TRANSVAAL POLICY SINCE 1884. DELIMITATION OF BOUNDARY AGREED TO AND
NOT OBSERVED. THE CHIEF MONTSIOA. HIS COUNTRY PLACED UNDER BRITISH
PROTECTION. TRANSVAAL LAW. THE GRONDWET OR CONSTITUTION. THE HIGH
COURTS OF JUSTICE SUBSERVIENT TO THE VOLKSRAAD OR PARLIAMENT.
ARTICLE 9 OF THE GRONDWET REFERRING TO NATIVES. NATIVE MARRIAGE
LAWS. THE PASS SYSTEM. MISPLACED GOVERNMENTAL TITLES,--REPUBLIC,
EMPIRE, ETC.
The Boer policy towards the natives did not undergo any change for the
better from 1881 and onwards.
At the time of the rising of the Boers against the British Protectorate,
which culminated in the battle of Majuba Hill and the retrocession of
the Transvaal, a number of native chiefs in districts outside the
Transvaal boundary, sent to the British Commissioner for native affairs
to offer their aid to the British Government, and many of them took the
"loyals" of the Transvaal under their protection. One of these was
Montsioa, a Christian chief of the Barolong tribe. He and other chiefs
took charge of Government property and cattle during the disturbances,
and one had four or five thousand pounds in gold, the product of a
recently collected tax, given him to take care of by the Commissioner of
his district, who was afraid that the money would be seized by the
Boers. _In, every instance the property entrusted to their charge was
returned intact_. The loyalty of all the native chiefs under very trying
circumstances, is a remarkable proof of the great affection of the
Kaffirs, and more especially those of the Basuto tribes, who love peace
better than war, for the Queen's rule. I will cite one other instance
among many of the gladness with which different native races placed
themselves under the protection of the Queen.
In May, 1884, in the discharge of his office as Deputy Commissioner in
Bechuanaland, and on behalf of Her Majesty, the Queen, Mr. Mackenzie
entered into a treaty with the chief, Montsioa, by which his country
(the Barolong's country) was placed under British protection, and also
with Moshette, a neighbouring chief, who wrote a letter to Mr. Mackenzie
asking to be put under the same protection as the other Barolong.[30]
Mr. Mackenzie wrote:[31]--"Whatever may have been the feelings of
disapproval of the British Protectorate entertained by the Transvaal
people, I was left in no manner of doubt as to the joy and thankfulness
with which it was welcomed in the Barolong country itself.
"The signing of the treaty in the courtyard of Montsioa, at Mafeking, by
the chief and his headmen, was accompanied by every sign of gladness and
good feeling. The speech of the venerable chief Montsioa was very
cordial, and so cheerful in its tone as to show that he hoped and
believed that the country would now get peace.
"Using the formula for many years customary in proclamations of
marriages in churches in Bechuanaland, Montsioa, amid the smiles of all
present, announced an approaching political union, and exclaimed with
energy, "Let objectors now speak out or henceforth for ever be silent."
There was no objector.
"I explained carefully in the language of the people, the nature and
object of the Protectorate, and the manner in which it was to be
supported.
"Montsioa then demanded in loud tones: "Barolong! what is your response
to the words that you have heard?"
"With one voice there came a great shout from one end of the courtyard
to the other, "We all want it."
"The chief turned to me and said, "There! you have the answer of the
Barolong, we have no uncertain feelings here." As I was unfolding the
views of Her Majesty's Government that the Protectorate should be
self-supporting, the chief cried out, 'We know all about it, Mackenzie,
we consent to pay the tax.' I could only reply to this by saying that
that was just what I was coming to; but, inasmuch as they knew all about
it, and saw its importance, I need say no more on the subject.
"Montsioa, in the first instance, did not like the appearance of
Moshette's people in his town. I told him I was glad they had come, and
he must reserve his own feelings, and await the results of what was
taking place. I was pleased, therefore, when in the public meeting in
the courtyard, just before the signing of the treaty, Montsioa turned to
the messengers of Moshette and asked them if they saw and heard nicely
what was being done with the Barolong country? They replied in the
affirmative, and thus, from a native point of view, became assenting
parties. In this manner something definite was done towards effacing an
ancient feud. The signing of the treaty then took place, the translation
of which is given in the Blue Book.
"After the treaty had been signed, the old chief requested that prayer
might be offered up, which was accordingly done by a native minister.
The satisfaction of the great event was further marked by the discharge
of a volley from the rifles of a company of young men told off for the
purpose; and the old cannon of Montsioa, mounted between the wheels of
an ox-waggon, was also brought into requisition to proclaim the general
joy and satisfaction.
"But alas! such feelings were destined to be of short duration. While we
were thus employed at Mafeking, the openly-declared enemies of the
Imperial Government, and of peace and order in Bechuanaland, had been at
their appropriate work elsewhere within the Protectorate. Before sunset
the same evening, I was surprised to hear the Bechuana war cry sounded
in Montsioa's Town, and shortly afterwards I saw the old chief
approaching my waggon, followed by a large body of men.
"'Monare Makence!' (Mr. Mackenzie), 'the cattle have been lifted by the
Boers,' was his first announcement. I shall never forget the scene at
that moment. The excitement of the men, some of whom were reduced to
poverty by what had taken place, and also their curiosity as to what
step I should take, were plainly enough revealed on the faces of the
crowd who, with their chief, now stood before me.
"'Mr. Mackenzie,' said Montsioa, 'you are master now, you must say what
is to be done. We shall be obedient to your orders.' 'We have put our
names on your paper, but the Boers have our cattle all the same,' said
one man.
Another shouted out with vehemence, 'please don't tell us to go on
respecting the boundary line. Why should we do so when the Boers don't?'
'Who speaks about a boundary line?' said another speaker, probably a
heavy loser. 'Is it a thing that a man can eat? Where are our cattle?'
"As I have already said, I shall never forget the scene in which these
and similar speeches were made at my waggon as the sun went down
peacefully--the sun which had witnessed the treaty-signing and the
rejoicings at Mafeking. Its departing rays now saw the cattle of the
Barolong safe in the Transvaal, and the Barolong owners and Her
Majesty's Deputy Commissioner looking at one another, at Mafeking."[32]
Mr. Mackenzie then resolved what to do, and announced that he would at
once cross the boundary and go himself to the nearest Transvaal town to
demand redress. There was a hum of approval, with a sharp enquiry from
Montsioa,--did he really mean to go himself? "Having no one to send, I
must go myself," Mackenzie replied. The old Chief, in a generous way,
half dissuaded him from the attempt. "The Boers cannot be trusted. What
shall I say if you do not return?" "All right, Montsioa," replied
Mackenzie, "say I went of my own accord. I will leave my wife under your
care."
"Poor old fellow," writes Mackenzie, "brave-hearted, though 'only a
native,' he went away full of heaviness, promising me his cart and
harness, and an athletic herd as a driver, to start early next morning."
Mr. Mackenzie had little success in this expedition. He was listened to
with indifference when he represented to certain Landdrosts and Field
Cornets that he had not come to talk politics, but to complain of a
theft. Those to whom he spoke looked upon the cattle raid not as
robbery, but as "annexation" or "commandeering." A man, listening to the
palaver, exclaimed: "Well, anyhow, we shall have cheap beef as long as
Montsioa's cattle last." At the hotel of the place Mr. Mackenzie met
some Europeans, who were farming or in business in the Transvaal. They
said to him: "Mr. Mackenzie, we are sorry to have to say it to you, for
we have all known you so long, but, honestly speaking, we hope you won't
succeed; the English Government does not deserve to succeed after all
that they have made us--loyal colonists--suffer in the Transvaal. For a
long time scarcely a day has passed without our being insulted by the
more ignorant Boers, till we are almost tired of our lives, and yet we
cannot go away, having invested our all in the country."
"Many such speeches were made to me," says Mackenzie, "I give only one."
I cannot find it in my heart to criticize the character of the Boers at
a time when they have held on so bravely in a desperate war, and have
suffered so much. There are Boers and Boers,--good and bad among
them,--as among all nations. We have heard of kind and generous actions
towards the British wounded and prisoners, and we know that there are
among them men who, in times of peace, have been good and merciful to
their native servants. But it is not magnanimity nor brutality on the
part of individuals which are in dispute. Our controversy is concerning
the presence or absence of Justice among the Boers, concerning the
purity of their Government and the justice of their Laws, or the
reverse.
I turn to their Laws, and in judging these, it is hardly possible to be
too severe. Law is a great teacher, a trainer, to a great extent, of the
character of the people. The Boers would have been an exceptional people
under the sun had they escaped the deterioration which such Laws and
such Government as they have had the misfortune to live under inevitably
produce.
A pamphlet has lately been published containing a defence of the Boer
treatment of Missionaries and Natives, and setting forth the efforts
which have been made in recent years to Christianize and civilize the
native populations in their midst. This paper is signed by nine
clergymen of the Dutch Reformed Church, and includes the name of the
Rev. Andrew Murray, a name respected and beloved by many in our own
country. It is welcome news that such good work has been undertaken,
that the President has himself encouraged it, and that a number of Zulus
or Kaffirs have recently been baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church of
the Transvaal. But the fact strikes one painfully that in this pleading,
(which has a pathetic note in it,) these clergymen appear to have
obliterated from their mind and memory the whole past history, of their
nation, and to have forgotten that the harvest from seed sown through
many generations may spring up and bear its bitter fruit in their own
day. They do not seem to have accepted the verdict, or made the
confession, "we and our fathers have sinned." They seem rather to argue,
"our fathers may have sinned in these respects, but it cannot be laid to
our charge that we are continuing in their steps."
No late repentance will avail for the salvation of their country unless
Justice is now proclaimed and practised;--Justice in Government and in
the Laws.
Their Grondwet, or Constitution, must be removed out of its place for
ever; their unequal laws, and the administrative corruption which
unequal laws inevitably foster, must be swept away, and be replaced by a
very different Constitution and very different Laws. If this had been
done during the two last decades of Transvaal history, while
untrammelled (as was desired) by British interference, the sincerity of
this recent utterance would have deserved full credit, and would have
been recognized as the beginning of a radical reformation.
The following is from the last Report of the Aborigines Protection
Society (Jan., 1900). Its present secretary leans towards a favourable
judgment of the recent improvements in the policy of the Transvaal, and
condemns severely every act on the part of the English which does not
accord with the principles of our Constitutional Law, and therefore this
statement will not be regarded as the statement of a partisan: "It is
laid down as a fundamental principle in the Transvaal Grondwet that
there is no equality of rights between white men and blacks. In theory,
if not in practice, the Boers regard the natives, all of whom they
contemptuously call Kaffirs, whatever their tribal differences, pretty
much as the ancient Jews regarded the Philistines and others whom they
expelled from Palestine, or used as hewers of wood and drawers of water,
but with added prejudice due to the difference of colour. So it was in
the case of the early Dutch settlers, and so it is to-day, with a few
exceptions, due mainly to the influence of the missionaries, whose work
among the natives has from the first been objected to and hindered. It
is only by social sufferance, and not by law, that the marriage of
natives with Christian rites is recognised, and it carries with it none
of the conditions as regards inheritance and the like, which are
prescribed by the Dutch Roman code in force with white men. As a matter
of fact, natives have no legal rights whatever. If they are in the
service of humane masters, mindful of their own interests and moral
obligations, they may be properly lodged and fed, not overworked, and
fairly recompensed; but from the cruelties of a brutal master,
perpetrated in cold blood or a drunken fit, the native practically has
no redress."
The Rev. John H. Bovill, Rector of the Cathedral Church, Lorenço
Marquez, and sometime Her Majesty's Acting Consul there, has worked for
five years in a district from which numbers of natives were drawn for
work in the Transvaal, has visited the Transvaal from time to time, and
is well acquainted with Boers of all classes and occupations. He has
given us some details of the working out--especially as regards the
natives--of the principles of the Grondwet or Constitution of the
Transvaal.
To us English, the most astonishing feature, to begin with, of this
Constitution, is that it places the power of the Judiciary below that of
the Raad or Legislative Body. The Judges of the Highest Court of Law are
not free to give judgment according to evidence before them and the
light given to them. A vote of the Raad, consisting of a mere handful of
men in secret sitting, can at any time override and annul a sentence of
the High Court.
This will perhaps be better understood if we picture to ourselves some
great trial before Lord Russell and others of our eminent judges, in
which any laws bearing on the case were carefully tested in connection
with the principles of our Constitution; that this supreme Court had
pronounced its verdict, and that the next day Parliament should discuss,
with closed doors, the verdict of the judges, and by a vote or
resolution, should declare it unjust and annul it.
Let us imagine, to follow the matter a little further on the lines of
Transvaal justice, that our Sovereign had power to dismiss at will from
office any judge or judges who might have exercised independence of
judgment and pronounced a verdict displeasing to Parliament or to
herself personally! Such is law and justice in the Transvaal; and that
country is called a Republic! "This is Transvaal justice," says M.
Naville; "a mockery, an ingenious legalizing of tyranny. There are no
laws, there are only the caprices of the Raad. A vote in a secret
sitting, that is what binds the Judges, and according to it they will
administer justice. The law of to-day will perhaps not be the law
to-morrow. The fifteen members of the majority, or rather President
Kruger, who influences their votes, may change their opinion from one
day to the next--it matters not; their opinion, formulated by a vote,
will always be law. Woe to the judge who should dare to mention the
Constitution or the Code, for there is one: he would at once be
dismissed by the President who appointed him."
It was prescribed by the Grondwet that no new law should be passed by
Parliament (the Volksraad) unless notice of it had been given three
months in advance, and the people had had the opportunity to pronounce
upon it. This did not suit the President; accordingly when desirous of
legalizing some new project of his own, he adopted the plan of bringing
in such project as an addition or amendment to some existing law, giving
it out as _no new law_, but only a supplementary clause. Law No. 1 of
1897 was manipulated in this manner. By this law, the Judges of the High
Court were formally deprived of the right to test the validity of any
law in its relation to the Constitution, and they were also compelled to
accept as law, without question or reservation of any kind, any
resolution passed at any time and under any circumstances by the
Volksraad. This Law No. 1 of 1897 was passed through all its stages in
three days, without being subjected in the first instance to the people.
But I am especially concerned with what affects the natives.
Article 1 of this section says:--A native must not own fixed property.
(2) He must not marry by civil or ecclesiastical process.
(3) He must not be allowed access to Civil Courts in any action against
a white man.
Article 9 of the Grondwet is not only adhered to, but is exaggerated in
its application as follows:--"The people shall not permit any equality
of coloured persons with white inhabitants, neither in the Church, nor
in the State."
"These principles" says Mr. Bovill, "are so engrained in the mind of an
average Boer that we can never expect anything to be done by the
Volksraad for the natives in this respect. It appears inconceivable," he
continues, "that a Government making any pretence of being a civilized
power, at the end of the nineteenth century, should be so completely
ignorant of the most elementary principles of good government for such a
large number of its subjects."
As to the access by the natives to the Courts of Law.
"If you ask a native he will tell you that access to the law-courts is
much too easy, but they are the Criminal Courts of the Field Cornets and
Landdrosts. He suffers so much from these, that he cannot entertain the
idea that the Higher Courts are any better than the ordinary Field
Cornets' or Landdrosts'. However, there are times when with fear and
trepidation he does appeal to a Higher Court. With what result? If the
decision is in favour of the native, the burghers are up in arms, crying
out against the injustice of a judgment given in favour of a black
against a white man; burghers sigh and say that a great disaster is
about to befall the State when a native can have judgment against a
white man. The inequality of the blacks and superiority of the white
(burghers) is largely discussed. Motions are brought forward in the
Volksraad to prohibit natives pleading in the Higher Courts. Such is the
usual outcry. Summary justice (?) by a Landdrost or Field Cornet is all
the Boer would allow a native. No appeal should be permitted, for may it
not lead to a quashing of the conviction? The Landdrost is the friend of
the Boer, and he can always "square" him in a matter against a native.
"It was only to prevent an open breach with England that these appeals
to the Higher Courts were permitted in a limited degree."[33]
No. 2.--The Native Marriage Laws. "Think," says Mr. Bovill, "what it
would mean to our social life in England if we were a conquered nation,
and the conquerors should say: 'All your laws and customs are abrogated;
your marriage laws are of no consequence to us; you may follow or leave
them as you please, but we do not undertake to support them, and you may
live like cattle if you wish; we cannot recognise your marriage laws as
binding, nor yet will we legalise any form of marriage among you.' Such
is in effect, the present position of the natives in the Transvaal.
"I occasionally took my holidays in Johannesburg, and assisted the
Vicar, during which time I could take charge of Christian native
marriages, of which the State took no cognisance. A native may marry,
and any time after leave his wife, but the woman would have no legal
claim on him. He could marry again as soon as he pleased, and he could
not be proceeded against either for support of his first wife or for
bigamy. And so he might go on as long as he wished to marry or could get
anyone to marry him. The same is applicable to all persons of colour,
even if only slightly coloured--half-castes of three or four generations
if the colour is at all apparent. All licenses for the marriage of white
people must be applied for personally, and signed in the presence of the
Landdrost, who is very cautious lest half-castes or persons of colour
should get one. Colour is evidently the only test of unfitness to claim
recognition of the marriage contract by the Transvaal State.
"The injustice of such a law must be apparent; it places a premium on
vice.[34] It gives an excuse to any 'person of colour' to commit the
most heinous offences against the laws of morality and social order, and
protects such a one from the legal consequences which would necessarily
follow in any other civilised State."
Mr. Bovill has an instructive chapter on the "Compound system," and the
condition of native compounds. This is a matter which it is to be hoped
will be taken seriously to heart by the Chartered Company, and any other
company or group of employers throughout African mining districts." The
Compound system of huddling hundreds of natives together in tin shanties
is the very opposite to the free life to which they are accustomed. If
South African mining is to become a settled industry, we must have the
conditions of the labour market settled, and also the conditions of
living. We cannot expect natives to give up their free open-air style of
living, and their home life. They love their homes, and suffer from
homesickness as much as, or probably more than most white people. The
reason so many leave their work after six months is that they are
constantly longing to see their wives and children. Many times have they
said to me, 'It would be all right if only we could have our wives and
families with us.'"
"The result of this compound life is the worst possible morally."....
"We must treat the native, not as a machine to work when required under
any conditions, but as a raw son of nature, very often without any moral
force to control him and to raise him much above the lower animal world
in his passions, except that which native custom has given him."
The writer suggests that "native reserves or locations should be
established on the separate mines, or groups of mines, where the natives
can have their huts built, and live more or less under the same
conditions as they do in their native kraals. If a native found that he
could live under similar conditions to those he has been accustomed to,
he will soon be anxious to save enough money to bring his wife and
children there, and remain in the labour district for a much longer
period than at present is the case.
"It would be a distinct gain to the mining industry as well as to the
native."
Mr. Bovill goes into much detail on the subject of the "Pass Laws." I
should much desire to reproduce his chapter on that subject, if it were
not too long. That system must be wholly abolished, he says: "it is at
present worse than any conditions under which slavery exists. It is a
criminal-making law. Brand a slave, and you have put him to a certain
amount of physical pain for once, but penalties under the Pass Law
system mean lashes innumerable at the direction of any Boer Field Cornet
or Landdrost. It is a most barbarous system, as brutal as it is
criminal-making, alone worthy of a Boer with an exaggerated fear of and
cowardly brutality towards a race he has been taught to despise."
Treating of the prohibition imposed on the Natives as to the possession
in any way or by any means of a piece of land, he writes: "Many natives
are now earning and saving large sums of money, year by year, at the
various labour centres. They return home with every intention of
following a peaceful life; why should they not be encouraged to put
their money into land, and follow their 'peaceful pursuits' as well as
any Boer farmer? They are capable of doing it. Besides, if they held
fixed property in the State, it would be to their advantage to maintain
law and order, when they had everything they possessed at stake. With no
interest in the land, the tendency must always be to a nomadic life.
They are as thoroughly well capable of becoming true, peaceful, and
loyal citizens of the State as are any other race of people. Their
instincts and training are all towards law and order. Their lives have
been disciplined under native rule, and now that the white man is
breaking up that rule, what is he going to give as a substitute? Anarchy
and lawlessness, or good government which tends to peace and prosperity?
"We can only hope for better times, and a more humane Government for the
natives, to wipe out the wrong that has been done to both black and
white under a bastard civilization which has prevailed in Pretoria for
the past fifteen years. The Government which holds down such a large
number of its subjects by treating them as cut-throats and outlaws, will
one day repent bitterly of its sin of misrule."[35]
* * * * *
Tyranny has a genius for creeping in everywhere, and under any and every
form of government. This is being strikingly illustrated in these days.
Under the name of a Republic, the traditions of a Military Oligarchy
have grown up, and stealthily prevailed.
When a nation has no recorded standard of guiding principles of
government, it matters not by what name it may be called--Empire,
Republic, Oligarchy, or Democracy--it may fall under the blighting
influence of the tyranny of a single individual, or a wealthy clique, or
a military despot.
Too much weight is given just now to mere names as applied to
governments. The acknowledged principles which underlie the outward
forms of government alone are vitally important, and by the adherence to
or abdication of these principles each nation will be judged. The
revered name of _Republic_ is as capable of being dragged in the mire
as that of the title of any other form of government. Mere names and
words have lately had a strange and even a disastrous power of
misleading and deceiving, not persons only, but nations,--even a whole
continent of nations. It is needful to beware of being drawn into
conclusions leading to action by associations attaching merely to a
name, or to some crystallized word which may sometimes cover a principle
the opposite of that which it was originally used to express. Such names
and words are in some cases being as rapidly changed and remodelled as
geographical charts are which represent new and rapidly developing or
decaying groups of the human race. Yet names are always to a large part
of mankind more significant than facts; and names and appearances in
this matter appeal to France and to Switzerland, and in a measure to the
American people, in favour of the Boers.
Among the concessions made by Lord Derby in the Convention of 1884, none
has turned out to be more unfortunate than that of allowing the
Transvaal State to resume the title of the "South African Republic." In
South Africa it embodied an impossible ideal; to the outside world it
conveyed a false impression. The title has been the reason of widespread
error with regard to the real nature of the Transvaal Government and of
its struggle with this country. If "Republican Independence" had been
all that Mr. Kruger was striving for, there would have been no war. He
adopted the name, but not the spirit of a Republic. The "Independence"
claimed by him, and urged even now by some of his friends in the British
Parliament, is shown by the whole past history of the Transvaal to be an
independence and a freedom which _involve the enslavement of other men._
A friend writes:--"In order to satisfy my own mind I have been looking
in Latin Dictionaries for the correct and original meaning of 'impero,'
(I govern,) and 'imperium.' The word 'Empire' has an unpleasant ring
from some points of view and to some minds. One thinks of Roman
Emperors, Domitian, Nero, Tiberius,--of the word 'imperious,' and of the
French 'Empire' under Napoleon I. and Napoleon III. The Latin word means
'the giving of commands.' All depends on whether the commands given are
_good_, and the giver of them also good and wise. The Ten Commandments
are in one sense 'imperial.' Now, I think the word as used in the phrase
_British Empire_ has, in the most modern and best sense, quite a
different savour or flavour from that of Napoleon's Empire, or the
Turkish or Mahommedan Empires of the past. It has come to mean the
'Dominion of Freedom' or the 'Reign of Liberty,' rather than the giving
of despotic or tyrannical or oligarchic commands. In fact, our
Imperialism is freedom for all races and peoples who choose to accept
it, whilst Boer _Republicanism_ is the exact opposite. How strangely
words change their weight and value!
"And yet there still remains the sense of 'command' in 'Empire;' and in
the past history of our Government of the Cape Colony there has been too
little wholesome command and obedience, and too much opportunism,
shuffling off of responsibility, with self-sufficient ignorance and
doctrinaire foolishness taking the place of knowledge and insight. Want
of courage is, I think, in short, at the bottom of the past
mismanagement."
* * * * *
The assertion is repeatedly made that "England coveted the gold of the
Transvaal, and hence went to war." It is necessary it seems, again and
again, to remind those who speak thus that England was not the invader.
Kruger invaded British Territory, being fully prepared for war. England
was not in the least prepared for war. This last fact is itself a
complete answer to those who pretend that she was the aggressor.
In regard to the assertion that "England coveted the gold of the
Transvaal," what is here meant by "England?" Ours is a representative
Government. Are the entire people, with their representatives in
Parliament and the Government included in this assertion, or is it meant
that certain individuals, desiring gold, went to the Transvaal in search
of it? The expression "England" in this relation, is vague and
misleading.
The search for gold is not in itself a legal nor a moral offence. But
the inordinate desire and pursuit of wealth, becoming the absorbing
motive to the exclusion of all nobler aims, is a moral offence and a
source of corruption.
Wherever gold is to be found, there is a rush from all sides; among some
honest explorers with legitimate aims, there are always found, in such a
case, a number of unruly spirits, of scheming, dishonest and careless
persons, the scum of the earth, cheats and vagabonds. The Outlanders who
crowded to the Rand were of different nations, French, Belgians and
others, besides the English who were in a large majority. The presence
and eager rush of this multitude of gold seekers certainly brought into
the country elements which clouded the moral atmosphere, and became the
occasion of deeds which so far from being typical of the spirit of
"England" and the English people at large, were the very reverse, and
have been condemned by public opinion in our country.
But, admitting that unworthy motives and corrupting elements were
introduced into the Transvaal by the influx of strangers urged there by
self-interest, it is strange that any should imagine and assert that the
"corrupting influence of gold," or the lust of gold told upon the
British alone. The disasters brought upon the Transvaal seem to be
largely attributable to the corrupting effect on President Kruger and
his allies in the Government, of the sudden acquisition of enormous
wealth, through the development, by other hands than his own, of the
hidden riches within his country.
What are the facts? In 1885 the revenue of the Transvaal State was a
little over £177,000. This rose, owing to the Outlanders' labours, and
the taxes exacted from them by the Transvaal government to £4,400,000
(in 1899). Thus they have increased in the proportion of 1 to 25. "If
the admirers of the Transvaal government, who place no confidence in
documents emanating from English sources, will take the trouble to open
the _Almanack de Gotha_, they will there find the financial report for
1897. There they will read that of these £4,400,000, salaries and
emoluments amount to nearly one-quarter--we will call it
£1,000,000,--that is, £40 per head per adult Boer, for it goes without
saying that in all this the Outlanders have no share. If we remember
that the great majority of the Boers consist of farmers who do not
concern themselves at all about the Administration, and who consequently
get no slice of the cake, we can judge of the size of the junks which
President Kruger and the chiefly foreign oligarchy on which he leans
take to themselves. The President has a salary of £7,000--(the President
of the Swiss Confederation has £600)--and besides that, what is called
"coffee-money." This is his official income, but his personal resources
do not end there. The same table of the _Almanack de Gotha_ shows a sum
of nearly £660,000 entitled "other expenses." Under this head are
included secret funds, which in the budget are stated at a little less
than £40,000 (more than even England has), but which always exceed that
sum, and in 1896 reached about £200,000. Secret Service Funds!--vile
name and viler reality--should be unknown in the affairs of small
nations. Is not honesty one of the cardinal virtues which we should
expect to find amongst small nations, if nowhere else? What can the
chief of a small State of 250,000 inhabitants do with such a large
amount of Secret funds?
"We can picture to ourselves what the financial administration of the
Boers must be in this plethora of money, provided almost entirely by the
hated Outlander. An example may be cited. The Raad were discussing the
budget of 1898, and one of the members called attention to the fact that
for several years past advances to the amount of £2,400,000 had been
made to various officials, and were unaccounted for. That is a specimen
of what the Boer _régime_ has become in this school of opulence."[36] M.
Naville continues:--"We do not consider the Boers, as a people, to be
infected by the corruption which rules the administration. The farmers
who live far from Pretoria have preserved their patriarchal virtues:
they are upright and honest, but at the same time very proud, and
impatient of every kind of authority.... They are ignorant, and read no
books or papers--only the Old Testament; but Kruger knew he could rouse
these people by waving before them the spectre of England, and crying in
their ears the word 'Independence.' And this is what disgusts us, that
under cover of principles so dear to us all, independence and national
honour, these brave men are sent to the battlefield to preserve for a
tyrannical and venal oligarchy the right to share amongst themselves,
and distribute as they please, the gold which is levied on the work of
foreigners."