THE SETTLEMENT OF THE LAND.
I.
To the Boer the land was the beginning and end of all things: a town
was only a necessary excrescence, an industry an uitlander whim. A land
policy is therefore one of the first burdens which attend our heritage.
Happily we are not seriously impeded by the wreckage of systems which
have failed. The Boer Government had no land legislation, and the few
laws, such as the Occupation Law of 1886, which touched on the
question, were less statutory enactments than administrative
resolutions. The Boer farmer, or his father, secured his land when the
country was unoccupied, and he had merely to arrange the boundary
question with friendly neighbours. He held it on freehold title, with
no reservation of quit-rent to the Government. When the existing
population had thus been settled, the balance of unoccupied country
fell to the State; and this was further parcelled out by grants to
poor burghers, doles for war service, establishment of native
reserves, and in the wilder districts by the system of occupation
tenure. But in spite of all grants a considerable portion remained
State territory--over 44,000 square miles in the Transvaal, of which
at least 19,000,000 acres are unsurveyed. In the Orange River Colony
the State lands are smaller, not exceeding, with all recent purchases,
1,400,000 acres. The land question in the two colonies is therefore of
the simplest: the best farms, including most of the rich pockets of
alluvial land, are the freehold possession of a small number of Dutch
farmers; the balance is the more or less encumbered perquisite of the
State.
The condition of agriculture in the two colonies was primitive in the
extreme, a truth quite independent of the question whether such
elementary methods were not the only possible. The first comers were
pastoralists and nothing more, coming as they did from the great
pastoral regions in the north of Cape Colony. The average farm was
laid out for stock, and was rarely less than 6000 acres. On the old
estimate eight acres was required for each head of horned cattle and
two for each sheep. The Boer was not an advanced stock-farmer in any
sense of the word. He found certain diseases indigenous to the country
which he did not seriously attempt to cope with. He rarely fenced his
stock-routes and outspans or endeavoured to improve the carrying
capacity of the land by paddocking. The high veld in winter is burned
brown by sun and wind and nipped by frosts, so that it gives little
sustenance to stock; but the rich vegetation in summer should have
provided, by means of ensilage, ample feeding for the winter months.
This simple device was never used, and when the grass failed the Boer
trekked with his herds to his low-veld farm, whence he frequently
brought back the seeds of disease in his animals. In the quality of
his stock he was equally backward. In the Afrikander ox he had the
makings of one of the hardiest and strongest draught animals in the
world. In the Afrikander pony he had the basis of a wonderful breed of
riding-horses, to whose merits the late war has sufficiently
testified. He never seriously tried to improve one or the other.
Stallions of wretched quality were allowed to run wild among his
mares, and he had no system of culling to raise the quality of his
herds. The market for his beef and mutton was small and uncritical, so
that the amassing of animals became with him rather the sign visible
of prosperity than a serious professional enterprise.
At first the Boer did little more than till a garden. On each farm
there was a certain water-supply, and around the spruit or fountain a
pocket of alluvial land. The ordinary soil, both in the Transvaal and
the Orange River Colony, is, with some remarkable exceptions, poor and
easily worked out; but those alluvial patches are so rich as to be
practically inexhaustible. The Boer and the Kaffir shared one gift in
common, an infallible eye for good country, though there was this
difference between them that the Boer chose the heavy river-side lands,
while the Kaffir, who was a shallow cultivator, preferred as a rule the
lighter slopes where he could pick with ease. In 1885 the Boer farmer
did little more than irrigate his garden; but the increase in the
population of the towns, and the growth of a market for cereals,
fruits, and vegetables, made him extend his irrigation farther, so that
in a few years the whole of his alluvial pocket was under water.
Formerly he had been a pure pastoralist; now he became also an
agriculturist, and after his fashion a narrow-minded one, for
irrigation, which was his first successful experiment, was at once
exalted by him into an axiomatic law. The Kaffir, who in his way is a
skilful farmer and an experimentalist on a far wider scale, believed
in dry lands; but the Boer confined himself to his irrigation and his
summer and winter crops. Two views have been promulgated on the Boer
method. One is, that it is the true and only type possible in the
country, discovered after long years of intelligent experience. The
Boer, it is said, is unprogressive, because he knows the limitations
under which he works, and all new-comers who have begun by trying new
methods have sooner or later fallen into line with the old inhabitants.
The supporters of this view point to the scarcity of English farmers in
the land who have made a success of their farms on any other than the
Boer methods. There seems to be no real justification for this opinion.
The Boer has no settled principles of farming; he is an experimentalist
in practice, whatever he may be in theory. We have seen that he began
as a pastoralist, advanced to be also a gardener, and is now a
cultivator of lands under irrigation. In some twenty years, had he
been allowed to develop unchecked, he would doubtless have come round
to the Kaffir view of the dry lands. Fifteen years ago the country
store-keeper stocked only the old single-furrow wooden plough: to-day
on Boer farms you may see double-furrow steel ploughs, disc ploughs,
disc cultivators, not to speak of such elaborate farm machinery as
aermotors, reapers and binders, steam chaff-cutters, and in some few
cases steam-ploughs. The more progressive Boers have changed utterly
their methods of orchard-management, and at the present moment they
are reconsidering their methods of tobacco-growing. The point is
important, because if the Boer has really found out long ago the
limitations of the soil and the only principles of farming, then so
far from deserving the name of unprogressive he has shown himself
eminently wise. But the theory of Boer stability is a chimera. He
changes every year in his attitude towards the soil,--changes
unwillingly, it may be, but certainly; and though a few dogmas take a
long time to alter, they alter in the end. It is equally incorrect to
argue from the absence of successful immigrant farmers on progressive
lines. They were few in number, because in a country where the rural
population was mainly hostile, the new-comers who began by farming
ended as a rule by drifting to the towns. But, to cite one case,
mealies have been grown on dry lands on the American plan with great
profit to the farmer; and the German tobacco-planters in the north
have shown how profitable fruit and tobacco growing can become, if
conducted on principles rather than on tradition.
But it is as great a mistake to regard the Boer farmer as utterly
without capacity. He had no need to bestir himself. He lived simply
and supplied his own modest needs. He saw his farm going up in price
through the general appreciation of land values, and he sold a bit now
and again and increased his herds; or he might receive a large sum for
the option on the minerals under the soil. He was cheated by the
country store-keeper, and he rarely attempted to reach distant
markets. The old vicious system of allowing natives to farm on his
land in return for a certain amount of compulsory labour--a system
unchanged by that abortive piece of law-making, the Plakkerswet--made
him unthrifty and improvident. He had no labour bill to cast up, no
financial position which wanted investigation at each year's end.
Hence the difficulty of framing any accurate forecast of the prospects
of farming in the new colonies: there are no statistics to follow, no
scale of values for land or produce. But the Boer had an empirical
science of his own. He knew exactly the capacity of his irrigated
land, though he never thought of formulating his knowledge. He had
many rough and effective precautions against blight and disease, and
he had a kind of gipsy veterinary skill. He was not industrious, but I
think he must be allowed the credit of having done his best for the
land on his own principles. He was a great buyer of new farm
machinery, partly perhaps out of curiosity, and on this point at least
his conservatism was not consistent. Some of his methods were based on
common rural superstitions--for example, he always sowed, if possible,
at the full moon. His habit, too, of seeking a theological explanation
of all misfortunes was destructive of energy. When the locusts or the
_galziekte_ came he lit his pipe and said it was the will of God, a
visitation which it would be impious to resist. Hardly, perhaps, the
proper attitude for success in this modern world, but under his
peculiar conditions he never felt its folly. It is impossible to
believe that the Boer has done justice to the country, but we may
readily grant him skill and good sense in the narrow world in which he
dwelt.
The land problem in the new colonies is partly political and partly
economic, and on the solution of the latter branch of the question
the former largely depends. There are urgent reasons why an English
population should grow up on the land; but unless this population
can make a profitable living it would be folly to encourage its
immigration. On this economic question it is impossible to dogmatise.
Data, as I have said, are lacking and have never existed. At the best
we can frame some sort of tentative answer--a hope rather than a
promise; and we are justified in this course because those who attack
the policy have no better argument to offer.
Before the war the ordinary farmer sold his stock and his produce at
fair prices in his country town. The bulk of it, together with the
produce which the more enterprising farmers sent direct, went to
Johannesburg, where on the whole high prices were maintained. So good
were the prices that the farmers of the eastern and western provinces
of Cape Colony found it profitable, notwithstanding customs and heavy
railway freights, to make Johannesburg their chief market. But in
spite of all local production, Johannesburg was not fully supplied.
Food-stuffs in large quantities had to be imported from abroad. In
1898 agricultural produce, raw and manufactured, to the value of
nearly L2,500,000 was imported into the Transvaal. Arguing on these
facts, many have predicted a rosy future for all branches of South
African farming. What has been imported, they say, can be grown; the
mining industry will advance, and agriculture will follow with equal
steps. But such rudimentary hopes can scarcely be held to exhaust a
very complicated and delicate problem, to which some answer must be
suggested before any needs of policy can be thought of. There are two
questions to be met: How far is the land capable of intensive and
sustained production? and, granting the capacity, what guarantee is
there of profitable markets?
The soil of the new colonies, as I have said, is sharply divided into
alluvial pockets and dry lands,--the former highly cultivated, the
latter, except for Kaffir locations, mainly neglected. But since for
one alluvial acre there are a hundred dry morgen, the progress of the
country may be said to depend upon the dry lands. It follows that
pasturage must remain the staple form of farming. The bulk of the dry
lands are light and thin in soil, and the natural humours of the ground
have been much exhausted by the unthrifty habit of veld-burning. But in
spite of all drawbacks it is a country of abundant summer grass, both
sweet veld and sour veld, which is capable of great improvement by any
proper system of paddocking and depasturing. Large quantities of veld
grass might be cut for winter fodder, and roots and forage crops could
be grown in summer for the same purpose. Farms, which at present carry
an ox to every eight acres and a sheep to every two, might be made
capable of supporting a vastly greater stock. But there are certain
drawbacks to stock-farming peculiar to the country, the chief being the
number of diseases indigenous and imported. At the present moment to
bring in valuable stock to most districts of the new colonies is a
dangerous experiment. Horses die of horse-sickness, sheep of scab and
anthrax, cattle of rinderpest, red-water, and the immense variety of
_ziektes_ from _galziekte_ to _gielziekte_. Before the new colonies can
advance to the rank of great pastoral lands which is their right,
vigorous methods must be taken to stamp out diseases wherever they
appear, and to take precautions against their recurrence. The country
must be fenced, stock-routes and outspans must be established and
guarded, and a stringent Brands Act must be passed to give security to
the stock-owner in a country where stock is notoriously prone to
vanish.[24]
Given good laws, adequately administered, the Transvaal and the Orange
River Colony may well become countries of large and prosperous
stock-farms. Here, it has been argued, the matter ends. Agriculture
must confine itself in most cases to the growth of domestic supplies
and winter forage. I cannot, after a careful examination of most parts
of the country, bring myself to accept this view. Much may be done by
irrigation to increase the area of land under water. Sir W. Willcocks'
Report[25] proposes to give to South Africa 3,000,000 acres of
perennially irrigated land at a cost of about L30,000,000; but as he
argues for the undertaking on the basis of certain doubtful land
valuations, this large estimate may have to be considerably modified.
Unirrigated land, he says, varies from 2s. 6d. to L3 per acre:
irrigation costs from L7, 10s. to L15 per acre; and the price of good
irrigated land runs from L20 to L100. On this reasoning there is room
for a handsome profit, but the argument is based rather on fictitious
market values than on the intrinsic normal producing power of the
soil. At the time when Sir W. Willcocks' Report was written--the last
year of the war--land values were inflated, and the prices of produce
grown under water were extremely high. In the average year for which
we must provide little irrigated land will be worth to the farmer more
than from L5 to L10 per acre, and certain irrigation schemes which, on
Sir W. Willcocks' showing would return a profit, would in reality
spell ruin to their promoters. Irrigation is necessary on a certain
scale for a reason which we shall discuss later; and in many cases it
could be effected at a moderate cost. But expensive irrigation works
for agriculture alone are, I believe, of doubtful wisdom in almost
every part of the country. What is of infinitely greater importance
is the procuring of water in the dry tracts by tanks, wells, and, if
possible, by artesian bores. Vast stock districts in Waterberg and
Lichtenburg would have their value quadrupled if a permanent supply of
water, even for stock purposes only, could be procured. The Australian
method of tank-sinking has already been followed with success in the
Springbok Flats, and it is at least possible that artesian water may
be found. Everywhere the soil contains water at a low depth, which
percolates through the porous rock, and is brought to a stand by
dykes of harder stone. Hence has arisen the old African fiction of
underground rivers, which is true to the extent that no man has far
to dig before he finds water. It is rather with such tank- and
well-sinking that a water expert should deal, and with the regulation
of the present ridiculous apportionment of water rights. No serious
work can be done in this department till the State assumes the right
of distributing water, and has it in its power to prevent the
riparian owner from following an obstructive course to the detriment
of his neighbours. Irrigation in a few cases should be followed, and
a greater portion of land brought under water in the interests of
mixed farming; but it is in another direction that we must look for
the sheet-anchor of South African agriculture.
The rainfall of the new colonies is generally well distributed.
Copious rains fall from September to April, and then come the four dry
and windy months of winter. On irrigated lands summer and winter crops
are grown; on dry lands a summer crop only. But the Boer believed that
the crops which he could grow on dry lands were very limited, and he
habitually grew mealies, potatoes, lucerne, and tobacco under water.
It is, of course, a great advantage to reap two crops a-year; but if a
man can get two crops from 5 acres only and one crop from 500, this
one crop, on ordinary principles of common-sense, should command his
chief attention. Deducting the greater expense for labour, the one
crop is still thirty or forty times as important as the other two.
This is roughly the agricultural problem of the dry lands. They have
never been really exploited. The Kaffir has picked at the edges; a few
progressive farmers have made good profits by growing mealies and
tobacco dry on the American plan. But it was much easier to potter
about with a water-furrow than to attempt to plough the dry and
unbroken flats. Dry-land farming is therefore pioneer farming, and
pioneering with a good hope of success. Granted the markets, there is
no reason why great tracts should not be ploughed from end to end, and
a huge crop of cereals and roots raised yearly. Steam-ploughing and
every labour-saving device will be necessary, for this is farming on
the grand scale. The outlook is made brighter when we realise that
those despised dry lands are some of the richest in the country. The
famous Standerton black soil, the environs of Middelburg, part of the
Bloemhof and Klerksdorp districts, and, above all, the Springbok
Flats,[26] where there may be half a million acres of the richest
black soil 12 feet deep, and another half million acres of excellent
red soil--such are a few instances of lands which await an early
development.
There is still another aspect of this problem which concerns a small
group of semi-tropical products--fruits, tobacco, rubber, coffee,
and, possibly, cocoa. There are tracts which have proved themselves to
be as highly fitted for such crops as any in the world. They are
crops, too, for which the acreage required is small, and whose value
is so high in proportion to bulk that the freightage does not
seriously detract from profits. Given, again, the market, and there is
no reason why the present yield should not be centupled.
The market--that is the rock on which arguments divide. The rosy hopes
of the market to be furnished by the Transvaal which some minds
entertained during the war have given place with many to an equally
fantastic pessimism. I do not propose to provide a tabulated statement
of costs and prices. I have seen such statements arrive by the
clearest reasoning at opposite conclusions. But it is worth while to
consider soberly what are the market prospects in the future for the
farmer of the new colonies. A comparison of imports gives little
assistance. In the year 1902 the raw agricultural produce imported
into the Transvaal, all of which might be locally produced, was worth
over 2 millions sterling; and the imports of manufactured and
partially manufactured produce, the bulk of which might be produced
and manufactured locally, came close on another million. These figures
may be taken as below normal, since supplies for the army of
occupation are not included, and at the same time the number of
inhabitants in the towns and natives in the mines were largely below
the ordinary figures. On the other hand, little agriculture existed,
and practically all supplies for the existing population, such as it
was, had to be brought from the adjoining colonies or from over-seas.
On this basis, therefore, there is a considerable and highly
profitable market for the limited agriculture and pastoral enterprise
of the country. But in framing any forecast two new factors must be
taken into consideration. If the towns are to develop, the cost of
living must be greatly reduced; which means in the first instance that
all ordinary food-stuffs must be imported free of duty and at cheap
railway rates. Again, when all the Boer farmers have been resettled on
their lands and a multitude of new-comers occupy Crown farms, the
local agricultural output will be very largely increased. The farmer,
who at the moment can sell his garden stuff, his crops of potatoes,
mealies, and forage, and his stock at a good profit, will find himself
faced by over-sea produce, grown wholesale under the most favourable
conditions, and sold at a price with which he cannot compete and live.
This is, I think, a true forecast--for the small improvident farmer.
The man who grows mealies on a large scale with labour-saving
appliances, or who has a well-managed stock-ranch, will make a profit
on wholesale dealings. In agriculture and pasturage, as in other
activities, Providence is on the side of the bigger battalions, and
the small man who grows on an expensive scale will be pushed out by
the large man who grows economically. Prophecy is an intricate task,
especially on land questions, but it seems clear that the only class
who will not have to dread to some extent a change in present
conditions, a cheapening of the means of life, and the influx of a
large agricultural population, will be the wholesale farmers and
pastoralists, who follow the methods of over-sea producers and enjoy
the advantage of living at their customers' doors.
But this does not exhaust the question. Is, then, the small holder of
100 or 200 acres, or the owner of a mixed farm of 1000 acres, to
become extinct in the land? It depends entirely on themselves. In
districts such as Waterberg, Zoutpansberg, and Barberton, the holder
of 50 acres under water will be able to put vegetables and fruit on
the Rand market a fortnight before any other grower in the world. His
price is assured beyond doubt; and if he may find little profit for
six months in the year, he is in no worse case than many prosperous
market-gardeners in Kent and Surrey. It is here that the value of
irrigation appears. Such a small holder, again, may be able to make a
profit from dairying all the year round, provided local creameries are
established, and he goes the proper way about it. So, too, with mixed
farming, of which the essence is that one product can be set off
against another. If a farmer finds cereals unproductive, he can put
part of his land into pasture; it is unlikely that the price of meat
will fall below a paying point, granted the expected industrial
development. In addition there are certain crops, such as tobacco,
where the profits, even allowing for a large decline in present
prices, are great, the freightage small, and the market worldwide. The
aim of mixed farming is to provide an elaborate system of alternate
schemes, which between them will preserve a fairly permanent average
of profit.
The basis of all farming prosperity is the growth of the mining
industry and the creation of new industries. Any attempt to protect
farming by tolls or imposts is foredoomed to a miserable failure.
Sink, if necessary, farming considerations altogether for the moment;
look only to mining development, if need be; abolish the old market
prices and ruin the old local producer: it is all good policy, and in
the long-run the true agricultural interest. When the present
fictitious basis is got rid of, the true and lasting agricultural
prosperity may begin. There seems no reason to doubt that in the
future there will be a sound local market for the large producer, for
the favourably situated small holder, and for the judicious farmer of
mixed land. Nor is there any reason why in time a considerable export
trade should not be established. As the great produce-exporting
countries of the world grow more populous, South Africa may yet play
its part in feeding Europe. With improved internal communications,
and thousands of miles of fine pasture land, there is no reason why,
a fortnight nearer Europe than Australia, she should not take her share
of the frozen-meat traffic of the world. In tobacco, again, to take
only one instance, a very considerable export trade may arise. The soil
is well suited; the rough leaf, grown on the most unscientific method,
is as good as anything produced by Virginia and Borneo. The large
tobacco-growers, or the small holders attached to a tobacco-factory,
may very well find a profitable outlet for their wares abroad, and the
English manufacturers discover a new producing ground in a British
colony with which to resist the attacks of transatlantic combines.
The farming prospects in the new colonies, even if stripped of all
fanciful stuff, are sound and hopeful. There may come bad times for
all. The ordinary market-gardener will for a certainty find himself
poorly off five years hence; and all classes may have their periods of
stress and despair. Such visitations are part of the primeval curse
upon tillers of the soil. The New Zealand and Australian pastoralists
had sunk very low before the discovery of cold storage saved the
situation. The Ceylon planters, after the coffee blight, seemed on the
brink of ruin, when the introduction of tea-growing more than restored
their former prosperity. An immunity from farming risks can no more
be guaranteed in the new colonies than in other countries. The real
question is, Can they offer the settler no greater risks than he has
to face elsewhere, and at least a fair chance of greater prosperity?
On a reasonable survey of the case, I think it will be found that they
can.
With this clearing of the ground we can turn with an open mind to the
political question. The secular antithesis of town and country is as
marked here as elsewhere, and the political problem varies accordingly.
In the country we have to create in a large measure from the
foundation; we have to meet and nullify the prevailing apathy, and
undertake as a Government many tasks which would elsewhere be left to
private enterprise. There the wounds of war gape more widely, and have
to be healed by more cunning simples. People have spoken as if the
towns were the sole factor in the case. Make the towns prosperous and
wholly British, it has been said, and the land is ours. The towns are
the loyal units; as they advance in prosperity the rural districts will
sink out of account; and rightly, for their wealth is small, their
population hostile, and their future barren. "Twenty years hence,"
wrote in 1896 an observer as clear-sighted as he was hopeful, "the
white population is likely to be composed in about equal proportions
of urban and rural elements. The urban element will be mainly mining,
gathered at one great centre on the Witwatersrand, and possibly at
some smaller centres in other districts. The rural element, consisting
of people who live in villages or solitary farmhouses, will remain
comparatively backward, because little affected by the social forces
which work swiftly and potently upon close-packed industrial
communities, and it may find itself very different in tone, temper,
and tendencies from its urban fellow-citizens."[27] So we find one
class of mine-owners arguing that any attempt to settle the country
districts is a work of supererogation, and urging the Government to
concentrate all its efforts on the promotion of their own industry,
declaring that from their prosperity every blessing will flow forth to
the rural parts. It is impossible to contemplate with equanimity the
result of merely letting things alone. No industrial development would
ever compensate for it, for the unleavened Dutch rural districts would
become centres to collect and focus and stereotype the old unfaltering
dislike. A hard-and-fast division between town and country is always
to be feared; but when the barrier is between white men, and is built
up of race, wealth, and civilisation, it can only be a dire calamity.
We cannot rear up for our children a race of helots, and by our very
exclusiveness solidify for all time an irreconcilable race division.
If we preserve such an enemy within our bounds, and just beyond our
gates, the time may come when a few isolated townships will represent
Britain in South Africa. To prevent this cleavage, urban and rural
development should advance with equal steps. The two races will be
joined not by any trivial sentimental devices, but by the partnership
of Dutch and British farmers in the enlightened development of the
land.
There is another and a profounder reason for this introduction of
British blood. The day may come when the South African, splendid as
has been his loyalty and many his sacrifices, may go the way of most
colonists, and lose something of that close touch with the
mother-country which is necessary in the interests of a federated
empire. It is always the temptation of town-dwellers, with their busy
life and their own engrossing interests, and the tremendous mixture of
alien blood in the country may serve to hasten this result beyond the
ordinary rate of colonial progress. But the country settler is a
different person. He retains a longer and simpler affection for the
country of his birth. An influx of such a class would consolidate
South African sentiment, and, when self-government comes, protect
imperial interests better than any constitutional guarantee. This is
the class which has the true stake in the country, deriving its life
from the nurture of the earth, striving with winds and weather, and
slowly absorbing into the fibre of its being those influences which
make for race and patriotism.
South African agriculture, as the shrewdest observers have long
foreseen, could never be improved until there arose a political reason
for its improvement. The reason for the experiment has arrived, and
its basis is in existence. In the inheritance of Crown lands which
remains from the mismanaged estate of the late Government, and in the
long lists of ex-irregulars and others who sought land, there was the
raw material of settlement. It is no case for flamboyant prophecies.
The certain difficulties are as great as the probable advantages. But
to shrink from those difficulties is to have towns where British ideas
of government, can be realised and outside vast rural districts,
suspicious, unfriendly, potentially dangerous; to neglect a golden
opportunity of increasing the British element in South Africa; and to
turn the back upon farming, which must always be the most permanent
asset of any nation. The determinant fact in the case is that the
alternative is so black that all risks must be faced rather than
accept it. With such considerations in mind, the Government put forth
a scheme of settlement, with the examination of which the remainder of
this chapter is concerned. It is not my business to write the history
of the Crown Colony administration, and therefore no time need be
given to the many difficulties which faced the scheme, the mistakes
made, and the hopeful results attained in certain cases. It is the
problem itself which demands attention, and the adequacy or inadequacy
of the policy which has been framed to meet it. Land settlement is
from its very nature a slow business, with tardy fruits: twenty years
hence we may be in a position to judge by results. But in the meantime
it is possible, when the data are known, to ascertain whether a policy
is on _a priori_ grounds adapted to meet them.
[24] A Fencing Act, a Stock-Route Act, and a Brands Act on
the most progressive lines have been prepared for the
Transvaal. An excellent Fencing Act, badly
administered, has always existed in the Orange River
Colony, and a Brands Act, inferior to the Transvaal
measure, has been passed in that colony. But it is the
effective administration of the Acts which is of
importance.
[25] Parliamentary Paper C.D. 1163.
[26] My friend, Colonel Owen Thomas, had some samples of
Transvaal soil analysed, and the report was very
discouraging. To set against this, a sample of Springbok
Flats soil was pronounced by a distinguished English
expert, to whom it was sent, to be one of the richest
specimens of virgin soil he had seen.
[27] Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, 3rd edition, p. 451.
II.
The Crown lands of the Transvaal, as I have said, amount to upwards of
29 million acres, the Crown lands of the Orange River Colony to under
1-1/2 million. So far as the latter colony is concerned, land
settlement is rather in the nature of estate management. The lands are
too small for any serious political purpose, nor would the most
extended settlement make much impression upon the solid Dutch rural
community. But in the Transvaal the Crown in several districts is by
far the largest landowner, and in others it holds the key of the
position. Take a Transvaal map coloured according to ownership, and
red is easily the master colour. A solid block of it occupies the
north-east corner; large islands of it appear in the western and
eastern borders; and the centre is plentifully dotted. Save in the
little known north-east those lands are generally pasture, and in too
many cases dry and arid bush-veld. In the Standerton district, and in
parts of Rustenburg, Potchefstroom, and Bloemhof, there are tracts of
good irrigated or irrigable lands; while in Barberton, Lydenburg,
Zoutpansberg, and Marico there are considerable districts well watered
and well suited for tropical and sub-tropical products. Taken as a
whole, however, only a small portion of the Crown holding is suitable
for early settlement--say 2-1/2 million acres within the next three
years. But there is a wide hinterland for development, and in
settlement, as in empire, a hinterland is a moral necessity. There must
be an open country to which the sons of farmers, in whom the love of
the life is born, can trek as pioneers, otherwise there is a futile
division into smaller holdings, or a more futile exodus to the towns.
Besides, there should be room for the townsman--the miner, the artisan,
the trader--to feel that there is somewhere an open country where he
can invest his savings if he has a mind for a simpler life. As railways
spread out into new districts, land will become agricultural which is
now pasture; and, as the pastoral industry develops and herds are
formed and diseases are mastered, the ranchman will occupy large tracts
of what is now the unused hunting-veld.
The Government scheme aims at making a beginning with this
settlement--a beginning only, for no government has ever been able to
reconstruct alone, and the bulk of the work must be done by private
enterprise. If 2000 farmers from England and the colonies can be
settled in the rural parts before the day of stress arrives, then the
work has been fairly started. A nucleus will have been formed to which
the years will add, an element which will both leaven the slow and
suspicious rustic society and provide a make-weight against the
parochialism of the great towns. A country party is wanted which can
look beyond the dorp and the mine-head, and view South African
interests broadly and soberly. Such a party must be common to both
town and country, but it cannot be built up wholly from either. It
must, in the first instance, be a British party; but if this British
party is to become a South African party, it must stand for interests
common to both races and to all classes. The formation of this
leavening element cannot be left to time and chance, but must be aided
by conscious effort. The land is largely unproved, and full of dangers
to crops and stock. The new-comer must therefore be treated gently,
and helped over the many stiles which confront him. He will usually be
a man of small means, and his limited capital must be put to the best
use, and eked out with judicious Government advances. He should have
few payments to make during his early years, when payments will
necessarily come out of capital. Above all, the acquirement of the
full freehold in his land on reasonable terms, and within a reasonable
time, should be kept constantly before him as an encouragement to
thrift and industry, for the sense of freehold, as the voortrekkers
used to say, "turns sand into gold." Much of the Crown lands will never
be suitable for any but the largest stockholders. These it is easy to
deal with as a mere matter of estate-management; but the political
purport of the scheme is concerned with intensive settlement, with the
small holder and the mixed farmer of moderate means, who can provide a
solid colony of mutually supporting and progressive Englishmen.
The Transvaal "Settlers' Ordinance" of 1902 is based upon the mass of
legislation which embodies the settlement schemes of the Australasian
colonies. The usual method in such experiments has been to begin in
desperate fear of the settler, tying him up with cast-iron rules, and
ruining him in a very few years. Then the pendulum swings back, and
settlement is made easy and profitable, the old safeguards are
abolished, and the land becomes full of rich squatters and companies,
who fatten on State munificence through the numerous dummy settlers in
their pay. Finally, after long years a compromise is effected, and
that shy creature, the _bona-fide_ settler, is sought for far and
near. By this time it is probable that the thing has got a bad name,
and men whose fathers and grandfathers lost money under former
schemes, are chary of trusting themselves again to the tender mercies
of a land-owning State. This, or something like it, has been the
experience of the Australasian colonies. Either land was given out
indiscriminately and a valuable State asset cheaply parted with, or
the conditions of tenure were such as to ruin the small holder and put
everything in the hands of a few rich syndicates. The land laws of
Australia and New Zealand form, therefore, a most valuable precedent.
We have their experiments before our eyes, and can learn from their
often disastrous experience.
Settlement in New South Wales, to take one instance, was begun partly
as a Treasury expedient and partly as an election cry. Under the Act
of 1867 a settler was allowed to peg off, as on a mining area, a
claim not exceeding 320 acres, without any attempt at a previous
valuation and survey. The result was a wild rush, where nobody
benefited except the blackmailer, who seized the strategic points of
the country, such as water-holes, and had to be bought out at a fancy
price. It does not surprise one to learn that of settlers under this
scheme not one in twenty remains to-day. By subsequent Acts the
maximum acreage was increased; but in any case it was an arbitrary
figure, and it was not till 1895 that it was left within the widest
limits to the discretion of the Minister of Lands. Areas proved too
small, since no provision could be made for the increase of stock and
the necessary fall in prices which attended settlement. In valuation
the extraordinary plan was adopted of giving a uniform capital value
of L1 per acre to all land. The country being unproved, values were
absolutely unknown, nor was any provision made for revaluation. The
result was that the settler struggled along till he was ruined and
his holding forfeited, when the holding lapsed to the State, which,
being unable to find a new tenant, was compelled to let it remain
vacant, having accomplished nothing but the needless ruin of the
first man. The "Settlers' Ordinance" has endeavoured to avoid laying
down any rules which experience has not tried and tested. The
determination of the size of any holding is left to the land
officials, without defining any area limits. A holding which proves
too small may be increased on appeal, and the boundaries are at all
times made capable of adjustment. Holdings are first surveyed and
valued, then gazetted for application, and finally publicly allotted,
after full inquiry into the case of each applicant, by a Central
Board. The division and valuation of farms, in the absence of
reliable data, is a work of great nicety and difficulty. The country
contains within its limits many districts which differ widely in
soil, vegetation, and climate. It is therefore impossible, in
deciding on the size of holdings, to follow any arbitrary rule; and
to restrict survey to a maximum and minimum acreage would be fatal.
The only method is to ascertain from local evidence the carrying and
producing capacity of similar land, and so frame the boundaries of a
farm as to provide on such figures a reasonably good living for the
class of settler for whom it is intended. The danger of putting too
high a price on land is not less great. If the current market price
is taken it will in most instances be overvalued, and in any case it
is a method without any justification in reason. The best solution is
probably the plan at present in use. Schedules have been prepared for
the different types of holding, in which the profits are calculated,
using as a guide the present price of stock and imported produce at
the coast to ensure against the inevitable fall in prices. Taking
such estimated profits as a basis, the valuation is so fixed as to
give the settler, after all living expenses, annual payments to
Government, probable loss of stock, and depreciation of plant have
been written off, a clear profit of 12 per cent on his original
capital. From this figure some further deductions may fall to be made
for such disadvantages as unhealthiness of climate and excessive
distance from the conveniences of civilised life. In the absence of
more scientific data this seems to form as fair a basis in valuation
as any man can expect.
But if early Australasian legislation erred in rigour, it also erred
in laxity. The settler was often the nominee of a syndicate or a large
run-holder, and before the 1895 Act a class of professional selectors
existed. This system of _latifundia_ brought its own punishment. The
run-holder ruined the small selector. To pay the instalments on his
many selections he had recourse to the banks, which speedily ruined
him and took over his holdings. The banks in their turn ruined
themselves, chiefly through being obliged to pay instalments on land
valued at L1 per acre, of which the actual value for stock was less
than 5s. Again, the settler was compelled to improve the land at the
rate of so many shillings per acre within a given time. This led to
cheap fictitious improvements by which the letter of the law was
satisfied and the spirit evaded. The "Settlers' Ordinance" has certain
stringent provisions to prevent such frustration of the true aims of
settlement. Subletting or transfer of any sort, except with Government
consent, is strictly forbidden till the tenant has acquired the
freehold. Residence for at least eight months in the year, unless a
special dispensation is granted, is required during the same period.
The settler is compelled to build a satisfactory house and to fence
his holding within a given time. He is compelled to occupy it solely
for his own benefit, to cultivate according to the rules of good
husbandry (whatever that may mean), and the decision of the local Land
Commissioner is the test by which he is judged. He is encouraged to
improve by the potent fact that the Government will advance pound for
pound against his improvements. But there are certain elastic
provisions to temper the rigour of such restrictions. The Commissioner
of Lands is given a very wide dispensing power with regard to most
conditions. Partnerships are allowed; settlers may reside together in
a village community; and the residence conditions may be temporarily
fulfilled by a wife or child, to allow a settler in hard times to make
money by his labour elsewhere. Special relief is provided during
periods of disease or drought by the cessation or diminution of the
annual payments, and by advances in excess of the ordinary limits.
The Ordinance has been framed on experimental lines, leaving much to
the discretion of local officials (subject to an appeal to the Central
Board and thence to the High Court), and hesitating to dogmatise on
details which are still unproved. But in spite of much which is
empirical, one or two root principles are maintained. One is that a
fair chance must be given to all to acquire the freehold, without
which magic possibility the best men will not come forward. Another,
and perhaps the most important of all, is that the payments to
Government shall be so arranged as to be scarcely felt during the
early years when they are paid out of capital, and to rise to any
considerable sum only when the holding is producing a revenue. The two
chief forms of tenure are leasehold and purchase by instalments over a
period of thirty years. The common form of lease is for five years,
with a possible extension for another two, and the rental may be at any
rate (not exceeding 5 per cent) which the Commissioner of Lands thinks
suitable. This method will enable back-country to be taken up, to
start with, at a nominal rent; and it will also allow a settler on an
unimproved stock-farm to devote the bulk of his capital to the
necessary stocking and improvements. At the end of the lease, or
without any preliminary lease, the settler can begin to purchase his
holding on the instalments system. By a payment of L5, 15s. per cent
per annum on the gazetted valuation, principal and interest (which is
calculated at 4 per cent) will be wiped off in thirty years. But a
settler is permitted any time after ten years from the date of his
first occupation to pay up the balance and acquire the full freehold.
In the case of preliminary leaseholders who take up a purchase
licence, the licence, so far as the ten years' period is concerned, is
made retrospective so as to date from the first day of the lease.
Such is a rough outline of the Government proposals. They aim only at
making a beginning, and it is to the large private owner and the land
company that we must look for the completion of the work. South
African agriculture can never be a Golconda like the Canadian
wheat-lands of the West. But it is of inestimable value to the
country in providing a background to the immense temporary mining
development--a permanent asset, which will remain to South Africa's
credit when the gold-mines of the Rand are curiosities of history. In
itself it is a sound investment, offering no glittering fortunes but
a steady and reasonable livelihood. No people can afford to develop
solely on industrial lines and remain a nation in the full sense of
the word, for in every commonwealth there is need of the rural forces
of persistence to counteract the urban forces of change. All
settlement is necessarily a leap in the dark, but, so far as a
proposal can be judged before it is put into practice, the present
scheme offers good chances of success. There seems little doubt that
it will receive full justice. The war spread the knowledge of the
country to every cranny of the Empire. English and Scottish farmers'
sons, Australian bushmen, Indian planters, farmers from New Zealand
and Ontario, having fought for three years on the veld, have fallen
in love with it and are willing to make it their home. No more
splendid chances for settlement have ever offered; for when the
wastrels have been eliminated there remain many thousands of good
men, from whom a sturdy country stock could be created. There can be
no indiscriminate gifts of land as in some colonies. The land is too
valuable, the political purpose too delicate and urgent, the need of
nice discrimination in selection and careful fostering thereafter too
imperative, to allow farms to be shaken up in a lucky-bag and
distributed to the first comers. The best men must be attracted, and
assisted with advice and loans to the measure of success which is
possible. It is the soundest form of political speculation, if done
with sober and clear-sighted purpose. The young men from home and the
colonies, to whom South Africa is a memory that can never die, turn
naturally towards it in search of a freer life and a larger prospect.
On the model farms which are being established in each district the
proverbial "younger sons of younger sons" will be given a chance of
learning the requirements of the land, and so starting work on their
own account with intelligence and economy. Some day--and may we all
live to see it!--there will be little white homesteads among trees,
and country villages and moorland farms; cattle and sheep on a
thousand hills where now only the wild birds cry; wayside inns where
the thirsty traveller can find refreshment; and country shows where
John Smith and Johannes Smuts will compete amicably for the King's
premiums. And if any one thinks this an unfounded hope, let him turn
to some such book as Ogilby's 'Itinerarium Angliae,' where he will
find that in the closing years of the seventeenth century the arable
and pastoral land in England scarcely amounted to half the area of
the kingdom, and the most fruitful orchards of Gloucestershire and
Warwick were mere heath and swamp, and, as it seemed to an acute
observer, doomed to remain so.
Settlement, indeed, is but one, though the most important, of the land
problems. An enlightened agricultural department, working in
conjunction with local societies, can do much to unite the two races
by conferring benefits which are common to both. The introduction of
pedigree stock to grade up the existing herds is a necessity which any
Boer farmer will admit. So, too, are stringent regulations for the
prevention of disease, experiments in new crops, field trials of new
machinery, and a provision for some form of agricultural training.
Central creameries and tobacco-factories would work wonders in
increasing the prosperity of certain districts. Something of that
tireless vigilance and alert intelligence which has made the
Agricultural Bureau of the United States famous, a spirit which brings
into agriculture the procedure and the exact calculation of a great
business house, is necessary to meet the not insuperable difficulties
which now deter the timid, and to give farming a chance of development
commensurate with its political importance. It is only another case in
which a South African question stands on a razor-edge, a narrow line
separating ample success from a melancholy failure.