THE THEOLOGY OF THE BOERS. EXPLOITATION OF NATIVES BY CAPITALISTS.
BRITISH COLONIZING.--ITS CAUSES AND NATURE. CHARACTER OF PAUL
KRUGER AS A RULER. THE MORAL TEACHINGS OF THE WAR. OUR
RESPONSIBILITIES. HASTY JUDGMENTS. DENUNCIATIONS OF ENGLAND BY
ENGLISHMEN. THE OPEN BOOK. MY LAST WORD IS FOR THE NATIVE RACES.
Even in these enlightened days there seems to be in some minds a strange
confusion as to the understanding of the principle of Equality for which
we plead, and which is one of the first principles laid down in the
Charter of our Liberties. What is meant in that charter is _Equality of
all before the Law_; not by any means social equality, which belongs to
another region of political ideas altogether.
A friend who has lived in South Africa, and who has had natives working
for and with him, tells me of this confusion of ideas among some of the
more vulgar stamp of white colonists, who, my friend observes, amuse
themselves by assuming a familiarity in intercourse with the natives,
which works badly. It does not at all increase their respect for the
white man, but quite the contrary, while it is as little calculated to
produce self-respect in the native. My friend found the natives
naturally respectful and courteous, when treated justly and humanely, in
fact as a _gentleman_ would treat them. Above all things, they honour a
man who is just. They have a keen sense of justice, and a quick
perception of the existence of this crowning quality in a man.
Livingstone said that he found that they also have a keen eye for a man
of pure and moral life.
The natives in the Transvaal have never asked for the franchise, or for
the smallest voice in the Government. In their hearts they hoped for and
desired simple legal justice; they asked for bread, and they received a
stone. It does not seem desirable that they should too early become
"full fledged voters." Some sort of Education test, some proof of a
certain amount of civilization and instruction attained, might be
applied with advantage; and to have to wait a little while for that does
not seem, from the Englishwoman's point of view at least, a great
hardship, when it is remembered how long our agricultural labourers had
to wait for that privilege, and that for more than fifty years English
women have petitioned for it, and have not yet obtained it, although
they are not, I believe, wholly uncivilized or uneducated.
The Theology of the Boers has been much commented upon; and it is
supposed by some that, as they are said to derive it solely from the Old
Testament Scriptures, it follows that the ethical teaching of those
Scriptures must be extremely defective. A Swiss Pastor writes to me: "It
is time to rescue the Old Testament from the Boer interpretation of it.
We have not enough of Old Testament righteousness among us Christians."
This is true. Those who have studied those Scriptures intelligently see,
through much that appears harsh and strange in the Mosaic prescriptions,
a wisdom and tenderness which approaches to the Christian ideal, as well
as certain severe rules and restrictions which, when observed and
maintained, lifted the moral standard of the Hebrew people far above
that of the surrounding nations. When Christ came on earth, He swept
away all that which savoured of barbarism, the husk which often
however, contained within it a kernel of truth capable of a great
development. "Ye have heard it said of old times," He reiterated, "_but
I say unto you_"--and then He set forth the higher, the eternally true
principles of action.
Yet if the Transvaal teachers and their disciples had read impartially
(though even exclusively) the Old Testament Scriptures, they could not
have failed to see how grossly they were themselves offending against
the divine commands in some vital matters. I cite, as an example, the
following commands, given by Moses to the people, not once only, but
repeatedly. Had these commands been regarded with as keen an
appreciation as some others whose teaching seems to have an opposite
tendency, it is impossible that the natives should have been treated as
they have been by Boer Law, or that Slavery or Serfdom should have
existed among them for so many generations. The following are some of
the often-repeated commands and warnings:
Ex. xii. _v_ 19.--"One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto
the stranger that sojourneth among you."
Num. ix. _v_ 14.--"If a stranger shall sojourn among you, ... ye shall
have one ordinance, both for the stranger, and for him that was born in
the land."
Num. xv. _v_ 15.--"One ordinance shall be both for you of the
congregation, and also for the stranger that sojourneth with you, an
ordinance for ever in your generation: as ye are so shall the stranger
be before the Lord."
Verse 16.--"One law and one manner shall be for you, and for the
stranger that sojourneth with you."
Lev. xix. _v_ 33.--"And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye
shall not vex him."
Verse 34.--"But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you
as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were
strangers in the land of Egypt."
Verse 35.--"Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in mete-yard, in
weight, or in measure."
Although the natives of the Transvaal were the original possessors of
the country, they have been reckoned by the Boers as strangers and
foreigners among them. They have treated them as the ancient Jews
treated all Gentiles as for ever excluded from the Commonwealth of
Israel,--until in the "fulness of time" they were forced by a great
shock and terrible judgments--to acknowledge, with astonishment, that
"God had also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life," and that
they also had heard the news of the glorious emancipation of all the
sons of God throughout the earth.
Not only is the non-payment, but even delay in the payment of wages
condemned by the Law of Moses. Is it possible that Boer theologians, who
quote Scripture with so much readiness, have never read the following?
Lev. xix. _v_ 13.--"Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob
him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night
until the morning."
Deut. xxiv. _v_ 14.--"Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is
poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of the strangers that
are in thy land, within thy gates."
Verse 15.--"At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the
sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest
he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee."
Jer. xxii. _v_ 13.--"Woe unto him that buildeth his house by
unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour's
service without wages, and giveth him not for his work."
Mal. iii. _v_ 5.--"And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will
be a swift witness against ... those that oppress the hireling in his
wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger
from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts."
The following is from the New Testament, but it might have come under
the notice of Boer theologians and Law makers:--
The epistle of St. James v. _v_ 4.--"Behold the hire of the labourers
who have reaped down your fields which is of you kept back by fraud,
crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the
ears of the Lord of Sabaoth."
Verse 3.--"Your gold and your silver is cankered, and the rust of them
shall be a witness against you."
Jer. xxxv. _v_ 17.--"Because ye have not proclaimed Liberty every man to
his neighbour, behold I proclaim Liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the
Sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine."
I am aware that there will be voices raised at once in application to
certain English people of the very commands here cited; and justly so,
so far as that application is made to individuals or groups of persons
who have transgressed not only Biblical Law but the Law of our Land in
their dealings with native races; and the warning conveyed to us in such
recriminations must not and, I believe, will not be unheeded.
The following occurs in a number of the "Ethical World," published early
in the present year:--"We know that capitalists, left to themselves,
would mercilessly exploit the labour of the coloured man. That is
precisely the reason why they should not be left to themselves, but
should be under the control of the British Empire. It is a reason why
Crown colonies should supersede Chartered Companies; it is a reason for
much that is often called 'shallow Imperialism.' If the present war had
been staved off, and if, by mere lapse of time and increase of numbers
_without British intervention_, the Outlanders had come to be the
masters of the South African Republic, they might have established a
system of independent government quite as bad as that now in existence,
though not hardened against reform by the same archaic traditions."
To my mind some of the published utterances of the Originator and
members of the "Chartered Company" are not such as to inspire confidence
in those who desire to see the essential principles of British Law and
Government paramount wherever Great Britain has sway. There is the old
contemptuous manner of speaking of the natives; and we have heard an
expression of a desire to "eliminate the Imperial Factor."
This elimination of the Imperial Factor is precisely that which is the
least desired by those who see our Imperialism to mean the continuance
of obedience to the just traditions of British Law and Government. The
granting of a Charter to a Company lends the authority (or the
appearance of it) of the Queen's name to acts of the responsible heads
of that company, which may be opposed to the principles of justice
established by British Law; and such acts may have disastrous results.
It is to be hoped that the present awakening on the subject of past
failures of our government to enforce respect for its own principles may
be a warning to all concerned against any transgression of those
principles.
Continental friends with whom I have conversed on the subject of the
British Colonies have sometimes appeared to me to leave out of account
some considerations special to the subject. They regard British
Colonization as having been accomplished by a series of acts of
aggression, solely inspired by the love of conquest and desire for
increased territory. This is an error.
I would ask such friends to take a Map of Europe, or of the World, and
steadily to regard it in connection with the following facts. Our people
are among the most prolific,--if not the most prolific,--of all the
nations. Energy and enterprise are in their nature, together with a
certain love of free-breathing, adventure and discovery. Now look at the
map, and observe how small is the circumference of the British Isles.
"Our Empire has no geographical continuity like the Russian Empire; it
is that larger Venice with no narrow streets, but with the sea itself
for a high-road. It is bound together by a moral continuity alone." What
are our Sons to do? Must our immense population be debarred from passing
through these ocean tracts to lands where there are great uninhabited
wastes capable of cultivation? What shall we do with our sons and our
daughters innumerable, as the ways become overcrowded in the mother
land, and energies have not the outlets needful to develop them. Shall
we place legal restrictions on marriage, or on the birth of children, or
prescribe that no family shall exceed a certain number? You are
shocked,--naturally. It follows then that some members of our large
British families must cross the seas and seek work and bread elsewhere.
The highest and lowest, representing all ranks, engage in this kind of
initial colonization. Our present Prime Minister, a "younger son," went
out in his youth,--as others of his class have done,--with his pickaxe,
to Australia, to rank for a time among "diggers" until called home by
the death of the elder son, the heir to the title and estate. This
necessity and this taste for wandering and exploring has helped in some
degree to form the independence of character of our men, and also to
strengthen rather than to weaken the ties of affection and kinship with
the Motherland. Many men, "nobly born and gently nurtured," have thus
learned self-dependence, to endure hardships, and to share manual labour
with the humblest; and such an experience does not work for evil. Then
when communities have been formed, some sort of government has been
necessitated. An appeal is made to the Mother Country, and her offspring
have grown up more or less under her regard and care, until
self-government has developed itself.
The great blot on this necessary and natural expansion is the record
(from time to time) of the displacement of native tribes by force and
violence, when their rights seemed to interfere with the interests of
the white man. Of such action we have had to repent in the past, and we
repent more deeply than ever now when our responsibilities towards
natives races have been brought with startling clearness before those
among us who have been led to look back and to search deeply into the
meanings of the present great "history-making war."
The personality of Paul Kruger stands out mournfully at this moment on
the page of history. Mr. FitzPatrick wrote of him in 1896, as follows:--
"_L'Etat c'est moi_, is almost as true of the old Dopper President as it
was of its originator; for in matters of external policy and in matters
which concern the Boer as a party, the President has his way as
completely as any anointed autocrat. To anyone who has studied the Boers
and their ways and policy ... it must be clear that President Kruger
does more than represent the opinion of the people and execute their
policy: he moulds them in the form he wills. By the force of his own
strong convictions and prejudices, and of his indomitable will, he has
made the Boers a people whom he regards as the germ of the Afrikander
nation; a people chastened, selected, welded, and strong enough to
attract and assimilate all their kindred in South Africa, and thus to
realize the dream of a Dutch Republic from the Zambesi to Cape Town.
"In the history of South Africa the figure of the grim old President
will loom large and striking,--picturesque as the figure of one who, by
his character and will, made and held his people; magnificent as one
who, in the face of the blackest fortune, never wavered from his aim or
faltered in his effort ... and it maybe, pathetic too, as one whose
limitations were great, one whose training and associations,--whose very
successes had narrowed and embittered and hardened him;--as one who,
when the greatness of success was his to take and to hold, turned his
back on the supreme opportunity, and used his strength and qualities to
fight against the spirit of progress, and all that the enlightenment of
the age pronounces to be fitting and necessary to good government and a
healthy State.
"To an English nobleman, who in the course of an interview remarked, 'my
father was a Minister (of the Queen),' the Dutchman answered, 'and my
father was a shepherd!' It was not pride rebuking pride; it was the ever
present fact which would not have been worth mentioning but for the
suggestion of the antithesis. He, too, was a shepherd,--a peasant. It
may be that he knew what would be right and good for his people, and it
may be not; but it is sure that he realized that to educate would be to
emancipate, to broaden their views would be to break down the defences
of their prejudices, to let in the new leaven would be to spoil the old
bread, to give to all men the rights of men would be to swamp for ever
the party which is to him greater than the State. When one thinks of the
one century history of that people, much is seen which accounts for
their extraordinary love of isolation, and their ingrained and
passionate aversion to control; much, too, that draws to them a world of
sympathy; and when one realizes the old President hemmed in once more by
the hurrying tide of civilization, from which his people have fled for
generations--trying to fight both fate and Nature--standing up to stem a
tide as resistless as the eternal sea--one realizes the pathos of the
picture. But this is as another generation may see it. We are now too
close--so close that the meaner details, the blots and flaws, are all
most plainly visible, the corruption, the insincerity, the injustice,
the barbarity--all the unlovely touches that will bye and bye be
forgotten--sponged away by the gentle hand of time, when only the
picturesque will remain."[37]
And now that his sun is setting in the midst of clouds, and the great
ambition of his life lies a ruin before him, and age, disappointment,
and sorrow press heavily upon him, reproach and criticism are silenced.
Compassion and a solemn awe alone fill our hearts.
A late awakening and repentance may not serve to maintain the political
life of a party or a nation; but it is never too late for a human soul
to receive for itself the light that may have been lacking for right
guidance all through the past, and God does not finally withdraw Himself
from one who has ever sincerely called upon His name.
I beg to be allowed to address a word, in conclusion, more especially to
certain of my own countrymen,--among whom I count some of my valued
fellow-workers of the past years. These latter have been very patient
with me at times when I have ventured a word of warning in connection
with the Abolitionist war in which we have together been engaged, and
perhaps they will bear with me now; but whether they will do so or not,
I must speak that which seems to me the truth, that which is laid on my
heart to speak. I refer especially to the temper of mind of those whose
present denunciations of our country are apparently not restrained by
considerations derived from a deeper and calmer view of the whole
situation.
When God's Judgments are in the earth, "the people of the world will
learn righteousness." Are we learning righteousness? Am I, are you,
friends, learning righteousness? I desire, at least, to be among those
who may learn something of the mind of God towards His redeemed world,
even in the darkest hour. But you will tell me perhaps that there is
nothing of the Divine purpose in all this tribulation, that God has
allowed evil to have full sway in the world for a time. Others among us,
as firmly believe that there is a Divine permission in the natural
vengeance which follows transgression, that we are never the sport of a
senseless fate, and that God governs as well as reigns.
"God's fruit of justice ripens slow;
"Men's souls are narrow; let them grow,
"My brothers, we must wait."
Many among us are learning to see more and more clearly that the present
"tribulation" is the climax of a long series,--through almost a century
past,--of errors of which till now we had never been fully
conscious,--of neglect of duty, of casting off of responsibility, of
oblivion of the claims of the millions of native inhabitants of Africa
who are God's creatures and the redeemed of Christ as much as we,--of
ambitions and aims purely worldly, of a breathless race among nations
for present and material gain.
There are hasty judges it seems to me who look upon this war as the
_Initial Crime_, a sudden and fatal error into which our nation has
leapt in a fit of blind passion aroused by some quite recent event, and
chiefly chargeable to certain individuals living among us to-day, who
represent, in their view, a deplorable deterioration of the whole
nation. The evils (which are not chiefly attributable to our nation)
which have led up to this war, and made it from the human point of view,
inevitable, are all ignored by these judges. Like the servant in one of
the Parables of Christ, who said "my Lord delayeth his coming," (God is
nowhere among us,) and began to beat and abuse his fellow-servants, they
fall to inflicting on their fellow citizens unmeasured blows of the
tongue and pen, because of this war. Their hearts are so full of
indignation that they cannot see anything higher or deeper than the
material strife. They judge the combatants, our poor soldiers, the first
victims, with little tenderness or sympathy. When King David was warned
by God of approaching chastisement for his sins as a ruler, he pleaded
that that chastisement should fall upon himself alone, saying, "these
sheep (the people) what have they done?" We may ask the same of the rank
and file of our army. What have they done? It was not they who ordained
the war, and so far as personal influence may have gone to provoke war,
many of those who sit at home at ease are more to blame than the men who
believe that they are obeying the call of duty when they offer
themselves for perils, for hardships, wounds, sickness, and lingering as
well as sudden death.
God's thoughts, however, are "not as our thoughts," nor "His ways as our
ways." The record I might give of spiritual awakening and extraordinary
blessing bestowed by Him at this time in the very heart of this war on
these, the "first victims" of it, would be received I fear with complete
incredulity by those to whom I now address myself. Be it so. The sources
of my information are from "the front," they are many and they are
trustworthy. It seems to me that in visiting the sins of the fathers on
the children, or of rulers on the people, the Great Father of all, in
His infinite love has said to these multitudes: "Your bodies are given
to destruction, but I have set wide open for you the door of salvation;
you Shall enter into my kingdom through death." And many have so
entered.[38]
The following is the expression of the thought of many of our humble
people at home, who are neither "jingoes" nor yet impatient judges of
others. The Journal from which the extract is taken represents not the
wealthy nor ambitious part of society, but that of the middle class of
people, dependent on their own efforts for their daily bread, among whom
we often find much good sense:--"Some persons are humiliated for the
sins and mistakes they see in other people. As for themselves, their one
thought is 'If my advice had been taken the country would never have
been in this pass!' This is the expression of an utterly un-Christian
self-conceit. Others, again, take delight in recording the sins of the
nation. That our ideals have been dimmed, that a low order of public
morality has been openly defended in the highest places, and that the
reckoning has come to us we fully believe. Yet it is possible to judge
the heart of our people far too harshly. It is a sound heart when all is
said and done. We fix our eyes upon the great and wealthy offenders; but
it must be remembered that the British people are not wealthy. The
number of rich men is small. Most of us, in fact, are very poor. Even
those who may be called well off depend on the continuance of health and
opportunity for their incomes. The vast majority of those who believe
that our cause is righteous are not exultant jingoes, neither are they
millionaires. They are care-worn toilers, hard-worked fathers and
mothers of children. They have in many cases given sons and brothers and
husbands to our ranks; their hearts are aching with passionate sorrow
for the dead. Many more are enduring the racking agony of suspense.
Multitudes, besides, spend their lives in a hard fight to keep the wolf
from the door. Already they are pinched, and they know that in the
months ahead their poverty will be deeper. Yet they have no thought of
surrender. They do not even complain, but give what they can from their
scanty means to succour those who are touched still more nearly. It is
quite possible to slander a nation when one simply intends to tell it
plain truths. The British nation, we are inclined to believe, is a great
deal better and sounder than many of its shrillest censors of the
moment. And, for our part, we find among our patient, brave, and silent
people great seed-beds of trust and hope."[39]
These are noble words, because words of faith--worthy of the Roman,
Varro--to whom his fellow-citizens presented a public tribute of
gratitude because "he had not despaired of his country in a dark and
troubled time."
It can hardly be supposed that I underrate the horrors of war. I have
imagination enough and sympathy enough to follow almost as if I beheld
it with my eyes, the great tragedy which has been unfolded in South
Africa. The spirit of Jingoism is an epidemic of which I await the
passing away more earnestly than we do that of any other plague. I
deprecate, as I have always done, and as strongly as anyone can do,
rowdyism in the form of violent opposition to free speech and freedom of
meeting. It is as wholly unjustifiable, as it is unwise. Nothing tends
more to the elucidation of truth than evidence and freedom of speech
from all sides. Good works on many hands are languishing for lack of
the funds and zeal needful to carry them on. The Public Press, and
especially the Pictorial Press, fosters a morbid sentiment in the public
mind by needlessly vivid representations of mere slaughter; to all this
may be added (that which some mourn over most of all) the drain upon our
pockets,--upon the country's wealth. All these things are a part of the
great tribulation which is upon us. They are inevitable ingredients of
the chastisement by war.
I see frequent allusions to the "deplorable state of the public mind,"
which is so fixed on this engrossing subject, the war, that its
attention cannot be gained for any other. I hear our soldiers called
"legalized murderers," and the war spoken of as a "hellish
panorama,"[40] which it is a blight even to look upon.
But,--I am impelled to say it at the risk of sacrificing the respect of
certain friends,--there is to me another view of the matter. It is this.
In this present woe, as in all other earthly events, God has something
to say to us,--something which we cannot receive if we wilfully turn
away the eye from seeing and the ear from hearing.
It is as if--in anticipation of the last great Judgment when "the Books
shall be opened,"--God, in his severity and yet in mercy (for there is
always mercy in the heart of His judgments) had set before us at this
day an open book, the pages of which are written in letters of blood,
and that He is waiting for us to read. There are some who are reading,
though with eyes dimmed with tears and hearts pierced with sorrow--whose
attitude is, "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth."
You "deplore the state of the public mind." May not the cloud of
celestial witnesses deplore in a measure the state of _your_ mind which
leads you to turn your back on the opened book of judgment, and refuse
to read it? Does your sense of duty to your country claim from you to
send forth such a cry against your fellow-citizens and your nation that
you have no ears for the solemn teachings of Providence? Might it not be
more heroic in us all to cease to denounce, and to begin to
enquire?--with humility and courage to look God in the face, and enquire
of Him the inner meanings of His rebukes, to ask Him to "turn back the
floods of ungodliness" which have swelled this inundation of woe, rather
than to use our poor little besoms in trying to sweep back the Atlantic
waves of His judgments.
It is good and necessary to protest against War; but at the same time,
reason and experience teach that we must, with equal zeal, protest
against other great evils, the accumulation of which makes for war and
not for peace. War in another sense--moral and spiritual war--must be
doubled, trebled, quadrupled, in the future, in order that material war
may come to an end. We all wish for peace; every reasonable person
desires it, every anxious and bereaved family longs for it, every
Christian prays for it. But _what_ Peace? It is the Peace of God which
we pray for? the Peace on Earth, which He alone can bring about? His
hand alone, which corrects, can also heal. We do not and cannot desire
the peace which some of those are calling for who dare not face the open
book of present day judgment, or who do not wish to read its lessons!
Such a peace would be a mere plastering over of an unhealed wound, which
would break out again before many years were over.
There seems to me a lack of imagination and of Christian sympathy in the
zeal which thrusts denunciatory literature into all hands and houses, as
is done just now. It would, I think, check such action and open the eyes
of some who adopt it, if they could see the look of pain, the sudden
pallor, followed by hours and days of depression of the mourners,
widows, bereaved parents, sisters and friends, when called upon to read
(their hearts full of the thought of their beloved dead) that those who
have fought in the ranks were morally criminal, legalized murderers,
"full of hatred," actors in a "hellish panorama." Some of these
sufferers may not be much enlightened, but they know what love and
sorrow are. Would it not be more tender and tactful, from the Christian
point of view, to leave to them their consoling belief that those whom
they loved acted from a sense of duty or a sentiment of patriotism; and
not, just at a time of heart-rending sorrow, to press upon them the
criminality of all and every one concerned in any way with war? I
commend this suggestion to those who are not strangers to the value of
personal sympathy and gentleness towards those who mourn.
No, we are not yet looking upon hell! It may be, it _is_, an earthly
purgatory which we are called to look upon; a place and an hour of
purging and of purifying, such as we must all, nations and individuals
alike, pass through, before we can see the face of God.
Mr. Fullerton, speaking in the Melbourne Hall, Leicester, on Jan. 7th of
this year, said:--"The Valley of Achor (Trouble), may be a Door of
Hope." "You say the Transvaal belongs to the Boers; I say it belongs to
God. If it belongs specially to any, it belongs to the Zulus and
Kaffirs, on whom, for 100 years, there have been inflicted wrongs worthy
of Arab slave dealers. What has the Boer done to lift these people?
Nothing. As a Missionary said the other day, 'A nation that lives
amongst a lower race of people, and does not try to lift them,
inevitably sinks.' The Boers needed to be chastised; only thus could
they be kept from sinking; only thus can there be hope for the native
races. Who shall chastise them? Another nation, which God wishes also to
chastise. Is therefore God for one nation and not for another? May He
not be for one, and for the other too? If both pray, must He refuse one?
Perhaps God is great enough to answer both, and bringing both through
the fire, purge and teach them."
It would have been bad for us if we had won an early or an easy victory.
We should have been so lifted up with pride as to be an offence to high
Heaven. But we have gone and are going through deep waters, and the
wounds inflicted on many hearts and many homes are not quickly healed.
In this we recognise the hand of God, who is faithful in chastisement as
in blessing.
Many have, no doubt, read, and I hope some have laid to heart, the words
which Lord Rosebery recently addressed to the Press, but which are
applicable to us all at this juncture. They are wise and statesmanlike
words. Taking them as addressed to the Nation and not to the Press only,
they run thus: "At such a juncture we must be sincere, we must divest
ourselves of the mere catchwords and impulses of party.... We must be
prepared to discard obsolete shibboleths, to search out abuse, to
disregard persons, to be instant in pressing for necessary
reforms--social, educational, administrative, and if need be,
constitutional.
"Moreover, with regard to a sane appreciation of the destinies and
responsibilities of Empire, we stand at the parting of the ways. Will
Britain flinch or falter in her world-wide task? How is she best to
pursue it? What new forces and inspiration will it need? What changes
does it involve? These are questions which require clear sight, cool
courage, and freedom from formula."[41]
In the conscientious study which I have endeavoured to make of the
history of the past century of British rule in South Africa, nothing has
struck me more than the unfortunate effects in that Colony of our
varying policy inspired by political party spirit in the Mother Country;
and consequently I hail with thankfulness this good counsel to "divest
ourselves of mere catchwords and impulses of party, to discard obsolete
shibboleths, to free ourselves from formula, and to disregard persons,"
even if these persons are or have been recognized leaders, and to abide
rather by principles. "What new forces and inspiration do we need," Lord
Rosebery asks, for the great task our nation has before it? This is a
deep and far-reaching question. The answer to it should be sought and
earnestly enquired after by every man and woman among us, who is worthy
of the name of a true citizen.
My last word must be on behalf of the Natives. When, thirty years ago, a
few among us were impelled to take up the cause of the victims of the
modern white slavery in Europe, we were told that in our pleadings for
principles of justice and for personal rights, we ought not to have
selected a subject in which are concerned persons who may deserve pity,
but who, in fact, are not so important a part of the human family as to
merit such active and passionate sympathy as that which moved our group.
To this our reply was: "We did not _choose_ this question, we did not
ourselves deliberately elect to plead for these persons. The question
was _imposed upon us_, and once so imposed, we could not escape from the
claims of the oppressed class whose cause we had been called to take up.
And generally, (we replied,) the work of human progress has not
consisted in protecting and supporting any outward forms of government,
or the noble or privileged classes, but in undertaking the defence of
the weak, the humble, of beings devoted to degradation and contempt, or
brought under any oppression or servitude."
It is the same now. My father was one of the energetic promoters of the
Abolition of Slavery in the years before 1834, a friend of Clarkson and
Wilberforce. The horror of slavery in every form, and under whatever
name, which I have probably partly inherited, has been intensified as
life went on. It is my deep conviction that Great Britain will in future
be judged, condemned or justified, according to her treatment of those
innumerable coloured races, heathen or partly Christianized, over whom
her rule extends, or who, beyond the sphere of her rule, claim her
sympathy and help as a Christian and civilizing power to whom a great
trust has been committed.
It grieves me to observe that (so far as I am able to judge) our
politicians, public men, and editors, (with the exception of the editors
of the "religious press,") appear to a great extent unaware of the
immense importance of this subject, even for the future peace and
stability of our Empire, apart from higher interests. It _will_ be
"imposed upon them," I do not doubt, sooner or later, as it has been
imposed upon certain missionaries and others who regard the Divine
command as practical and sensible men should do: "Go ye and teach _all_
nations." All cannot _go_ to the ends of the earth; but all might cease
to hinder by the dead weight of their indifference, and their contempt
of all men of colour. Dr. Livingstone rebuked the Boers for
contemptuously calling all coloured men Kaffirs, to whatever race they
belonged. Englishmen deserve still more such a rebuke for their habit of
including all the inhabitants of India, East and West, and of Africa,
who have not European complexions, under the contemptuous title of
"niggers." Race prejudice is a poison which will have to be cast out if
the world is ever to be Christianized, and if Great Britain is to
maintain the high and responsible place among the nations which has been
given to her.
"It maybe that the Kaffir is sometimes cruel," says one who has seen and
known him,--"he certainly requires supervision. But he was bred in
cruelty and reared in oppression--the child of injustice and hate. As
the springbok is to the lion, as the locust is to the hen, so is the
Kaffir to the Boer; a subject of plunder and leaven of greed. But the
Kaffir is capable of courage and also of the most enduring affection. He
has been known to risk his life for the welfare of his master's family.
He has worked without hope of reward. He has laboured in the expectation
of pain. He has toiled in the snare of the fowler. Yet shy a brickbat at
him!--for he is only a Kaffir! "However much the Native may excel in
certain qualities of the heart, still, until purged of the poison of
racial contempt, that will be the expression of the practical conclusion
of the white man regarding him; "Shy a brickbat at him. He is only a
nigger."
A merely theoretical acknowledgment of the vital nature of this
question, of the future of the Native races and of Missionary work will
not suffice. The Father of the great human family demands more than
this.
"Is not this the fast that I have chosen?
To loose the bands of wickedness,
To undo the heavy burdens,
To let the oppressed go free,
And that ye break every yoke?"
(ISAIAH lviii. 6.)
I have spoken, in this little book, as an Abolitionist,--being a member
of the "International Federation for the Abolition of the State
regulation of vice." But I beg my readers to understand that I have here
spoken for myself alone, and that my views must not be understood to be
shared by members of the Federation to which I refer. My Abolitionist
friends on the Continent of Europe, with very few exceptions, hold an
opinion absolutely opposed to mine on the general question here treated.
It is not far otherwise in England itself, where many of our
Abolitionists, including some of my oldest and most valued
fellow-workers, stand on a very different ground from mine in this
matter. I value friendship, and I love my old friends. But I love truth
more. I have very earnestly sought to know the truth in the matter here
treated. I have not rejected evidence from any side, having read the
most extreme as well as the more moderate writings on different sides,
including those which have reached me from Holland, France, Switzerland,
Germany, and the Transvaal, as well as those published in England.
Having conscientiously arrived at certain conclusions, based on facts,
and on life-long convictions in regard to some grave matters of
principle, I have thought it worth while to put those conclusions on
record. J.E.B.