Sir Gordon Sprigg wrote:—

"August 29th, 1880.

"I don't feel able yet to give expression to my sentiments of profound regret that Her Majesty's Government have thought it advisable to recall you from the post which you have held with such conspicuous advantage to South Africa. They have driven from South Africa 'the best friend it has ever known.' For myself I may say that in the midst of all the difficulties with which I have been surrounded, I have always been encouraged and strengthened by the cheerful view you have taken of public affairs, and that I have never had half-an-hour's conversation with your Excellency without feeling a better, and, I believe, a wiser man."

Madame Koopmans de Wet, a lady of an old family, Dutch of the Dutch, wrote to him, Nov. 16th, 1880:—

"It is with feelings of the deepest sorrow that I take the liberty of addressing these lines to you.... What is to be the end of all this now? for now, particularly, do the Cape people miss their Governor, for now superior qualities in everything are wanted. Dear Sir Bartle, you know the material we have; it is good, but who is to guide? It is plain to every thinking mind that our position is becoming more critical every day....

"But with deep sorrow let me say, England's, or rather Downing Street's treatment, has not tightened the bonds between the mother country and us. You know we have a large circle of acquaintances, and I cannot say how taken aback I sometimes am to hear their words. See, in all former wars there was a moral support in the thought that England, our England, was watching over us. Now there is but one cry, 'We shall have no Imperial help.' Why is this? We have lost confidence in a Government who could play with our welfare; and among the many injuries done us, the greatest was to remove from among us a ruler such as your Excellency was."

"As the day drew near, the Cape Town people were perplexed how to express adequately their feelings on the occasion. It was suggested that on the day he was to embark, the whole city should mourn with shops closed, flags half-mast high, and in profound silence. But more cheerful counsels prevailed.

"He was to leave by the Pretoria on the afternoon of Sept. 15th. Special trains had brought in contingents from the country. The open space in front of Government House, Plein Street, Church Square, Adderley Street, the Dock Road, the front of the railway station, the wharves, the housetops, and every available place, whence a view of the procession could be procured, was closely packed. The Governor's carriage left Government House at half-past four,—Volunteer Cavalry furnishing the escort, and Volunteer Rifles, Engineers, and Cadets falling in behind,—and amid farewell words and ringing cheers, moved slowly along the streets gay with flags and decorations. At the dock gates the horses were taken out and men drew the carriage to the quay, where the Pretoria lay alongside. Here the General, the Ministers, and other leading people, were assembled; and the 91st Regiment, which had been drawn up, presented arms, the Band played "God save the Queen," and the Volunteer Artillery fired a salute as the Governor for the last time stepped off African soil.

"There had been some delay at starting, the tide was ebbing fast, the vessel had been detained to the last safe moment, and she now moved out slowly, and with caution, past a wharf which the Malays, conspicuous in their bright-coloured clothing, had occupied, then, with a flotilla of boats rowing alongside, between a double line of yachts, steam-tugs and boats, dressed out with flags, and dipping their ensigns as she passed, and lastly, under the stern of the Boadicea man-of-war, whose yards were manned, and whose crew cheered. The guns of the castle fired the last salute from the shore, which was answered by the guns of the Boadicea; and in the still bright evening the smoke hung for a brief space like a curtain, hiding the shores of the bay from the vessel. A puff of air from the south-east cleared it away, and showed once more in the sunset light the flat mass of Table Mountain, the "Lion's Head" to its right, festooned with flags, the mountain slopes dotted over with groups thickening to a continuous broad black line of people, extending along the water's edge from the central jetty to the breakwater basin. The vessel's speed increased, the light faded, and the night fell on the last, the most glorious, and yet the saddest day of Sir Bartle Frere's forty-five years' service of his Queen and country.

"For intensity of feeling and unanimity it would be hard in our time to find a parallel to this demonstration of enthusiasm for a public servant. The Cape Town people are by race and habit the reverse of demonstrative; yet it was noticed that day, as it had been noticed when Frere left Sattara (India) thirty years before, and again when he left Sind twenty-one years before—a sight almost unknown amongst men of English or German race in our day—that men looking on were unable to restrain their tears. At Sattara and in Sind the regret at losing him was softened by the knowledge that his departure was due to a recognition of his merit; that he was being promoted in a service in which his influence might some day extend with heightened power to the country he was leaving. It was far otherwise when he left the Cape. On that occasion the regret of the colonists was mingled with indignation, and embittered with a sense of wrong."[28]

The writer just quoted makes the following remarks:—

"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."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 19: Blue Book, C. p. 28, 2673.]

[Footnote 20: Blue Book, C. 2454, p. 57.]

[Footnote 21: Life and Correspondence of Sir Bartle Frere, by J. Martineau.]

[Footnote 22: Life and Correspondence of Sir Bartle Frere, by J. Martineau.]

[Footnote 23: The italics are my own.]

[Footnote 24: There are between sixty and seventy resolutions and addresses recorded in the Blue-book, all passed unanimously except in one case, at Stellenbosch where a minority opposed the resolution. The spokesman of the minority, however, based his opposition not on Frere's general policy, still less on his character, but as a protest against an Excise Act, which was one of Mr. Spring's measures.]

[Footnote 25: Life and Correspondence of Sir Bartle Frere.]

[Footnote 26: Blue Book, C. 2740, p. 46.]

[Footnote 27: Blue Book, C. 2740, p. 63.]

[Footnote 28: Life and Correspondence of the Right Hon. Sir Bartle Frere, by Martineau.]

[Footnote 29: In the sense in which the great Lord Chatham used the words.]



VII.

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, Lorenco 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 L177,000. This rose, owing to the Outlanders' labours, and the taxes exacted from them by the Transvaal government to L4,400,000 (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 L4,400,000, salaries and emoluments amount to nearly one-quarter—we will call it L1,000,000,—that is, L40 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 L7,000—(the President of the Swiss Confederation has L600)—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 L660,000 entitled "other expenses." Under this head are included secret funds, which in the budget are stated at a little less than L40,000 (more than even England has), but which always exceed that sum, and in 1896 reached about L200,000. 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 L2,400,000 had been made to various officials, and were unaccounted for. That is a specimen of what the Boer regime 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."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 30: Parliamentary Blue Book, 4194, 42.]

[Footnote 31: Austral Africa, Chap. 4, pages 235-250.]

[Footnote 32: Austral Africa, p. 233 and on.]

[Footnote 33: Natives under the Transvaal Flag. Revd. John H. Bovill.]

[Footnote 34: It is stated on the authority of The Sentinel (London, June, 1900), that Mr. Kruger was asked some years ago to permit the introduction in the Johannesburg mining district of the State regulation of vice, and that Mr. Kruger stoutly refused to entertain such an idea. Very much to his credit! Yet it seems to me that the refusal to legalize native marriages comes rather near, in immorality of principle and tendency, to the legalizing of promiscuous intercourse.]

[Footnote 35: Natives under the Transvaal Flag, by Rev. J. Bovill.]

[Footnote 36: La question du Transvaal, by Professor Ed. Naville, of Geneva.]



VIII.

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 37: The Transvaal from Within. FitzPatrick.]

[Footnote 38: This may also be true of the Boer combatants sacrificed for the sins of their rulers, but I prefer only to attest that of which I have full proof.]

[Footnote 39: "British Weekly."]

[Footnote 40: An Expression reported to have been used by Mr. Morley.]

[Footnote 41: Daily News, June 4th, 1900.]

THE END