Part 2 — CHAPTER X. (continued 2)

The year 1898 brought in its turn its full share of fresh encroachments and exactions. The bare enumeration of the concessions, privileges, and contracts, proposed or agreed to, is sufficient to indicate what must be the condition of mind of one whose interests are at stake under such a régime. Not all 'concessions,' 'contracts,' and 'protected factories' confer exclusive rights, but many might easily in effect do so and all are infringements upon the rights of the public. Here are some from the official list of 1899;—Dynamite, Railways, Spirits, Iron, Sugar, Wool, Bricks, Earthenware, Paper, Candles, Soap, Calcium Carbide, Oil, Matches, Cocoa, Bottles, Jam, &c.

A large loan had been constantly talked of throughout the year, but no one knew for what purpose it could be required. The Government vouchsafed no information at all but negotiations were carried on both in Pretoria and in Europe. Month after month went by, but the millions were not forthcoming, and the Government believed or affected to believe that their failure was due to a conspiracy among the capitalists, and in retaliation they directed and subsidised a fierce anti-capitalist campaign in their press. The explanation of failure, which did not occur to them, may have been that investors believed that the course pursued by the Transvaal Government must inevitably lead to conflict with the paramount power, and they had no faith and no assurance that in the event of such a conflict taking place the British Government would take over loans which must have been contracted only for the purposes of war against England.

The juggling with the dynamite question continued throughout the year. The President had successfully defeated the aim of the Volksraad, and the investigation and reports which had been ordered by that body in 1897 to be made by lawyers and auditors, although duly handed into the Government, were suppressed by the President and not permitted to be shown to the Raad. On the contrary, the astounding proposition was made that in return for a very inconsiderable reduction in the cost of dynamite (half of which was to be made up by the Government sacrificing its share of profits) and a possible further reduction of 5s. per case under certain conditions, the monopoly should be renewed for a period of fifteen years, all breaches in the past to be condoned, and cancellation on the ground of breach of contract in the future to be impossible. This proposal, it was publicly notified, would be laid before the Raad during the first session of 1899. The existence of the dynamite monopoly was at this time costing the industry £600,000 a year, and on every possible occasion it was represented to the Government that, if they really did need further revenue, in no way could it be more easily or more properly raised than by exercising their undoubted right to cancel the monopoly and by imposing a duty of such amount as might be deemed necessary upon imported dynamite. It was also pointed out that the proposed reduction in the cost of dynamite would offer no relief whatever since it was far more than counterbalanced by the taxes upon mynpachts and profits which were then being imposed.

During this year the Volksraad instructed the Government to enforce their right to collect 2-1/2 per cent. of the gross production from mynpachts (mining leases). All mynpachts titles granted by the Government contained a clause giving the Government this power, so that they were acting strictly within their legal rights; but the right had never before been exercised. For twelve years investors had been allowed to frame their estimates of profit upon a certain basis, and suddenly without a day's warning this tax was sprung upon them. It was indisputably the right of the Government, but equally indisputably was it most unwise; both because of the manner in which it was done and because there was no necessity whatever for the doing of it, as the revenue of the country was already greatly in excess of the legitimate requirements. Immediately following this came a resolution to impose a tax of 5 per cent. upon the profits of all companies working mining ground other than that covered by mynpacht. The same objections applied to this tax with the additional one, that no clause existed in the titles indicating that it could be done and no warning had ever been given that it would be done. The proposal was introduced one morning and adopted at once; the first notice to investors was the accomplished fact. These measures were particularly keenly resented in France and Germany.

The grievance of hasty legislation was in these cases aggravated by the evidence that the taxes were quite unnecessary. President Kruger still fought against cancellation of the Dynamite Monopoly, by which the State revenue would have benefited to the extent of £600,000 a year, if he had accepted the proposal of the Uitlanders, to allow importation of dynamite subject to a duty of £2 per case—a tax which represented the monopolists' profit, and would not therefore have increased the cost of the article to the mines. He still persisted in squandering and misapplying the public funds. He still openly followed the policy of satisfying his burghers at the Uitlanders' expense; but the burghers have a growing appetite, and nothing shows the headlong policy of 'squaring'—nothing better illustrates the Uitlanders' grievance of reckless extravagance in administration—than the list of fixed salaries as it has grown year by year since the goldfields became a factor.

That is to say, the Salary List is now twenty-four times as great as it was when the Uitlanders began to come in in numbers. It amounts to nearly five times as much as the total revenue amounted to then. It is now sufficient if equally distributed to pay £40 per head per annum to the total male Boer population.

The liquor curse has grown to such dimensions and the illicit liquor organization has secured such a firm hold that even the stoutest champions of law and order doubt at times whether it will ever be possible to combat the evil. The facts of the case reflect more unfavourably upon the President than perhaps any other single thing. These are the facts: The law prohibits the sale of liquor to natives; yet from a fifth to a third of the natives on the Rand are habitually drunk. The fault rests with a corrupt and incompetent administration. That administration is in the hands of the President's relations and personal following. The remedy urged by the State Secretary, State Attorney, some members of the Executive, the general public, and the united petition of all the ministers of religion in the country, is to entrust the administration to the State Attorney's department and to maintain the existing law. In the face of this President Kruger has fought hard to have the total prohibition law abolished and has successfully maintained his nepotism—to apply no worse construction! In replying to a deputation of liquor dealers he denounced the existing law as an 'immoral' one, because by restricting the sale of liquor it deprived a number of honest people of their livelihood—and President Kruger is a total abstainer!

The effect of this liquor trade is indescribable; the loss in money although enormous is a minor consideration compared with the crimes committed and the accidents in the mines traceable to it; and the effect upon the native character is simply appalling.

Much could be said about this native question apart from the subject of drink, for it is one which is very difficult of just appreciation by any but those who have had considerable experience of and personal contact with the natives. It is one upon which there is a great divergence of views between the people of Europe and the people of South Africa. South Africans believe that they view it from the rational standpoint, they believe also that Europeans as a rule view it more from the sentimental. The people who form their opinions from the writings and reports of missionaries only, or who have in their mind's eye the picturesque savage in his war apparel as seen at Earl's Court, or the idealized native of the novelist, cannot possibly understand the real native. The writer holds South African views upon the native question, that is to say that the natives are to all intents and purposes a race of children, and should be treated as such, with strict justice and absolute fidelity to promise, whether it be of punishment or reward: a simple consistent policy which the native mind can grasp and will consequently respect.

With this in mind it will, perhaps, be believed that the recital of certain instances of injustice is not made with the object of appealing to sentimentalism, or of obliquely influencing opinions which might otherwise be unfavourable or indifferent. The cases quoted in this volume are those which have been decided by the courts, or the evidence in support of them is given, and they are presented because they are typical cases, and not, except in the matter of public exposure, isolated ones. The report of the case of Toeremetsjani, the native chieftainess,{48} is taken verbatim from one of the newspapers of the time. The woman is the head of the Secocoeni tribe, whose successful resistance to the Transvaal Government was one of the alleged causes of the annexation. A good deal could be said about the ways of Native Commissioners in such matters. Much also could be said about the case of the British Indians and the effect upon the population of India which is produced by the coming and going of thousands of these annually between India and the Transvaal, and their recital of the treatment to which they are subjected, their tales of appeals to the great British Government, and their account of the latter's inability to protect them. Much also could be said of the Cape Boy question, but sufficient prominence has been given to these matters by the publication of the official documents and the report of the inquiry into Field-Cornet Lombaard's conduct, which was held at the instance of the British Government.

It is not suggested that if the Government in the Transvaal were influenced by the vote of the white British subjects, or if it were entirely dominated by such vote, any encouragement would be given to the Indian hawkers and traders, or that there would be any disposition whatever to give voting rights to coloured people of any kind, but it is suggested that a more enlightened and a more just system of treatment would be adopted; and in any case it is to be presumed that there would be no appeals to the British Government, involving exhibitions of impotency on the part of the Empire to protect its subjects, followed by the deliberate repetition of treatment which might become the subject of remonstrance. The untutored mind is not given to subtleties and sophistries; direct cause and effect are as much as it can grasp. These it does grasp and firmly hold, and the simple inferences are not to be removed by any amount of argument or explanation, however plausible. There is scarcely an Uitlander in the Transvaal who would not view with dismay the raising of the big question upon such grounds as the treatment of the natives, the Cape boys, or the Indians; and the fact that the Transvaal Government know this may account for much of the provocation on these questions. It is nevertheless undeniable that white British subjects in the Transvaal do suffer fresh humiliation and are substantially lowered in the eyes of the coloured races, because appeals are made on their behalf to the British Government, and those appeals are useless. The condition of affairs should be that such appeals would be unnecessary, and would therefore become—in practice—impossible. Such a condition of affairs would obtain under a friendly and more enlightened government, and the only security for the voluntary continuance of such conditions is the enfranchisement of the Uitlander population.

In the midst of all that was gloomy unfavourable and unpromising there came to the Uitlanders one bright ray of sunshine. Dr. Leyds who had been re-elected State Secretary on the understanding that he would resign immediately in order to take up the post of plenipotentiary in Europe, and whom the Boers with a growing anti-Hollander and pro-Afrikander feeling would no longer tolerate, relinquished his office. In his stead was appointed Mr. F.W. Reitz formerly President of the Free State, a kindly, honourable, and cultured gentleman, whose individual sympathies were naturally and strongly progressive but who, unfortunately, has not proved himself to be sufficiently strong to cope with President Kruger or to rise above division upon race lines in critical times. Shortly afterwards Mr. Christiaan Joubert, the Minister of Mines, a man totally unfit from any point of view to hold any office of responsibility or dignity, was compelled by resolution of the Second Volksraad to hand in his resignation. His place was filled by a Hollander official in the Mining Department who commanded and still commands the confidence and respect of all parties. The elevation of the Acting State Attorney to the Bench left yet another highly responsible post open and the Government choice fell upon Mr. J.C. Smuts, an able and conscientious young barrister, and an earnest worker for reform. An Afrikander by birth and educated in the Cape Colony, he had taken his higher degrees with great distinction at Cambridge and had been called to the English Bar.

But there came at the same time another appointment which was not so favourably viewed. There was still another vacancy on the Bench, and it became known that, in accordance with the recommendation expressed by the Raad that all appointments should whenever possible be first offered to sons of the soil, i.e., born Transvaalers, it was intended to appoint to this judgeship a young man of twenty-four years of age lately called to the bar, the son of the Executive Member Kock already referred to in this volume. The strongest objection was made to this proposal by all parties, including the friends of the Government; the most prominent of all objectors were some of the leading members of the bar who, it was believed, carried influence and were in sympathy with the Government. A delay took place and it was at one time believed that President Kruger had abandoned his intention, but it is understood that pressure was brought to bear upon the President by a considerable party of his followers, and in the course of a few days the appointment was duly gazetted.

The selection of educated and intelligent Afrikanders, sincerely desirous of purifying the administration, for such responsible offices as those of State Secretary and State Attorney, was gratefully welcomed by the Uitlander community, who believed that only through the influence of such men consistently and determinedly exerted could a peaceful solution of many difficult questions be found. It is but bare justice to these gentlemen to state that never were they found wanting in good intention or honest endeavour, ready at all times to inquire into subjects of complaint, anxious at all times to redress any legitimate grievances. To them and to many other less prominent but no less worthy officials of the Transvaal Civil Service, whom it is impossible to name and to whom it might prove to be no good turn if they were named, is due an expression of regret that they may perhaps suffer by references which are not directed against them but which are justified by a rotten system and are called for by the action of others over whom these men have no control. Nobody but one intimately concerned in Transvaal affairs can appreciate the unpleasant and undeserved lot of the honest official who necessarily, but most unjustly, suffers by association with those who deserve all that can be said against them.

It is very well known that the gentlemen above referred to would, if it were in their power, readily accord the terms asked for in the franchise memorandum recently submitted by the Uitlanders, but they are unfortunately entirely without influence over the President and his party. It is true that—although British subjects by birth—they have chosen to associate themselves with the Transvaal Government and are now uncompromising republicans; but there is no fault to be found with that. It may be true also that they aspire to republicanize the whole of South Africa, and free it of the Imperial influence; that would be a cause of enmity as between them and those who desire to preserve the Imperial connection, but it is no ground for reproach. There is one point, however, upon which they in common with nearly all the enlightened Afrikanders throughout South Africa may be adjudged to have fallen short in their duty; it is this, that whilst nine times out of ten they divide upon sound principles, they will not follow that policy to a conclusion; for upon the tenth occasion they will subordinate principle and, at the call of one who may use it unscrupulously, will rally upon race lines alone. It is only too true of only too many that they cannot be got to see that if they would really divide upon principles all danger of conflict would disappear and the solution would be both speedy and peaceful; for it is the division upon race lines that alone raises the distracting prospect of war.

For those who are in this position in the Transvaal it may be allowed that their difficulties are great. They cannot, it is true, complain of lack of warning. They did not, it is also true, after trying their influence and finding it of no avail, cut adrift when they might have done so, and by their example have so stripped the reactionaries of all support that there could now be no question of their standing out; but they may have honestly believed that they would in time succeed, whilst the Uitlanders, judging from a long and bitter experience, felt that they would not and could not. They may say that this is no time to part from those with whom they associated themselves in times of peace. Such reasoning may provide an excuse in the Transvaal, but no such plea will avail for those without the Transvaal who have let the day of opportunity go past, and who cry out their frightened protest now that the night of disaster is upon us.