"Dear Friend, I am glad to receive thy letter, as it gives me the
opportunity of pointing out a misconception into which thou hast fallen
in reference to the Transvaal and its position with respect to the
present war.
"Thou sayest: 'I am myself a great lover of England; but I do not
like to see the two countries joining hands for warlike purposes,
and especially to crush out the freedom of small and weak nations.'
"To this I willingly assent. I am certain that war is in all
circumstances opposed to that sympathy all men owe one to another, and
to that Greater Source of love and sympathy in which 'we live and move
and have our being.' Where this bond has been broken, we long for its
restoration; but it cannot but tend to retard this restoration, to
impute to one or other of the parties concerned motives that are
entirely foreign to its action. Peace, to be lasting, must stand on a
foundation of truth; and there is no truth whatever in the idea that the
English Government provoked the present war, or that it intended, at any
time during the negotiations that preceded the war, an attack on the
independence either of the Transvaal or of the Orange Free State. It is
true that President Kruger has for many years carefully propagated the
fear of such an attempt among the Dutch in South Africa, as a means of
separating Boers and Englishmen into two camps, and as an incentive to
their preparing the colossal armament that has now been brought into
play, not to keep the English out of the Transvaal, but to realise what
is called the Afrikander programme of a Dutch domination over the whole
of South Africa. Thus, he a short time ago imported from Europe 149,000
rifles--nearly five times as many as the whole military population of
the Transvaal--clearly with a view to arming the Cape Dutch in case of
the general rising he hoped for. The Jameson Raid gave him exactly the
grievance he wanted--to persuade these Cape Dutch that England sought to
crush the Transvaal.
"An examination of the 'Blue Book,' which contains the whole of the
correspondence immediately preceding the war, will at once show the
patient efforts put forth by the London Cabinet to maintain peace. There
are no irritating words used, and the last despatch of importance before
the outbreak of hostilities, dealing with the insinuations just alluded
to, is not only most courteous and conciliatory in tone, but it states
that the Queen's Government will give the most solemn guarantees against
any attack upon the independence of the Transvaal either by Great
Britain or the Colonies, or by any foreign power. I am absolutely
certain that no American reading that despatch would say that President
Kruger was justified in seizing the Netherlands Railway line within one
week after he had received it, and cutting the telegraph wires, to
prepare for the invasion of British territory, in which act of violence
lay his last and only hope of forcing England to fight; his last and
desperate chance of setting up a racial domination instead of the
freedom and equality of the two races that prevail in the Cape and
Natal, and that did prevail in the Orange Free State.
"The cause of the dispute was this: In 1884 a Convention was agreed on
between Great Britain and the Transvaal, acknowledging the independence
of the Transvaal, subject to three conditions: that the Boers should
not make treaties with foreign Powers without the consent of the
paramount Power in South Africa, i.e., England; that they should not
make slaves of the native tribes; and that they should guarantee equal
treatment for all the white inhabitants of the country as respects
taxation. As the whole war has risen out of Kruger's persistent refusal
to keep his promises, both verbal and in writing, that he would observe
this condition, I append the clause giving rise to the contention:--
"Article XIV. (1884 Convention).--'All persons other than natives
conforming themselves to the laws of the South African Republic will not
be subject in respect to their persons or property or in respect of
their commerce and industry to any taxes, whether general or local,
other than those which are or may be imposed upon citizens of the said
Republic.
"The mines brought so large a population to Johannesburg that it at last
outnumbered by very far the entire Boer burghers in the State. Kruger,
seeing that the inevitable effect of such an increase must be the same
amalgamation of the new and old populations which was going on in Natal
and Cape Colony, and to a smaller extent in the Orange Free State,
unless artificial barriers could be devised to keep the races apart, at
once set to to scheme modes of taxation that should evade Article XIV.
of the Convention, throwing the entire burden on the Uitlanders, and
letting the Boers, who were nearly all farmers, escape scot free.
Farmers, for example, use no dynamite, miners do; and President Kruger
gave a monopoly of its supply to a German, non-resident in the country,
who taxed the miners for this article alone $2,600,000 a year beyond the
highest price it could otherwise have been bought for. This was his own
act, the Volksraad not being consulted. Besides the high price, the
quality of the explosive was bad, often causing accident or death. When
it did cause accident or death, the miners were prosecuted by the
Government, from whose agent they were compelled to buy it, and fined
for having used it!
"At the time the Convention was signed, in 1884, the franchise was
obtainable after one year's residence. President Kruger determined to
serve the Uitlanders, however, as George III.'s Government served the
American Colonists, that is, tax them while refusing them representation
in the control of the taxes. He went on at one and the same time
increasing their burdens monstrously, while he prolonged the period of
residence that qualified for a vote from one year to five, and so on,
till he made it fourteen years--or fourteen times as long as when the
Convention was signed. Nor was this all. He reserved the right
personally to veto any Uitlander being placed on the register even after
the fourteen years if he thought he was for any reason objectionable.
That is, the majority of the taxpayers were disfranchised for ever!
These Uitlanders had bought and paid for 60 per cent. of all the
property in the Transvaal, and 90 per cent. of the taxes were levied
from them; an amount equal to giving every Boer in the country $200 a
year of plunder.
"Is a country that is so governed justly to be called a 'Republic?'
"But even the Boers themselves have been adroitly edged out of power by
Paul Kruger. The Grondwet, or Constitution, provided that to prevent
abuses in legislation, no new law should be passed until the bill for it
had been published three months in advance. To evade this, Kruger passed
all kinds of measures as amendments to existing laws; which, as he
explained, not being new laws, required no notification! Finally,
however, he got the Volksraad to rescind this article of the Grondwet;
and now, as for some time past, any law of any sort can be passed by a
small clique of Kruger's in secret session of the Raad _without notice
of any sort, and without the knowledge or assent of the people_. The
Boers have no more voice in such legislation than if they were Chinese.
The Transvaal is only a Republic in the same sense that a nutshell is a
nut, or a fossil oyster shell is an oyster.
"All that the British Government has ever contended for with President
Kruger has been the fair and honourable observance of his engagement in
respect of equal rights in Article XIV. of the 1884 Convention. This he
has persistently and doggedly refused, while he has been using the
millions of money he has wrung from the Uitlanders to purchase the
material for the war he has been long years preparing on such a colossal
scale to drive the English out of those Colonies in which they have
given absolute equality to all. It is this very equality which has upset
his calculations, by its leaving too few malcontents among the Dutch
population to make any general rising of them possible in Natal or the
Cape, on which rising Kruger staked his hope of success in the struggle.
As for the Transvaal Boers, the only part they have in the war is to
fight for their independence, which was never threatened until they
invaded British territory, and thus compelled the Queen's Government to
defend it.
"The only alternative left to England to refuse fighting would have been
the ground that all war is wrong; but as neither England nor any other
nation has ever taken this Christian ground, there was in reality no
alternative. Is it fair to stigmatise England as endeavouring to crush
two small and weak nations because they have been so small in wisdom and
weak in common sense as to become the tools of the daring and crafty
autocrat who has decoyed both friend and foe into this war?--I am, with
high esteem, thy friend,--JOHN BELLOWS."
It does not come within the scope of this treatise to deal with the
case of the Uitlanders, but I have given the foregoing, because it is a
clear and concise statement of that case, and because it expresses the
strong conviction that I and many others have had from the first, that
the worst enemy the Boers have is their own Government. A Government
could scarcely be found less amenable to the principles of all just Law,
which exists alike for Rulers and ruled. These principles have been
violated in the most reckless manner by President Kruger and his
immediate supporters. The Boers are suffering now, and paying with their
life-blood for the sins of their Government. Pity and sympathy for them,
(more especially for those among them who undoubtedly possess higher
qualities than mere military prowess and physical courage,) are
consistent with the strongest condemnation of the duplicity and
lawlessness of their Government.
* * * * *
The Rev. Charles Phillips, who has been eleven years in South Africa,
has given his opinion on the native question.
It was part of the Constitution of the Transvaal that no equality in
Church or State should be permitted between whites and blacks. In Cape
Colony, on the contrary, the Constitution insisted that there should be
no difference in consequence of colour. Mr. Phillips enumerates the
oppressive conditions under which the natives live in the Transvaal.
They may not walk on the sidepaths, or trade even as small hucksters, or
hold land. Until two years ago there was no marriage law for the blacks,
and that which was then passed was so bad--a £3 fee being demanded for
every marriage, with many other difficulties placed in the way of
marriage--that the missionaries endeavoured to procure its abolition,
and to return to the old state of things. No help is given towards the
education of native children, though the natives pay 3 per cent. of the
revenue, the Boers paying 7-1/2, and the Uitlanders 89-1/2. The natives
have, therefore, actually been helping to educate the Boer children. "In
1896," says Mr. Phillips, "only £650 was granted to the schools of those
who paid nine-tenths of the revenue, £63,000 being spent upon the Boer
Schools. In other words, the Uitlander child gets 1s. 10d., the Boer
child £8 6s. 1d. The Uitlander pays £7 per head for the education of
every Boer child, and he has to provide in addition for the education of
his own children."
* * * * *
The following extract is from a more general point of view, but one
which it is unphilosophical to overlook.
The _Christian Age_ reproduces a communication from an American
gentleman residing in the Transvaal to the New York _Independent_.
"The Boers," Mr. Dunn says, "are, as a race--with, of course, individual
exceptions--an extraordinary instance of an arrested civilisation, the
date of stoppage being somewhere about the conclusion of the seventeenth
century. But they have not even stood still at that point. They have
distinctly and dangerously degenerated even from the general standard of
civilisation existing when Jan van Riebeck hoisted the flag of the Dutch
East India Company at Cape Point. The great cardinal fact in connection
with the Uitlander population is that, owing to their numbers and
activity, they have brought in their train an influx of new wealth into
the Transvaal of truly colossal dimensions. Thus, to sum up the
distinctive and divergent characteristics of the two classes into which
the population of the South African Republic is divided--the Boers, or
old population, are conservative, ignorant, stagnant, and a minority;
the Uitlanders, or new population, are progressive, full of enterprise,
energy and work, and constitute a large majority of the total number of
inhabitants.
"It has so happened, therefore, that the Boers, as the ruling and
dominant class, have hopelessly failed to master or comprehend the new
conditions with which they have been called upon to deal. They have not,
as a body, shown either capacity or desire to treat the new developments
with even a remote appreciation of their inherent value and inevitable
trend. The Boer has simply set his back against the floodgates,
apparently oblivious or indifferent to the fact that the hugely
accumulating forces behind must one day burst every barrier he may
choose to set up. That is the whole Transvaal situation in a sentence.
"It is necessary to point out, further, that this blind and dogged
determination on the part of the Boers to 'stop the clock' affects not
merely the Transvaal; it is vitally and perniciously affecting the whole
of South Africa. But for the obstructiveness and obscurantism of the
Transvaal Boers, the rate of progress and development which would
characterise the whole South African continent would be unparalleled in
the history of any other country. The reactionary policy of the
Transvaal is the one spoke in the wheel. It must therefore be removed in
the name of humanity and civilisation."
* * * * *
M. Elisée Reclus, the great Geographer, an able and admittedly impartial
Historian, wrote some years ago in his "Africa," Vol. 4, page 215:--
"The patriotic Boers of South Africa still dream of the day when the two
Republics of the Orange and the Transvaal, at first connected by a
common customs union, will be consolidated in a single 'African
Holland,' possibly even in a broader confederacy, comprising all the
Afrikanders from the Cape of Good Hope to the Zambesi. The Boer
families, grouped in every town throughout South Africa, form,
collectively, a single nationality, despite the accident of political
frontiers. The question of the future union has already been frequently
discussed by the delegates of the two conterminous Republics. But,
unless these visions can be realized during the present generation, they
are foredoomed to failure. Owing to the unprogressive character of the
purely Boer communities and to the rapid expansion of the
English-speaking peoples by natural increase, by direct immigration, and
by the assimilation of the Boers themselves, the future 'South African
Dominion' can, in any case, never be an 'African Holland.' Whenever the
present political divisions are merged in one State, that State must
sooner or later constitute an 'African England,' whether consolidated
under the suzerainty of Great Britain or on the basis of absolute
political autonomy. But the internal elements of disorder and danger are
too multifarious to allow the European inhabitants of Austral Africa for
many generations to dispense with the protection of the English sceptre.
"Possessing for two centuries no book except the Bible, the South
African Dutch communities are fond of comparing their lot with that of
the 'Chosen People.' Going forth, like the Jews, in search of a
'Promised Land,' they never for a moment doubted that the native
populations were specially created for their benefit. They looked on
them as mere 'Canaanites, Amorites, and Jebusites,' doomed beforehand to
slavery or death.
"They turned the land into a solitude, breaking all political
organization of the natives, destroying all ties of a common national
feeling, and tolerating them only in the capacity of 'apprentices,'
another name for slaves.
"In general, the Boers despise everything that does not contribute
directly to the material prosperity of the family group. Despite their
numerous treks, they have contributed next to nothing to the scientific
exploration of the land.
"Of all the white intruders, the Dutch Afrikanders show themselves, as a
rule, most hostile to their own kinsmen, the Netherlanders of the mother
country. At a distance the two races have a certain fellow-feeling for
each other, as fully attested by contemporary literature; but, when
brought close together, the memory of their common origin gives place to
a strange sentiment of aversion. The Boer is extremely sensitive, hence
he is irritated at the civilized Hollanders, who smile at his rude
African customs, and who reply, with apparent ostentation, in a pure
language to the corrupt jargon spoken by the peasantry on the banks of
the Vaal or Limpopo."
No impartial student of recent South African History can fail, I think,
to see that the results of Mr. Gladstone's policy in the retrocession of
the Transvaal have been unhappy, however good the impulse which prompted
his action. To his supporters at home, and to many of his admirers
throughout Europe, his action stood for pure magnanimity, and seemed a
sort of prophetic instalment of the Christian spirit which, they hoped,
would pervade international politics in the coming age.
To the Transvaal leaders it presented a wholly different aspect. It
meant to them weakness, and an acknowledgment of defeat. "Now let us go
on," they felt, "and press towards our goal, i.e., the expulsion of the
British from South Africa." The attitude and conduct of the Transvaal
delegates who came to London in 1883, and of their chiefs and
supporters, throws much light on this effect produced by the act of Mr.
Gladstone.
There can be no doubt that the desire to supplant British by Dutch
supremacy has existed for a long time. President Kruger puts back the
origin of the opposition of the two races to a very distant date. In
1881, he said, "In the Cession of the Cape of Good Hope by the King of
Holland to England lies the root out of which subsequent events and our
present struggle have grown." The Dutch believe themselves,--and not
without reason,--capable of great things, they were moved by an ambition
to seize the power which they believed,--and the retrocession fostered
that belief,--was falling from England's feeble and vacillating grasp.
"Long before the present trouble" says a Member of the British
Parliament well acquainted with South African affairs, "I visited every
town in South Africa of any importance, and was brought into close
contact with every class of the population; wherever one went, one heard
this ambition voiced, either advocated or deprecated, but never denied.
It dates back some forty or fifty years."[15] The first reference to it
is in a despatch of Governor Sir George Grey, in 1858; and it is to be
found more definitely in the speeches of President Burgers in the
Transvaal Raad in 1877 before the annexation, and in his _apologia_
published after the annexation. The movement continued under the
administration of Sir Bartle Frere, who wrote in a despatch (published
in Blue book) in 1879, "The Anti-English opposition are sedulously
courting the loyal Dutch party (a great majority of the Cape Dutch) in
order to swell the already considerable minority who are disloyal to the
English Crown here and in the Transvaal." Mr. Theodore Schreiner, the
brother of the Cape Premier, in a letter to the "Cape Times," November,
1899, described a conversation he had some seventeen years ago with Mr.
Reitz, then a judge, afterwards President of the Orange Free State, and
now State Secretary of the Transvaal, in which Mr. Reitz admitted that
it was his object to overthrow the British power and expel the British
flag from South Africa. Mr. Schreiner adds; "During the seventeen years
that have elapsed I have watched the propaganda for the overthrow of
British power in South Africa being ceaselessly spread by every possible
means, the press, the pulpit, the platform, the schools, the colleges,
the legislature; and it has culminated in the present war, of which Mr.
Reitz and his co-workers are the origin and the cause."
The Retrocession of the Transvaal (1881) gave a strong impulse to this
movement, and encouraged President Kruger in his persistent efforts
since that date to foster it. A friend of the late General Joubert,--in
a letter which I have read,--wrote of Mr. Kruger as "the man who, for
more than twenty years past, has persistently laboured to drive in the
wedge between the two races. It has been his deliberate policy
throughout."
I always wish that I could separate the memory of that truly great man,
Mr. Gladstone, from this Act of his Administration. Few people cherish
his memory with more affectionate admiration than I do. Independently of
his great intellect, his eloquence, and his fidelity in following to its
last consequences a conviction which had taken possession of him, I
revered him because he seemed like King Saul, to stand a head and
shoulders above all his fellows,--not like King Saul in physical, but in
moral stature. Pure, honourable and strong in character and principles,
a sincere Christian, he attracted and deserved the affection and loyalty
of all to whom purity and honour are dear. I may add that I may speak of
him, in a measure also as a personal friend of our family. I have
memories of delightful intercourse with him at Oxford, when he
represented that constituency, and later, in other places and at other
times.
I recall, however, an occasion in which a chill of astonishment and
regret fell upon me and my husband (politically one of his supporters),
in hearing a pronouncement from him on a subject, which to us was vital,
and had been pressing heavily on our hearts. I allude to a great speech
which Mr. Gladstone made in Liverpool during the last period of the
Civil War in America, the Abolitionist War. Our friend spoke with his
accustomed fiery eloquence wholly in favour of the spirit and aims of
the combatants of the Southern States, speaking of their struggle as one
on behalf of liberty and independence, and wishing them success. Not one
word to indicate that the question which, like burning lava in the heart
of a volcano, was causing that terrible upheaval in America, had found
any place in that great man's mind, or had even "cast its shadow before"
in his thoughts. It appeared as though he had not even taken in the fact
of the existence of those four millions of slaves, the uneasy clanking
of whose chains had long foreboded the approach of the avenging hand of
the Deliverer. This obscured perception of the question was that of a
great part, if not of the majority, of the Press of that day, and of
most persons of the "privileged" classes; but that _he_, a trusted
leader of so many, should be suffering from such an imperfection of
mental vision, was to us an astonishment and sorrow. As we left that
crowded hall, my companion and I, we looked at each other in silent
amazement, and for a long time we found no words.
As I look back now, there seems in this incident some explanation of Mr.
Gladstone's total oblivion of the interests of our loyal native subjects
of the Transvaal at the time when he handed them over to masters whose
policy towards them was well known. These poor natives had appealed to
the British Government, had trusted it, and were deceived by it.
I recollect that Mr. Gladstone himself confessed, with much humility it
seemed to us, in a pamphlet written many years after the American War,
that it "had been his misfortune" on several occasions "not to have
perceived the reality and importance of a question _until it was at the
door_." This was very true. His noble enthusiasm for some good and vital
cause so engrossed him at times that the humble knocking at the door of
some other, perhaps equally vital question, was not heard by him. The
knocking necessarily became louder and louder, till at last the door was
opened; but then it may have been too late for him to take the part in
it which should have been his.