvaal, and the foundation of endless
opportunities for trouble in the future. For these actions the
Government of the Earl of Aberdeen and the Secretaryship of the Duke of
Newcastle must always hold an unpleasant responsibility. Sir George
Grey did what he could to rectify the errors which had been made. He
was instinct with the Imperial idea, and, although doomed to fail in
some measure in the attainment of his great ambitions, none the less
did splendid work for the Empire. The men at the Colonial Office were
constantly changing, and the only continuity in their policy was a
common desire to be relieved from any new developments and fresh
responsibilities. Politics did not come into the matter at all, as one
party was then as ignorant of Colonial requirements and as indifferent
to Colonial possibilities as the other.
[Illustration: HOSPITAL TRAIN LOADING WOUNDED SOLDIERS]
[Illustration: THE TOWN HALL AT LADYSMITH CONVERTED INTO A HOSPITAL]
[Sidenote: Governors and Colonial Office Differ]
During Grey's seven years' administration of the Cape, for instance,
Sidney Herbert (afterwards Lord Herbert of Lea), Lord John Russell, Sir
William Molesworth, Henry Labouchere (afterwards Lord Taunton), Sir
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Stanley (afterwards Earl of Derby), and the
Duke of Newcastle, succeeded each other at the Colonial Office; while
Sir Frederick Rogers (afterwards Lord Blachford) was Permanent
Under-Secretary during part of the period. Molesworth, Russell,
Stanley and Labouchere were all tainted strongly at this time with the
Manchester School theory, and Sir F. Rogers who, in his more permanent
position, had greater influence than all the passing Secretaries of
State put together, is upon record as having advised his chief, on more
than one occasion, to encourage the Colonies in every line of thought
and action which would develop separatist and independence sentiment.
It was little wonder, therefore, that Sir George Grey failed in his
effort to weld the infant States and Colonies--first of South Africa
and afterwards of Australasia--in a federal union. Had he succeeded in
the one it would have averted much bloodshed and racial hatred, and in
the other much of useless controversy, crude constitution-mongering and
demagogic development. "I believe I should have succeeded," he
declared in bitterness of heart many years afterwards; but the
statesman proposed, the Colonial Office disposed. For years the whole
scope of the suggested federation was discussed between the Governor
and the Imperial authorities. The former suggested the constitution of
the then federated islands of New Zealand as a practical basis, and
even obtained a Resolution of the Free State Volksraad in favor of the
general principle. The consent of Cape Colony would have been
unanimous. Natal was ready, and it is not likely that the conflicting
and tiny republics into which the Transvaal was then divided would have
long resisted Free State influence and the personal magnetism which Sir
George Grey could have brought to bear upon them. Even had their
deeper prejudices and denser ignorance prevailed for a time in the
perpetuation of their isolation, the increased prosperity of the Free
State under the new conditions would have ultimately brought them into
the union.
[Sidenote: Federal Union Proposed]
When the Cape Parliament met in 1859 the Governor placed before it the
Resolutions of the Orange River Volksraad, and in his accompanying
address said: "You would, in my belief, confer a lasting benefit upon
Great Britain and upon the inhabitants of this country if you could
succeed in devising a form of federal union under which the several
provinces composing it should have full and free scope of action left
to them, through their own local Governments and Legislatures, upon all
subjects relating to their individual prosperity or happiness; whilst
they should act under a general federal Government in relation to all
points which concern the general safety or weal." Along this path
alone lay safety and success for the South African States. A copy of
the address was sent to the Colonial Office with full explanations and
comments, and then came a reply expressing great dissatisfaction at the
question having been brought before the Legislature at Cape Town
without authority from the Ministers at home. Sir George claimed, on
the other hand, to have indirectly understood that the policy proposed
had the approval of the Colonial Department. There seems, however, to
be little doubt from the terms of the general correspondence that he
did really try to force the hands of the Imperial Government in this
matter; as one which he deemed essential to the welfare of the Empire,
and for the success of which he was willing to risk personal
humiliation in a bold effort to stem the tide of anti-colonialism then
swelling on the shores of British thought and sentiment. [Sidenote:
Government's Disapproval of Grey's Policy] The result, however, was his
recall in a dispatch from Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, dated 4th June,
1859, and containing an expression of the high opinion held by the
Government of Sir George Grey's endowments and patriotism, but
explaining that "they could not safely continue to entrust with your
present functions one committed, as you have committed yourself, to the
policy of which they disapprove on a subject of the first importance;
nor could they expect from you the necessary assistance when steps,
which you have taken without that authority, have of necessity to be
retraced." [Sidenote: Sir George Grey's Vindication] The reply to this
was dated July 20, 1859, and constitutes a distinct and complete
vindication of his general policy. In its closing paragraph is summed
up the situation facing more than one Governor of Cape Colony, or High
Commissioner to South Africa, before and since his time:
"Can a man, who, on a distant and exposed frontier, surrounded by
difficulties, with invasions of Her Majesty's territories threatening
on several points, assume a responsibility which he, guided by many
circumstances which he can neither record nor remember as they come
hurrying on one after another, be fairly judged of in respect of the
amount of responsibility he assumes by those who, in the quiet of
distant offices in London, know nothing of the anxieties or nature of
the difficulties he had to encounter? If Her Majesty's possessions and
Her Majesty's subjects are saved from threatening dangers, and they
gratefully acknowledge this, whilst the Empire receives no hurt, is it
a fitting return that the only reward he should receive should be the
highest punishment which it is in the power of Her Majesty's Ministers
to inflict? This may be the reward they bestow; but the true one of
the consciousness of difficult duties performed to the best of his
ability, with great personal sacrifice, they cannot take from him."
[Sidenote: Grey Reinstalled by Palmerston]
But Sir George Grey had friends of greater power than the novelist
politician at the Colonial Office or his narrow-visioned assistant.
From the time, in 1857, when he had diverted troops to India, which had
stopped at Cape Town on their way to China, and by this seemingly
reckless assumption of responsibility had enabled Sir Colin Campbell to
relieve Lucknow and to save the situation in those terrible days of
mutiny, he was given the lasting friendship and appreciation of the
Queen. His further policy of conciliating the natives by personal
visits and explanations of the situation; his wise trust in the
friendship of savage chiefs whom he knew often understood honor and
practiced it better than the white man himself; and his stripping the
country of troops and munitions of war in order to give additional help
in the Indian crisis; naturally added to the esteem which his first and
most daring act had inspired in the mind of a Sovereign who was, even
in those days, an Imperial statesman in the highest sense of the word.
Of his action in changing the route of the troops from Hong Kong to
Calcutta, and sending Cape troops and artillery and stores and specie
to India in time to be of the most valuable service, the Queen
commanded Mr. Labouchere, Colonial Secretary, to express privately to
Sir George Grey "her high appreciation" as well as in a more formal
manner. Later on she hesitated for some time in giving her assent to
his recall, and short of precipitating a Cabinet crisis did refuse. A
little later the Derby Government was defeated, and as soon as Lord
Palmerston came into power Grey was promptly reinstalled, and, on his
arrival in London, was informed by the Prince Consort of the Queen's
"approval of the measures taken by him and the policy of confederation
which he had pursued," and her opinion that the plans proposed were
"beneficent, worthy of a great ruler, honorable to himself and
advantageous to her people." Speaking at Sydney, New South Wales, in
1891, Sir George Grey referred to this matter, and declared that "one
person in the Empire held that I was right, and that person was the
Queen."
[Sidenote: Advancement During Grey's Governorship]
Back he went to South Africa amid general rejoicings at the Cape, but
with the refusal of the new Government at home to take any steps
whatever in the direction of federation. But, as if to expressly mark
the Queen's sympathy with Grey's Imperial ideas, Prince Alfred was sent
out in 1860 to make a tour of South Africa, and to evoke, as he did,
the same sentiments of loyalty as were aroused by the visit of the
Prince of Wales to Canada at about the same time. Cape Colony, Natal
and the Orange Free State were visited with due ceremony by the
Governor and the Prince, and at Bloemfontein one of the arches of
welcome contained the significant motto: "Loyal, though discarded."
During the succeeding year Sir George Grey finally left the Cape to
take up the Governorship of New Zealand, at a critical period in its
troubles with the Maoris, and at a time when the Duke of Newcastle,
Colonial Secretary, had given him to understand that the
Governor-Generalship of Canada and ultimately of India were open to him
after leaving South Africa. But duty seemed to require him in New
Zealand, and thither he went to live for years as Governor, for other
years as Prime Minister, and for a still longer period as a private
citizen. During the eight years in which he had ruled Cape Colony he
had inaugurated representative institutions and established schools,
libraries, hospitals, public works, roads and railways. The Cape Town
and Wellington Railway, the first line in the Colony, was his
enterprise. The great ostrich-farming industry of the future was
started by him. Above all, he won the affection and respect of the
most varied types of native races, and the after voluntary submission
of Moshesh, the Basuto, to British authority may be largely traced to
the friendly feeling inspired by a visit which Grey paid to the rocky
heights of Thaba Bosigo. In his greatest aim he had failed, and in
later days he became eccentric and erratic in his views; but none the
less does South Africa owe much to the life and memory of Sir George
Grey.
His successor, Sir Philip E. Wodehouse, was a man of ability who had
been Governor of British Guiana, and was afterwards for five years
Governor of Bombay. His administration was signalized by the
inauguration of a new and wiser policy on the part of the Colonial
Office. Whether it was that the Manchester School, in reaching the
meridian of its power during these years, had temporarily overlooked
South Africa; or that it had become apparent even to the Colonial
Office that the man on the spot must be allowed some latitude; or that
Sir Philip Wodehouse was more trusted and less feared by the Home
authorities than Grey; is not visible upon the surface. But the fact
remains that in 1865 British Kaffraria was finally incorporated with
Cape Colony, and definite responsibility assumed for its government and
control, and that in 1868 Basutoland was annexed to British
dominions--not to the Cape Colony--and perhaps the most rugged and
strongest natural fortress in the world prevented from falling into
Boer hands. Sir Henry Barkly, an experienced Australian Governor,
assumed charge in 1870, and a year later Griqualand West, with its vast
potentialities as a diamond-producing country and as the only available
British route to the far interior, was annexed and placed, like
Basutoland, under the authority of the Cape Governor as High
Commissioner for South Africa and direct representative of the Crown
and the Colonial Office.
[Sidenote: Natal a Separate Colony]
Meantime Natal, which had up to 1856 been under the control of the
Governor at the Cape, was in that year made a separate Colony governed
from the Colonial Office under a Lieut.-Governor, and with only
partially representative institutions. Zululand and the Zulus were to
this region what the Kosas had been to the Cape settlers so far as the
fear of raids and the dangers of war were concerned. Of actual and
serious war there was but little from the time of the Boers until 1879.
Of trouble in management, however, there was abundance because of the
number of Zulus within as well as from the Zulus without the strict
limits of Colonial territory. In 1873 Cetywayo was installed under
authority of the British Government as head of the Zulu nation, and
from this time dates the inauguration of the serious situation which
culminated six years later and ended in the annexation of a large part
of that region in 1887, and the protectorate established over the
sea-coast country, called Tongaland, in the same year. These two
events marked a singularly wise expression of Imperial policy, as they
checked and prevented the realization of the greatest ambition of the
Transvaal Boers--the obtaining of a sea-port. While this extension was
taking place in the east under the general administration of Sir
Hercules Robinson (afterwards Lord Rosmead) as High Commissioner, and
the whole sea-coast region from Portuguese territory to Cape Town was
being made British, a similar expansion had occured in the north and
west.
[Sidenote: Zululand Annexed]
It was to a great extent forced upon the British authorities by Boer
aggressiveness which, after the war of 1880-1 and the succeeding
Conventions, had become very marked. The Transvaal Dutch first trekked
into Zululand when it had been placed again under Cetywayo's
rule--after the war of 1879 and in the useless hope of avoiding its
annexation--and endeavored to establish there another Boer republic.
In order to prevent this and to protect the Zulus, under pledges
previously made, the Imperial Government had to formally annex the
greater part of the region. Then the Transvaalers turned to the west,
and a large number trekked into Bechuanaland, threatened to cut off
British territory and trade from the interior and menaced the
independence of Khama--a wise and friendly ruler to the north of
Bechuanaland. Sir Charles Warren's expedition of 1884 was despatched
by the Imperial Government and checked this movement, though at the
serious risk of war, and forced the Boers to recede. Bechuanaland was
then made a Crown Colony. Khama's Country was proclaimed, in 1885, a
British Protectorate, while in the preceding year, the important naval
station of St. Lucia Bay, just south of Zululand and about the
ownership of which there was some doubt, had also been annexed. Four
years previously Griqualand West had been taken from the direct control
of the Colonial Office and annexed to Cape Colony, and, in 1895, the
Dutch of the Cape had recovered somewhat from the angry feelings
provoked by the Warren expedition and the repulse of Boer ambitions
which its success involved, and permitted Mr. Rhodes to arrange the
annexation of all Bechuanaland to the Colony and its consequent removal
from the control of the Governor as High Commissioner to his charge as
the constitutional Governor of the Cape.
[Sidenote: Mr. Rhodes Premier of Cape Colony]
This curious combination of duties had been first created in 1847 when
Sir Henry Pottinger, for a few brief months, held the position of
Governor of Cape Colony and High Commissioner for South Africa. The
latter position simply involved, at that time, certain powers of
control over border tribes and certain specified authority in
negotiation. There were then no recognized independent States in South
Africa, and no self-governing powers at the Cape to complicate matters.
In time these conditions developed, and yet the Governor of the Cape,
responsible to his Ministers and Parliament for every detail of local
government, remained apart from that Parliament as the centre of a
thousand strings of diplomacy and negotiation throughout all South
Africa and the Governor of various regions, with undefined powers and
with responsibility only to the Colonial Office or the Crown. In 1889,
for example, Cape Colony was under complete self-government, and Natal
only partially so--the latter having a Governor of its own.
Basutoland, Pondoland, Bechuanaland, the Khama Country and the sphere
of British influence to the far north were under the Governor of Cape
Colony as High Commissioner only. In the same year the latter region
came under the direct control of Cecil Rhodes as Chairman of the
British South Africa Company, and Mr. Rhodes, in 1890, became Premier
of Cape Colony and the responsible adviser of the Governor. Zululand
and Tongaland were at the same time subject to the joint control of the
Governors of Cape Colony and Natal, though not in any way governed by
the Ministers of either official. Meantime, Swaziland (northwest of
Tongaland) was managed by alternate British and Boer Committees, and
ultimately was allowed to pass into the hands of the Transvaal; while
the latter Republic was nominally under the Queen's Suzerainty and the
Orange Free State was absolutely independent.
[Sidenote: Gold not the Cause of Expansion]
Such a complication, it is safe to say, never existed in any other
region of the world, or in any other record of colonization and
expanding empire. That government was possible at all reflects great
credit upon the administrators, and shows that, as years passed on, the
Colonial Office had at last risen to the level of its responsibilities,
had grasped the true spirit and the absolute necessity of Imperial
growth, and had learned that the men in charge of distant regions must
have the confidence of rulers at home and a policy with some degree of
continuity in plan and principle and detail. What really caused this
change in policy and the resulting expansion of Great Britain in South
Africa is an interesting historical question. The position of late
years has been so different from the developments of the fifties and
from the dominating ideas and ideals of the Manchester School of
thought that some explanation is necessary. The discovery of gold and
diamonds does not afford an adequate one. There was none of either in
Basutoland, or Zululand, or Bechuanaland, or Tongaland, or in the great
regions which the Chartered Company had acquired and held under the
Crown. Much was due to the slow but sure subsidence of the Little
Englanders after 1872, when Mr. Disraeli in a famous speech expressed
the first formal antagonism of a great party, as a whole, to any
further playing with questions and principles of Imperial unity. More
was due to the sustained Imperialism of his succeeding Ministry, to the
purchase of the Suez Canal shares and increasing public appreciation of
the value of the Cape in connection with the route to India, and to the
growing popular comprehension of the value of India itself. More still
was due to the rise of a new school of British statesmen, in all
parties, who had become instinct with the spirit and pride of Empire
and inheritors of the sentiment which Disraeli in his later years, and
under his new designation of Lord Beaconsfield, so strenuously
propagated. The Imperial Federation League, formed in 1884 with strong
support from leaders such as the Earl of Rosebery, Mr. W. H. Smith, Mr.
Edward Stanhope, Mr. Edward Gibson, Mr. W. E. Forster, Sir John
Lubbock, Sir Lyon Playfair and Lord Tennyson, constituted a most
important educative influence. Writers like Froude and Dilke and
Seeley took the place of philosophic disintegrationists of the
Molesworth and Cornwall Lewis school; whilst Radical politicians of the
Chamberlain and Cowan type came gradually into touch upon this subject
with aristocratic Imperialists such as Salisbury, Carnarvon and
Rosebery.
[Sidenote: Cecil Rhodes and Expansion]
The rise of Cecil Rhodes and his enthusiastic perception of the
necessity for South African expansion and unity had also much to do
with the change, while the discovery of diamonds did of course have
some effect in creating, at the time, a fresh interest in a country
hitherto chiefly known for wars and natives and missionary
explorations. So too with the natural rivalry aroused by German and
French and Italian efforts at acquisition of African territory. The
Transvaal annexation and war, 1877-81, had an effect also of
considerable importance. It projected South Africa into the wide
publicity of a place in British politics, and taught many opponents and
supporters of Mr. Gladstone more than they had dreamt of in all their
previous philosophies. The result was unfortunate as a whole, but in a
somewhat undefinable degree it cleared the way for a knowledge of
conditions and necessities which made the expansion policy of 1884-95
possible. The sending of Sir Bartle Frere to the Cape in 1877 was an
illustration of the Imperialistic principles which actuated the
Beaconsfield Government. No more brilliant and honorable administrator
had ever graced the service of the Crown in India than Sir Bartle
Frere. He was loved by subordinates, respected by all races and
creeds, trusted by Ministers at home, and, like all the greater
Governors of the Empire, was a strong believer in the closer union of
its varied portions. Reference to his connection with the
Confederation question, the Zulu war and the Transvaal annexation has
been made elsewhere, and must be still more expanded in another
chapter. But, something should be said here as to his general
treatment by the Imperial authorities. He went out with distinct
powers in connection with the unification of South Africa, and, with
the additional ones given Sir Theophilus Shepstone in Natal, held
practically a free hand.
[Sidenote: Gladstone and the Boers]
The annexation of the Transvaal and the subjugation of Cetywayo were
duly accomplished, but success to the policy as a whole was prevented
by the war of 1881; and the latter was greatly encouraged, if not
practically caused, by the eloquent objections urged in England by Mr.
Gladstone. There seems to have been no very clear comprehension of the
issue, and there was certainly no accurate knowledge of the Boer
character and history, in Mr. Gladstone's mind. They were simply to
him a pastoral people asking, and then fighting, for a freedom for
which they had struggled steadily during half a century. He knew
nothing of the land and cattle and liberties stolen by them from
unfortunate native races; of the bitter and ignorant hatred felt by
them towards England and British civilization; of the contempt for
missionaries and religious or political equality; or of their ambition,
even in those days of weakness, to expand north and east and west and
to cut off British power to the north and eventually in the south. He
never had an Imperial imagination and cared little for the ideal of an
united South Africa under the Crown. An historical imagination he did
possess, as was shown in his devotion to the cause of Greek
independence and his willing transfer of the Ionian Isles, in earlier
years, to the new Hellenic Kingdom. But that was based upon his love
of Homer and ancient Greek literature--not upon so modern and material
a matter as the welfare of British settlers in a distant and
storm-tossed colony.
[Sidenote: Governor's Restraint of Boers]
However that may be, his eloquent attacks upon the Government hampered
their further action, and when the Transvaal rebellion broke out Sir
Bartle Frere--to the lasting discredit of the Administration--was
promptly recalled. Then and to-day his name is perhaps the most loved
in the list of British rulers at the Cape--not even excepting Sir
George Grey. In the _Diary_ of Prince Alfred Victor and Prince George
of Wales, written during their cruise around the world, in 1880-81,
there is a reference to the Governor who had just left the Cape of
interest in this connection: "Ask any Colonist, haphazard--Afrikander
or English--and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred you will be told
that he was conscientious, able, far-seeing, magnanimous, truthful and
loyal." The reversal of his policy followed, and was embodied in the
Convention of 1881. The new Governor and High Commissioner, Sir
Hercules G. R. Robinson, was a man of considerable ability and of
prolonged experience. After the settlement of the Transvaal troubles
he was given a certain amount of latitude in dealing with the natives
and in controlling the Boer disposition to seize territory in every
outstanding direction. The annexations and protectorates already
alluded to followed in due course, and Sir Hercules claimed before he
left Cape Town in 1889, after eight years of administration, that: "As
Governor of a self-governing Colony I have endeavored to walk within
the lines of the Constitution; and as Her Majesty's High Commissioner
for South Africa I have, whilst striving to act with equal justice and
consideration to the claims and susceptibilities of all classes and
races, endeavored at the same time to establish on a broad and secure
basis British authority as the paramount power in South Africa."
To this claim there was certainly one exception. The treatment of the
Swaziland question during these years was a distinct evasion of
responsibility on the part of both High Commissioner and the Imperial
Government, and appears to have been better suited to the earlier
fifties than to the developments of the eighties. It was, however, a
fitting sequel to events such as the somewhat indifferent agreement of
the British Government, in the days of Lord Granville's weak
administration of the Foreign Office, to the German acquisition of
Damaraland and North Namaqualand on the western coast--for no other
apparent reason than to have some territory contiguous to that of Great
Britain. Fortunately, the vigorous protests of the Cape Government
prevented Walfisch Bay--the only useful harbor on the shores of all
that parched and arid region--from being given up to the same Power.
The Swazis were a branch of the Zulu race, and their territory bordered
the Transvaal to the north-west, and Tongaland and the Delagoa Bay
region to the south-east. Its acquisition meant that only Portuguese
territory would lie between the Boer country and the great harbor at
Lorenzo Marques. But apart from the immense strategic importance of
the country--afterwards so strongly realized--it was the duty of the
British Government to have in this case withstood the covetous designs
of the Transvaal.
[Sidenote: Swazis Appeal to England]
Protected by the terms of the Convention of 1884, when their practical
independence was guaranteed, and appreciating the policy by which the
infant Boer republics of Stellaland and Goshen had been suppressed in
Bechuanaland by the Warren expedition, the Swazis naturally looked to
England for support when they found numerous individual Boers settling
amongst them and preparing for further and more active aggression. In
1886 and 1887 the Swazi Chief appealed to the British Government for
the establishment of a formal protectorate; but was refused on the
ground that the Convention of 1884 by guarding their independence
practically prevented Great Britain from taking such a step. For years
prior to this period the Swazis had been friendly to the British, and
had stood by them in war and peace. Promises of consideration were
given, but nothing was done. The fact of the matter is that the
Afrikander party in Cape Colony wanted to help the Transvaal to a
seaport, and from some motive of conciliation, or strange error of
judgment, Sir Hercules Robinson shared, or appeared to share, the same
sentiment. So far as this point was concerned, the protectorate
established over St. Lucia Bay and Tongaland neutralized the evil of
the subsequent acquisition of Swaziland by the persistent Boers, but
nothing can ever compensate the loyal and friendly Swazis of that time
for their apparent desertion through the final refusal of the British
Government--after a discussion with a delegation of Chiefs in 1894--to
interfere with the action of the Transvaal in claiming full possession
of their country. It is only fair, however, to say that the issue had
become complicated by extensive and voluntary Swazi grants of land to
individual Boers.
[Sidenote: Delagoa Bay Decision]
In this connection some reference must be made to the Portuguese
territory of this coast, in view of the important international issues
since involved. Delagoa Bay is, perhaps, the most important harbor on
the east coast of Africa and a vital naval factor in the protection of
trade with India and China. The surrounding country is of little
value, and in the main a hot-bed of malarial fever. The harbor was
claimed for many years by Great Britain under terms of cession from a
native chief to an exploring party in 1822. Portugal resisted the
claim, and in 1872 the matter was referred to the arbitration of
Marshal MacMahon, President of the French Republic. As usual in such
cases, the decision was against Great Britain, but with the curious
concession of a right to purchase the territory at any time Portugal
might desire to sell it, and to the exclusion of the wish of any other
Power in the same connection. It is stated that Portugal was actually
ready at that time to sell her rights for £60,000;[1] and Lord
Carnarvon, British Colonial Secretary in 1874-78, afterwards stated
that: "When I succeeded to office I had reason to think that the offer
of a moderate sum might have purchased that which a very large amount
now could not compass. Unfortunately _the means were not forthcoming_,
the opportunity was lost, and such opportunities in politics do not
often recur." The inference from this statement is that the Chancellor
of the Exchequer--Sir Stafford Northcote--was the obstacle. If so, and
in the light of the many millions sterling which Great Britain in 1900
would give for this bit of territory, his name certainly merits
recollection.
[1] Molteno: _Federal South Africa_, page 87.
[Sidenote: Milner Appointed Governor]
Sir Henry Brougham Loch, a most successful Australian Governor, and
afterwards created Lord Loch, became Governor and High Commissioner in
1889, and, in 1895, was succeeded by Sir Hercules Robinson again for a
couple of years. It does not appear that the latter was recalled in
1889, but was simply not reappointed at the expiration of his term of
office. He left the country in the midst of much and strongly
expressed regret, and when he returned six years later was welcomed
with open arms. Shortly afterwards he became Lord Rosmead, and, in
1897, his health compelled a retirement which was soon afterwards
followed by death. Sir Alfred Milner was then appointed and at a most
critical period. He had to assume charge of a complicated political
and racial situation, and to supervise the relations of Great Britain
and the Colonies with the increasingly aggressive Transvaal Republic
and Afrikander organization. A strong Imperialist, a man of high
reputation for ability in conducting the finances of Egypt for some
time, and as Chairman of the British Board of Revenue in the preceding
five years, he went out to Cape Town with large powers and with the
complete confidence of Mr. Chamberlain and the Imperial Government.
The immediate result of his conclusions and policy will be treated
elsewhere in this volume, and whatever verdict the historian of the
future may have to give upon data and documents and secret developments
not now available, there is no doubt that he will accord to Sir Alfred
Milner a high place for honest statesmanship, conciliatory personal
policy and absolute conscientiousness of action in events, and amidst
surroundings, calculated to disturb the equanimity of the coolest
statesman and to influence the reasonableness of even the most
strong-minded representative of the Crown. Unlike Sir Benjamin
D'Urban, Sir Peregrine Maitland, Sir Harry Smith, Sir George Grey and
Sir Bartle Frere, he has had the rich and rare privilege in South
Africa of being endorsed and supported through all the tangled threads
of a complicated situation by the Colonial Office, the Imperial
Government, the British Parliament, and, eventually, the people of the
Empire. Of this he will always have reason to be proud, whatever may
be the arduous labors and responsibilities and perhaps changes of the
hidden future. And the fact, in itself, affords a fitting conclusion
to the consideration of British policy, or policies, in South Africa,
and marks the wonderful change which has come over the face of affairs
since the days of D'Urban and Lord Glenelg, Grey and Bulwer-Lytton,
Frere and Hicks-Beach--the Governors in Cape Colony and the Secretaries
of State in London.
[Illustration: BLUE JACKETS FROM THE BATTLESHIP "RENOWN" FIGHTING AT
LADYSMITH.]
[Illustration: OFFICERS WHO FELL IN THE EARLY BATTLES OF THE TRANSVAAL
WAR]