"No one who has not associated with colonists in their homes can rightly
enter into the mixed feelings with which they regard the mother country.
As with a son who is gone forth into the world, there is often on one
side the conceit of youth and impatience of restraint, shown in uncalled
for acts of self-assertion or in dogmatic speech; and on the other side
a supercilious want of sympathy with the changed surroundings, the
pursuits and the aspirations of the younger generation. It seems as if
there were no bond left between the two. But a day of trial comes;
parent or offspring is threatened by a stranger; and then it is seen
that the old instinct and yearnings are not dead, but only latent. The
mother country had hitherto not been forgetful of its natural
obligations to its South African offspring."
"But those" he goes on to say, "who on that fateful evening watched the
hull of the _Pretoria_ slowly dipping below the western horizon felt
that if, as seemed only too probable, dismemberment of the British
Empire in South Africa were sooner or later to follow, the fault did not
lie with the colonists."
The mother country had, he asserts, sacrificed the interests of her
loyal sons abroad to those which were at that moment pre-occupying her
at home, and appearing to her in such dimensions as to blot out the
larger view which later events gradually forced upon her vision. The
words above quoted are strong, perhaps too strong, but if we are true
lovers of our country and race and of our fellow creatures everywhere,
we shall not shrink from any such warnings, though their wording may
seem exaggerated. For we have a debt to pay back to South Africa; and if
we cannot resume our solemn responsibilities towards her and her
millions of native peoples, in a chastened, a wiser and a more
determined spirit than that which for some time has prevailed, it would
be better to relinquish them altogether. But we are beginning to
understand the lesson written for our learning in this solemn page of
contemporary history which is to-day laid open before our eyes and
before those of the whole world.
I have recorded some few of the many testimonies in favour of Sir Bartle
Frere, because he,--a man beloved and respected by many of us,--was the
subject of a hastily formed judgment which continues in a measure even
to this day, to obscure the memory of his worth.
A friend writes: "his letters are admirable as showing his
statesmanlike and humane view of things, and his courage and patience
under exasperating conditions. He returned to England under a cloud, and
died of a broken heart."
Mr. Mackenzie, writing of his own departure from England in 1884 to
return to South Africa, says:--
"The farewell which affected me most was that of Sir Bartle Frere, who
was then stretched on what turned out to be his death-bed. He was very
ill, and not seeing people, but was so gratified that what he had
proposed in 1878 as to Bechuanaland should be carried out in 1884, that
Lady Frere asked me to call and see him before I sailed.
"The countenance of this eminent officer was now thin, his voice was
weaker; but light was still in his eye and the mind quite unclouded.
'Here I am, Mackenzie, between living and dying, waiting the will of
God.'
'I expressed my hope for his recovery.'
'We won't talk about me. I wanted to see you. I feel I can give you
advice, for I am an old servant of the Queen. I have no fear of your
success now on the side of Government. Sir Hercules Robinson, having
selected you, will uphold you with a full support. The rest will depend
on your own character and firmness and tact. I am quite sure you will
succeed. Your difficulties will be at the beginning. But you will get
them to believe in you--the farmers as well as the natives. They will
soon see you are their friend. Now remember this: get good men round
you; get, if possible, godly men as your officers. What has been done in
India has been accomplished by hard-working, loyal-hearted men, working
willingly under chiefs to whom they were attached. Get the right stamp
of men round you and the future is yours.'
"This was the last kindly action and friendly advice of a
distinguished, noble-minded, and self-forgetful Christian man, who had
befriended me as an obscure person,--our meeting-ground and common
object being the future welfare of all races in South Africa. I went
forth to complete my life work: he remained to die."
It was a costly sacrifice made on the Altar of Party.
My friends have sometimes asked me, what then is the ground of my hope
for the future of our country and all over whom our Queen reigns? I
reply,--my hope lies in the fact that above all party differences, above
all private and political theories, above all the mere outward forms of
Government and the titles given to these, there stand, eternally firm
and unchangeable, the great principles of our Constitution which are the
basis of our Jurisprudence, and of every Law which is inherently just. I
use these words deliberately--"eternally firm and unchangeable." A long
and deep study of these principles, and some experience of the grief and
disaster caused by any grave departure from them, have convinced me that
these principles are founded on the highest ethics,--the ethics of
Christ.
The great Charter of our Liberties was born, as all the most precious
things are, through "great tribulation," at a time when our whole nation
was groaning under injustice and oppression, and when sorrow had
purified the eyes of the noble "Seers" of the time, and their appeal was
to the God of Justice Himself, and to no lower tribunal. These Seers
were then endowed with the power to bend the will of a stubborn and
selfish monarch, and to put on record the stern principles of our
"Immortal Charter."
I have often longed that every school-boy and girl should be taught and
well-grounded in these great principles. It would not be a difficult nor
a dry study, for like all great things, these principles are simple,
straight, and clear as the day. It is when, we come to intricacies and
technicalities of laws, even though based on these great fundamental
lines, that the study becomes dry, useful to the professional lawyer,
but not to the pupil in school or the public generally.
The principles of our Constitution have been many times in the course of
our national history disregarded, and sometimes openly violated. But
such disregard and such violation have happily not been allowed to be of
long duration. Sometimes the respect of these principles has been
restored by the efforts of a group of enlightened Statesmen, but more
frequently by the awakened "Common Sense"[29] of the people, who have
become aware that they, or even some very humble section of them, have
been made to suffer by such violation. Again and again the gallant "Ship
of our Constitution," carrying the precious cargo of our inalienable
rights and liberties, has righted herself in the midst of storms and
heavy seas of trouble. Having been called for thirty years of my life to
advocate the rights of a portion of our people,--the meanest and most
despised of our fellow citizens,--when those rights had been destroyed
by an Act of Parliament which was a distinct violation of the
Constitution, and having been driven, almost like a ship-wrecked
creature to cling, with the helpless crew around me, during those years
to this strong rock of principle, and having found it to be political
and social salvation in a time of need, I cannot refrain, now in my old
age, from embracing every opportunity I may have of warning my fellow
countrymen of the danger there is in departing from these principles.
My hope for the future of South Africa, granting its continuance as a
portion of our Colonial Empire, is in the resurrection of these great
principles from this present tribulation, and their recognition by our
rulers, politicians, editors, writers, and people at large as the
expression of essential Justice and Morality.
France possesses, equally with ourselves, a record of these principles
in its famous "Declaration of the Rights of Man," born also in a period
of great national tribulation. That document is in principle identical
with our own great Charter. But France has only possessed it a little
more than a century, whereas our own Charter dates back many centuries;
hence the character of our people has been in a great measure formed
upon its principles, and they have been made sensitive to any grave or
continued violation of them. In France, earnest and sometimes almost
despairing appeals are now made to these fundamental principles
expressed in their own great Charter by a minority of men who continue
to see straight and clearly through the clouds of contending factions in
the midst of which they live; but for a large portion of the nation they
are a dead letter, even if they have ever been intelligently understood.
How far has South Africa been governed on these principles? I boldly
affirm that on the whole, since the beginning of the last century, it is
these principles of British Government and Law, so far as they have been
enforced, which have saved that colony from anarchy and confusion, and
its native populations from bondage or annihilation. But they have not
been sufficiently strongly enforced. They have not been brought to bear
upon those Englishmen, traders, speculators, company-makers, and others
whose interests may have been in opposition to these principles.
A Swiss missionary who has lived a great part of his life in South
Africa, writes to me:--"The whole of South Africa is to blame in its
treatment of the natives. Take the British merchant, the Boer and Dutch
official, the German colonist, the French and Swiss trader,--there is
no difference. The general feeling among these is against the coloured
race being educated and evangelized.... Only what can and must be said
is this, that _the Laws of the English Colonies are just_; those of the
Boer States are the negation of every right, civil and religious, which
the black man ought to have." I have similar testimonies from
missionaries (not Englishmen); but I regret to say that these good men
hesitate to have their names published,--not from selfish reasons,--but
from love of their missionary work and their native converts, to whom
they fear they will never be permitted to return if the ascendancy of
the present Transvaal Government should continue, and Mr. Kruger should
learn that they have published what they have seen in his country. It is
to be hoped that these witnesses will feel impelled before long to speak
out. The writer just quoted, says:--"I firmly believe that the native
question is at the bottom of all this trouble. The time is coming when,
cost what it will, we missionaries must speak out."
In connection with this subject, I give here a quotation from the "Daily
News," March 21st, 1900. The article was inspired by a thoughtful speech
of Sir Edward Grey. The writer asks the reason of the loss of the
capacity in our Liberal party to deal with Colonial matters; and
replies: "It is to be found, we think, in want of imagination and in
want of faith. There are many among us who have failed, from want of
imagination, to grasp that we have been living in an age of expansion;
or who, recognising the fact, have from want of faith seen in it
occasion only for lamentation and woe. Failure in either of these
respects is sure to deprive a British party of popular support. For the
'expansion of England' now, as in former times, proceeds from the people
themselves, and faith in the mission of England is firmly planted in the
popular creed." We recall a noble passage in which Mr. Gladstone stated
with great clearness the inevitable tendency of the times in which we
live. "There is," he said, "a continual tendency on the part of
enterprising people to overstep the limits of the Empire, and not only
to carry its trade there, but to form settlements in other countries
beyond the sphere of a regularly organized Government, and there to
constitute a civil Government of their own. Let the Government adopt,
with mathematical rigour if you like, an opposition to annexation, and
what does it effect? It does nothing to check that tendency--that
perhaps irresistible tendency--of British enterprise to carry your
commerce, and to carry the range and area of your settlement beyond the
limits of your sovereignty.... There the thing is, and you cannot
repress it. Wherever your subjects go, if they are in pursuit of objects
not unlawful, you must afford them all the protection which your power
enables you to give." "There the thing is." (But many Liberals have
lacked the imagination to see it.) And being there, it affords a great
opportunity; for "to this great Empire is committed (continued Mr.
Gladstone) a trust and a function given from Providence as special and
as remarkable as ever was entrusted to any portion of the family of
man." But not all Liberals share Mr. Gladstone's faith. They thus cut
themselves off from one of the chief tendencies and some of the noblest
ideals of the time. Liberalism must broaden its outlook, and seek to
promote "the large and efficient development of the British Commonwealth
on liberal lines, both within and outside these islands."