Impressions of South Africa Part 17

There is a cabinet of five persons, including the heads of the chief administrative departments, who are the practical executive of the Colony, and are responsible to the Legislature, in which they sit, and at whose pleasure they hold their offices. There is a Legislature consisting of two houses--an a.s.sembly, whose members.h.i.+p was raised in December, 1898, from seventy-nine to ninety-five, and a Legislative Council, with twenty-three members, besides the Chief Justice, who is _ex officio_ President. In Cape Colony (for of the arrangements in Natal I have spoken in a previous chapter) both houses are elected on the same franchise--a low one; but the districts for the election of members of the Council are much larger, and therefore fewer, than the a.s.sembly districts, so the former body is a small and the latter a comparatively numerous one.[76] The rights and powers of both houses are theoretically the same, save that money bills originate in the a.s.sembly; but the a.s.sembly is far more powerful, for the ministry holds office only so long as it has the support of a majority in that body, whereas it need not regard a hostile vote in the Council. Either the English or the Dutch language may be used in debate. Ministers have the right of speaking in both houses, but can, of course, vote only in the one of which they are members by popular election. If it happens that there is no minister who has a seat in the Council (as was the case in 1896), it is usual for the cabinet to allot one to be present in and look after that chamber for the day.

This cabinet system, as it is called, works pretty smoothly, on lines similar to that English original whence it is copied. The most interesting peculiarity is the Cape method of forming the smaller House.

In England the Upper House is composed of hereditary members; in the Canadian confederation, of members nominated for life--both of them methods which are quite indefensible in theory. Here, however, we find the same plan as that which prevails in the States of the North American Union, all of which have senates elected on the same franchise, and for the same term, as the larger house, but in more extensive districts, so as to make the number of members of the senate or second chamber smaller. Regarding the merits of the Cape scheme, I heard different views expressed. n.o.body seemed opposed in principle to the division of the Legislature into two houses, but many condemned the existing Council as being usually composed of second-rate men, and apt to be obstructive in its tendencies. Some thought the Council was a useful part of the scheme of government, because it interposed delay in legislation and gave time for reflection and further debate. One point came out pretty clearly. No difficulty is deemed to arise from the fact that there exist two popularly elected houses equally ent.i.tled to control the administration,[77] for custom has settled that the a.s.sembly or larger house is that whose vote determines the life of a ministry. But it follows from this circ.u.mstance that the most able and ambitious men desire a seat in the more powerful chamber, leaving the smaller house to those of less mark. This is the exact reverse of what has happened in the United States; where a seat in the Senate is more desired than one in the House; but it is a natural result of the diverse arrangements of the two countries, for in the Federal Government the Senate has some powers which the House of Representatives does not enjoy, while in each of the several States of the Union, although the powers of the two houses are almost the same, the smaller number of each Senate secures for a senator somewhat greater importance than a member of the larger body enjoys. The Cape Colony plan of letting a minister speak in both houses works very well, and may deserve to be imitated in England, where the fact that the head of a department can explain his policy only to his own House has sometimes caused inconvenience.

So much for the machinery. Now let us note the chief points in which the circ.u.mstances of Cape Colony and of Natal (for in these respects both Colonies are alike) differ from those of the other self-governing Colonies of Britain.

The population is not h.o.m.ogeneous as regards race, but consists of two stocks, English and Dutch. These stocks are not, as in Canada, locally separate, but dwell intermixed, though the Dutch element predominates in the western province and in the interior generally, the English in the eastern province and at the Kimberley diamond-fields.

The population is h.o.m.ogeneous as regards religion, for nearly all are Protestants, and Protestants of much the same type. Race difference has fortunately not been complicated, as in Canada, by ecclesiastical antagonisms.

The population is h.o.m.ogeneous as respects material interests, for it is wholly agricultural and pastoral, except a few merchants and artisans in the seaports, and a few miners at Kimberley and in Namaqualand.

Four-fifths of it are practically rural, for the interests of the small towns are identical with those of the surrounding country.

The population is not only rural, but scattered more thinly over a vast area than in any other British Colony, except north-western Canada, and parts of Australasia. In Natal there are only two white men to the square mile, and in Cape Colony less than two. Nor is this spa.r.s.eness incidental, as in North America, to the early days of settlement. It is due to a physical condition--the condition of the soil--which is likely to continue.

Below the white citizens, who are the ruling race, there lies a thick stratum of coloured population numerically larger, and likely to remain so, because it performs all the unskilled labour of the country. Here is a condition which, though present in some of the Southern States of America, is fortunately absent from all the self-governing Colonies of Britain, and indeed caused Jamaica to be, some time ago, withdrawn from that category.

The conjunction of these circ.u.mstances marks off South Africa as a very peculiar country, where we may expect to find a correspondingly peculiar political situation. Comparing it to other Colonies, we may say that the Cape and Natal resemble Canada in the fact that there are two European races present, and resemble the Southern States of America in having a large ma.s.s of coloured people beneath the whites. But South Africa is in other respects unlike both; and although situated in the southern hemisphere, it bears little resemblance to Australia.

Now let us see how the circ.u.mstances above described have determined the political issues that have arisen in Cape Colony.

Certain issues are absent which exist, not only in Europe and the United States, but also in Australia and in Canada. There is no antagonism of rich and poor, because there are very few poor and still fewer rich.

There is no working-man's or labour party, because so few white men are employed in handicrafts. There is no Socialist movement, nor is any likely soon to arise, because the ma.s.s of workers, to whom elsewhere Socialism addresses itself, is mainly composed of black people, and no white would dream of collectivism for the benefit of blacks. Thus the whole group of labour questions, which bulks so largely in modern industrial States, is practically absent, and replaced by a different set of cla.s.s questions, to be presently mentioned.

There is no regularly organized Protectionist party, nor is the protection of native industry a "live issue" of the first magnitude.

The farmers and ranchmen of Cape Colony no doubt desire to have custom duties on food-stuffs that will help them to keep up prices, and they have got such duties. But the scale is not very high, and as direct taxation is difficult to raise in a new country with a scattered population, the existing tariff, which averages twelve and a half per cent, _ad valorem_ (but is further raised by special rates on certain articles), may be defended as needed, at least to a large extent, for the purposes of revenue. Natal had a lower tariff, and has been more favourable in principle to free trade doctrine, but she has very recently (1898) entered the S. African Customs Union, therewith adopting a higher tariff. Manufactures have been so sparingly developed in both Colonies that neither employers nor workmen have begun to call for high duties against foreign goods. Here, therefore, is another field of policy, important in North America and Australia, which has given rise to comparatively little controversy in South Africa.

As there is no established church, and nearly all the people are Protestants, there are no ecclesiastical questions, nor is the progress of education let and hindered by the claims of sects to have their respective creeds taught at the expense of the State.

Neither are there any land questions, such as those which have arisen in Australia, for there has been land enough for those who want to have it, while few agricultural immigrants arrive to increase the demand.

Moreover, though the landed estates are large, their owners are not rich, and excite no envy by their possession of a profitable monopoly.

If any controversy regarding natural resources arises, it will probably turn on the taxation of minerals. Some have suggested that the State should appropriate to itself a substantial share of the profits made out of the diamond and other mines, and the fact that most of those profits are sent home to shareholders in Europe might be expected to make the suggestion popular. Nevertheless, the idea has not, so far, "caught on," to use a familiar expression, partly, perhaps, because Cape Colony, drawing sufficent income from its tariff and its railways, has not found it necessary to hunt for other sources of revenue.

Lastly, there are no const.i.tutional questions. The suffrage is so wide as to admit nearly all the whites, and there is, of course, no desire to go lower and admit more blacks. The machinery of government is deemed satisfactory; at any rate, one hears of no proposals to change it, and, as will be seen presently, there is not in either Colony a wish to alter the relations now subsisting between it and the mother country.

The reader may suppose that if all these grounds of controversy, familiar to Europe, and some of them now unhappily familiar to the new democracies also, are absent, South Africa enjoys the political tranquillity of a country where there are no factions, and the only question is how to find the men best able to promote that economic development which all unite in desiring. This is by no means the case.

In South Africa the part filled elsewhere by const.i.tutional questions, and industrial questions and ecclesiastical questions, and currency questions, is filled by race questions and colour questions. Colour questions have been discussed in a previous chapter. They turn not, as in the Southern States of America, upon the political rights of the black man (for on this subject the ruling whites are in both Colonies unanimous), but upon land rights and the regulation of native labour.

They are not at this moment actual and pungent issues, but they are in the background of every one's mind, and the att.i.tude of each man to them goes far to determine his political sympathies. One cannot say that there exist pro-native or anti-native parties, but the Dutch are by tradition more disposed than the English to treat the native severely, and, as they express it, keep him in his place. Many Englishmen share the Dutch feeling, yet it is always by Englishmen that the advocacy of the native case is undertaken. In Natal both races are equally anti-Indian.

The race question among the whites, that is to say the rivalry of Dutch and English, would raise no practical issue were Cape Colony an island in the ocean, for there is complete political and social equality between the two stocks, and the material interests of the Dutch farmer are the same as those of his English neighbour. It is the existence of a contiguous foreign State, the South African Republic, that sharpens Dutch feeling. The Boers who remained in Cape Colony and in Natal have always retained their sentiment of kins.h.i.+p with those who went out in the Great Trek of 1836, or who moved northward from Natal into the Transvaal after the annexation of Natal in 1842. Many of them are connected by family ties with the inhabitants of the two Republics, and are proud of the achievements of their kinsfolk against Dingaan and Mosilikatze, and of the courage displayed at Laing's Nek and Majuba Hill against the British. They resent keenly any attempt to trench upon the independence of the Transvaal, while most of the English do not conceal their wish to bring that State into a South African Confederation, if possible under the British flag. The ministries and legislatures of the two British Colonies, it need hardly be said, have no official relations with the two Dutch Republics, because, according to the const.i.tution of the British empire, such relations, like all other foreign relations, belong to the Crown, and the Crown is advised by the British Cabinet at home. In South Africa the Crown is represented for the purpose of these relations by the High Commissioner, who is not responsible in any way to the colonial legislatures, and is not even bound to consult the colonial cabinet, for his functions as High Commissioner for South Africa are deemed to be distinct from those which he has as Governor of Cape Colony. Matters relating to the two Republics and their relation to the Colonies are, accordingly, outside the sphere of action of the colonial legislatures, which have, in strict theory, no right to pa.s.s resolutions regarding them. In point of fact, however, the Cape a.s.sembly frequently does debate, and pa.s.s resolutions on, these matters; nor is this practice disapproved, for, as the sentiments of the Colony are, or ought to be, an important factor in determining the action of the home Government, it is well that the British Cabinet and the High Commissioner should possess such a means of gauging those sentiments.

The same thing happens with regard to any other question between Britain and a foreign Power which may affect the two Colonies. Questions with Germany or Portugal, questions as to the acquisition of territory in South Central Africa, would also be discussed in the colonial Legislatures, just as those of Australia some years ago complained warmly of the action of France in the New Hebrides. And thus it comes to pa.s.s that though the Governments and Legislatures of the Colonies have in strictness nothing to do with foreign policy, foreign policy has had much to do with the formation of parties at the Cape.

Now as to the parties themselves. Hitherto I have spoken of Natal and the Cape together, because their conditions are generally similar, though the Dutch element is far stronger in the latter than in the former. In what follows I speak of the Cape only, for political parties have not had time to grow up in Natal, where responsible government dates from 1893. In the earlier days of the Cape Legislature parties were not strongly marked, though they tended to coincide with the race distinction between Dutch and English, because the western province was chiefly Dutch, and the eastern chiefly English, and there was a certain rivalry or antagonism between these two main divisions of the country.

The Dutch element was, moreover, wholly agricultural and pastoral, the English party mercantile; so when an issue arose between these two interests, it generally corresponded with the division of races.

Political organization was chiefly in English hands, because the colonial Dutch had not possessed representative government, whereas the English brought their home habits with them. However, down till 1880 parties remained in an amorphous or fluid condition, being largely affected by the influence of individual leaders; and the Dutch section of the electorate was hardly conscious of its strength. In the end of that year, the rising in the Transvaal, and the War of Independence which followed, powerfully stimulated Dutch feeling, and led to the formation of the Africander Bond, a league or a.s.sociation appealing nominally to African, but practically to African-Dutch patriotism. It was not anti-English in the sense of hostility to the British connection, any more than was the French party in Lower Canada at the same time, but it was based not only on the solidarity of the Dutch race over all South Africa, but also on the doctrine that Africanders must think of Africa first, and see that the country was governed in accordance with local sentiment, rather than on British lines or with a view to British interests. Being Dutch, the Bond became naturally the rural or agricultural and pastoral party, and therewith inclined to a protective tariff and to stringent legislation in native matters. Such anti-English tint as this a.s.sociation originally wore tended to fade when the Transvaal troubles receded into the distance, and when it was perceived that the British Government became more and more disposed to leave the Colony to manage its own affairs. And this was still more the case after the rise to power of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, who, while receiving the support of the Bond and the Dutch party generally, was known to be also a strong Imperialist, eager to extend the range of British power over the continent. At the same time, the attachment of the colonial Dutch to the Transvaal cooled down under the unfriendly policy of that Republic, whose government imposed heavy import duties on their food-stuffs, and denied to their youth the opportunities of obtaining posts in the public service of the Republic, preferring to fetch Dutch-speaking men from Holland, when it could have had plenty of capable people from the Cape who spoke the tongue and knew the ways of the country. Thus the embers of Dutch and English antagonism seemed to be growing cold when they were suddenly fanned again into a flame by the fresh Transvaal troubles of December, 1895, which caused the resignation of Mr. Rhodes, and the severance from him of his Dutch supporters. Too little time has elapsed since those events to make it possible to predict how parties may reshape themselves, nor is it any part of my plan to deal with current politics. In 1897 feeling still ran high, but it had not destroyed the previously friendly social relations of the races, and there was then reason to hope that within a few months or years mutual confidence would be restored.

So far as I could ascertain, both local government and central government are in the two Colonies, as well as in the Orange Free State, pure and honest. The judiciary is above all suspicion, and includes several distinguished men. The civil service is managed on English principles, there being no elective offices; and nothing resembling what is called the "caucus system" seems to have grown up. There are in the Cape Legislature some few members supposed to be "low-toned" and open to influence by the prospect of material gain, but, though I heard of occasional jobbing, I heard of little or nothing amounting to corruption. Elections were said to be free from bribery, but as they had seldom excited keen interest, this point of superiority to most countries need not be ascribed to moral causes.

Reviewing the course of Cape politics during the thirty years of responsible government, that course appears smooth when compared with the parallel current of events in the Australian Colonies. There have been few const.i.tutional crises, and no exciting struggles over purely domestic issues. This is due not merely to the absence of certain causes of strife, but also to the temper of the people, and their thin dispersion over a vast territory. In large town populations excitement grows by the sympathy of numbers, but South Africa has only five or six towns in which a public meeting of even three hundred citizens could be gathered. The Dutch are tardy, cautious and reserved. The doggedness of their ancestors who resisted Philip II. of Spain lives in them still.

They have a slow tenacious intensity, like that of a forest fire, which smoulders long among the prostrate trunks before it bursts into flame.

But they are, except when deeply stirred, conservative and slow to move.

They dislike change so much as to be unwilling to change their representatives or their ministers. A Cape statesman told me that the Dutch members of the a.s.sembly would often say to him: "We think you wrong in this instance, and we are going to vote against you, but we don't want to turn you out; stay on in office as before." So President Kruger observed to me, in commenting on the frequent changes of government in England: "When we have found an ox who makes a good leader of the team, we keep him there, instead of s.h.i.+fting the cattle about in the hope of finding a better one;" and in saying this he expressed the feelings and habits of his race. To an Englishman the Dutch seem to want that interest in politics for the sake of politics which marks not only the English (and still more the Irish) at home but also the English stock in North America and Australia. But this very fact makes them all the more fierce and stubborn when some issue arises which stirs their inmost mind, and it is a fact to be remembered by those who have to govern them. The things they care most about are their religion, their race ascendency over the blacks, and their Dutch-African nationality as represented by their kinsfolk in the two Republics. The first of these has never been tampered with; the two latter have been at the bottom of all the serious difficulties that have arisen between them and the English. That which was in 1897 exciting them and forming the crucial issue in Cape politics was the strained condition of things which existed in the Transvaal. I propose in the following chapter to explain how that condition came about, and to sketch its salient features.

[Footnote 76: There are for the Council seven electoral provinces, each of which returns three members to the Council, besides one for Griqualand West and one for British Bechua.n.a.land.

A Redistribution Act of 1898 altered the areas of some of the electoral divisions, and the number of members returned by some, so as to adjust representation more accurately to population.]

[Footnote 77: Some friction has, however, arisen from the right claimed by the Council of amending money bills, especially for the purpose (one is told) of securing grants to the electoral provinces they represent.]

CHAPTER XXV

THE SITUATION IN THE TRANSVAAL BEFORE THE RISING OF 1895

The agitation at Johannesburg, which Dr. Jameson's expedition turned into a rising, took place in December, 1895. I spent some time in Pretoria and Johannesburg in the preceding month, and had good opportunities of observing the symptoms of political excitement and gauging the tendencies at work which were so soon to break out and fix the eyes of the world upon the Wit.w.a.tersrand. The situation was a singular one, without parallel in history; and though I did not know that the catastrophe was so near at hand, it was easy to see that a conflict must come and would prove momentous to South Africa. Of this situation as it presented itself to a spectator who had no personal interest involved, and had the advantage of hearing both sides, I propose to speak in the present chapter.

To comprehend the position of the Transvaal Boers one must know something of their history. From the brief sketch of it given in earlier chapters (Chapters XI and XII) the reader will have gathered how unlike they are to any European people or to the people of the United States.

Severed from Europe and its influences two hundred years ago, they have, in some of the elements of modern civilisation, gone back rather than forward. They were in 1885, when the Rand goldfields were discovered, and many of them are to-day, a half-nomad race, pasturing their flocks and herds over the vast s.p.a.ces of what is still a wilderness, and migrating in their waggons from the higher to the lower pastures according to the season of the year--

--Omnia sec.u.m Armentarius Afer agit, tectumque laremque Armaque, Amyclaeumque canem, Cressamque pharetram.

Living in the open air, and mostly in the saddle, they are strangely ignorant and old fas.h.i.+oned in all their ideas. They have no literature and very few newspapers. Their religion is the Dutch and Huguenot Calvinism of the seventeenth century, rigid and stern, hostile to all new light, imbued with the spirit of the Old Testament rather than of the New. They dislike and despise the Kafirs, whom they have regarded as Israel may have regarded Amalek, and whom they have treated with equal severity. They hate the English also,[78] who are to them the hereditary enemies that conquered them at the Cape; that drove them out into the wilderness in 1836; that annexed their Republic in 1877, and thereafter broke the promises of self-government made at the time of the annexation; that stopped their expansion on the west by occupying Bechua.n.a.land, and on the north by occupying Matabililand and Mashonaland; and that were still, as they believed, plotting to find some pretext for overthrowing their independence.[79] This hatred is mingled with a contempt for those whom they defeated at Laing's Nek and Majuba Hill, and with a fear born of the sense that the English are their superiors in knowledge, in activity, and in statecraft. It is always hard for a nation to see the good qualities of its rivals and the strong points of its opponents' case; but with the Boers the difficulty is all the greater because they know little or nothing of the modern world and of international politics. Two centuries of solitary pastoral life have not only given them an aversion for commerce, for industrial pursuits, and for finance, but an absolute incapacity for such occupations, so that when gold was discovered in their country, they did not even attempt to work it,[80] but were content to sell, usually for a price far below its value, the land where the gold-reefs lay, and move off with the proceeds to resume elsewhere their pastoral life. They have the virtues appropriate to a simple society. They are brave, good-natured, hospitable, faithful to one another, generally pure in their domestic life, seldom touched by avarice or ambition. But the corruption of their Legislature shows that it is rather to the absence of temptation than to any superior strength of moral principle that these merits have been due. For politics they have little taste or gift.

Politics can flourish only where people are ma.s.sed together, and the Boer is a solitary being who meets his fellows solely for the purposes of religion or some festive gathering. Yet ignorant and slow-witted as they are, inborn ability and resolution are not wanting. They have indeed a double measure of wariness and wiliness in their intercourse with strangers, because their habitual suspicion makes them seek in craft the defence for their ignorance of affairs; while their native doggedness is confirmed by their belief in the continued guidance and protection of that Providence whose hand led them through the wilderness and gave them the victory over all their enemies.

This was the people into whose territory there came, after 1884, a sudden swarm of gold-seekers. The Uitlanders, as these strangers are called (the word is not really Dutch, one is told, but an adaptation from the German), who by 1890 had come to equal and soon thereafter exceeded the whole number of the Boers, belonged to many stocks. The natives of England, the Cape, and Natal were the most numerous, but there were also many English-speaking men from other regions, including Australians and Americans, as well as a smaller number of Germans and Scandinavians, some Russians (mostly Jews) and a few Italians and Frenchmen. Unlike as these newcomers were to one another, they were all still more unlike the rude hunting and pastoral people among whom they came. They were miners, traders, financiers, engineers, keen, nimble-minded men, all more or less skilled in their respective crafts, all bent on gain, and most of them with that sense of irresponsibility and fondness for temporary pleasure which a chanceful and uncertain life, far from home, and relieved from the fear of public opinion, tends to produce. Except some of the men from the two Colonies, they could not speak the Boer _Taal_, and had no means of communication, any more than they had social or moral affinities, with the folk of the land. There were therefore no beginnings of any a.s.similation between them and the latter. They did not affect the Boers, except with a sense of repulsion, and still less did the Boers affect them. Moreover, there were few occasions for social intercourse. The Uitlanders settled only along the Wit.w.a.tersrand, and were aggregated chiefly in Johannesburg. The Boers who had lived on the Rand, except a few who came daily into the towns with their waggons to sell milk and vegetables, retired from it. It was only in Pretoria and in a few of the villages that there was any direct social contact between the two elements.

Although less than half of the immigrants came from England, probably five-sixths spoke English and felt themselves drawn together not only by language, but by community of ideas and habits. The Australians, the Americans, and the men from Cape Colony and Natal considered themselves for all practical--I do not say for all political--purposes to be English, and English became the general spoken tongue not only of Johannesburg, but of the mining districts generally. Hearing nothing but English spoken, seeing nothing all round them that was not far more English than Dutch, though English with a half-colonial, half-American tinge, it was natural that the bulk of the Uitlanders should deem themselves to be in a country which had become virtually English, and should see something unreasonable or even grotesque in the control of a small body of persons whom they deemed in every way their inferiors.

However, before I describe their sentiments and their schemes, some account must be given of the government under which they lived.

As was explained in a previous chapter (Chapter XII) the South African Republic was formed by the union, between 1858 and 1862, of several small and theretofore practically independent republican communities.

Its const.i.tution was set forth in a doc.u.ment called the Grondwet,[81] or "Fundamental Law," enacted in 1858 and partly based on a prior draft of 1855. It is a very crude, and indeed rude, instrument, occasionally obscure, and containing much matter not fit for a const.i.tution. It breathes, however, a thoroughly free spirit, save as regards Kafirs and Roman Catholics, recognizing the people as a source of power, laying down the old distinction between the three departments of government,--legislative, executive, and judicial,--and guaranteeing some of the primordial rights of the citizen. By it the government was vested in a President, head of the executive, and elected for five years, an Executive Council of five members (three elected and two _ex officio_), and a Legislature called the Volksraad, elected by the citizens on a very extended suffrage, and declared to be the supreme power in the State. The Volksraad consists of one chamber, in which there are at present twenty-four members. The President has the right of speaking, though not of voting, in it, but has no veto on its action.

Though there are few const.i.tutions anywhere which give such unlimited power to the Legislature, the course of events--oft-recurring troubles of all sorts, native wars, internal dissensions, financial pressure, questions with the British Government--have made the President practically more important than the Legislature, and, in fact, the main force in the Republic. The Executive Council has exerted little power and commanded little deference, while the Volksraad has usually been guided by the President and has never taken the direction of affairs out of his hands. Both legislation and administration have been carried on in a rough-and-ready fas.h.i.+on, sometimes in violation of the strict letter of the law. In particular the provision of the Grondwet, that no statute should be enacted without being submitted for a period of three months to the people, has been practically ignored by the enactment as laws of a large number of resolutions on matters not really urgent, although the Grondwet permits this to be done only in cases which do not admit of delay. This has, however, been rectified by a law pa.s.sed subsequently to 1895, altering the provision of the Grondwet.

In 1881, when the Republic recovered its independence, there were neither roads, railways, nor telegraphs in the country. Its towns were rough hamlets planted round a little church. Its people had only the bare necessaries of life. The taxes produced scarcely any revenue. The treasury was empty, and the Government continued to be hard-pressed for money and unable to construct public works or otherwise improve the country till 1885, when the discovery of gold on the Wit.w.a.tersrand began to turn a stream of gold into its coffers. Riches brought new difficulties and new temptations. Immigrants rushed in,--capitalists, miners, and traders. As the produce of the gold-field increased, it became plain that they would come in ever increasing numbers. The old Boers took alarm. The rush could hardly have been stopped, and to stop it would have involved a check in the expansion of the revenue. It was accordingly determined to maintain the political _status quo_ by excluding these newcomers from political rights. The Grondwet declares (Article VI.) that "the territory is open for every foreigner who obeys the laws of the Republic," and as late as 1881 an immigrant could acquire the electoral franchise after a residence of two years. In 1882, however, this period was raised to five years, and in 1887 to fifteen.

In 1890, by which time the unenfranchised strangers had begun to agitate for the right to be represented, a nominal concession was made by the creation of a new chamber, called the Second Volksraad, for members.h.i.+p in which a newcomer might be eligible after taking an oath of allegiance followed by four years' residence, the right to vote at elections to this chamber being attainable after the oath and two years' residence.

This Second Raad, however, is limited to the consideration of certain specified subjects, not including taxation, and its acts can be overruled by the First Volksraad, while its a.s.sent is not required to the acts of that body. It has therefore turned out little better than a sham, having, in fact, been created only as a tub to throw to the Uitlander whale. The effect of the legislation of 1890 and subsequent years down to 1894 (legislation too intricate and confused to be set forth in detail here) has been to debar any immigrant from acquiring the right to vote for the First Volksraad until he has pa.s.sed the age of forty and resided for at least twelve years in the country after taking the oath and being placed on the local government lists, lists on which the local authorities are said to be nowise careful to place him. Nor does birth in the Republic confer citizens.h.i.+p, unless the father has taken the oath of allegiance. President Kruger, who has held office since 1881, was chiefly instrumental in pa.s.sing these laws, for his force of character, long experience of affairs, and services in the crisis of 1877-81 gave him immense power over the Raad, in which he constantly spoke, threatening the members with the loss of national independence unless they took steps to stem the rising tide of foreign influence. As a patriot, he feared the English; as a Boer Puritan of the old stubborn stock, he hated all foreigners and foreign ways, seeing in them the ruin of the ancient customs of his people. He carried this antagonism so far that, being unable to find among his citizens men sufficiently educated to deal with the growing ma.s.s of administrative work which the increase of wealth, industry, and commerce brought, he refused to appoint Dutch-speaking men from the Cape or Natal, because they were natives of British Colonies, and recruited his civil service from Holland. The Hollanders he imported were far more strange to the country than Cape Dutchmen would have been, and the Boers did not, and do not now, take kindly to them. But they were, by the necessity of their position, anti-English, and that was enough.

Meanwhile the old Boer virtues were giving way under new temptations.

The Volksraad (as is believed all over South Africa) became corrupt, though of course there have always been pure and upright men among its members. The civil service was not above suspicion. Rich men and powerful corporations surrounded those who had concessions to give or the means of influencing legislation, whether directly or indirectly.

The very inexperience of the Boer ranchman who came up as a member of the Volksraad made him an easy prey. All sorts of abuses sprang up, while the primary duties of a government were very imperfectly performed. Hardly any administration was needed while the Transvaal had a population of wandering stock-farmers. But when one hundred thousand white immigrants were congregated along the Wit.w.a.tersrand, and were employing some fifty thousand native workpeople, an efficient police, an abundant water-supply, good sanitary regulations, and laws to keep liquor from the natives became urgently needed; and none of these things was provided, although taxation continued to rise and the treasury was overflowing. Accordingly, the discontent of the Uitlanders increased. It was no longer a mere question of obtaining political rights for their own sake, it was also a question of winning political power in order to reform the administration, and so secure those practical benefits which the President and the Volksraad and the Hollander officials were either unable or unwilling to give. In 1892 an a.s.sociation, called the National Union, was formed by a number of Uitlanders, "to obtain, by all const.i.tutional means, equal rights for all citizens of the Republic, and the redress of all grievances." Although nearly all those who formed it were natives either of England or of the British Colonies, it did not seek to bring the country under British control, but included among its aims "the maintenance of the independence of the Republic."

Nevertheless, it incurred the hostility of the President and his friends, and its pet.i.tions were unceremoniously repulsed. This tended to accentuate the anti-Boer feeling of the Uitlanders, so that when Sir H.

Loch, the High Commissioner, came up from the Cape in 1894 to negotiate regarding Swaziland and other pending questions, he was made the object of a vehement demonstration at Pretoria. The English took the horses out of his carriage and drew it through the streets, waving the British flag even over the head of President Kruger himself, and shouting "Reform!

reform!" This incident redoubled Mr. Kruger's apprehensions, but did not shake his purpose. It suggested new plans to the Uitlanders, who had (shortly before) been further incensed by the demand of the Government that they should, although debarred from the suffrage, serve in a military commando sent against the Kafir chief Malaboch. Despairing of const.i.tutional agitation, they began to provide themselves with arms and to talk of a general rising. Another cause, which I have not yet mentioned, had recently sharpened their eagerness for reforms. About 1892 the theory was propounded that the gold-bearing reefs might be worked not only near the surface, but also at much greater depths, and that, owing to the diminution of the angle of the dip as the beds descend into the earth, a much greater ma.s.s of gold-bearing rock might be reached than had been formerly deemed possible. This view, soon confirmed by experimental borings, promised a far longer life to the mines than had been previously expected. Those who had come to the Rand thinking they might probably leave it after a few years now conceived the idea of permanent residence, while the directors of the great mining companies, perceiving how much their industry might be developed, smarted more than ever under the maladministration and exactions from which the industry suffered.

These were the events and these the causes that had brought about the state of things which a visitor saw at Pretoria and Johannesburg in November, 1895. Revolution was already in the air, but few could guess what form it would take. The situation was a complicated one, because each of the two main sections of the population, Boers and Uitlanders, was itself subdivided into minor groups. The Uitlanders were of many nationalities; but those who spoke English were so much the most numerous that I shall speak of them only, dismissing the remainder with the remark that while many of them sympathized with the Reform movement, few of them gave it active support, while most of the Germans, moved by anti-British feeling, favoured President Kruger's Government.