South Africa as it is

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CONTENTS. PAGE Introductory i CHAP. I. The Transvaal Annexation ... 8 II. How Troubles Began .... 27 III. The Zulu War 47 IV. Confederation on the Ebb ... 76 V. The Transvaal War ... 86 •VI. The Transvaal Settlement . . .117 VII. The Dutch Awakening .... 132 VIII. Confusion and Depression . . ■ . 146 IX. A Critical Juncture .... 161 X. Transvaal Gold 172 XI. The Intruding Millionaire. . . 187 XII. The Charter and the Rand . . . 199 XIII. The Charter at Work. . . . 214 XIV. About Railways 232 V CONTENTS. VI CHAP. PACK XV. The Matabele War . . . .245 XVI. The Next Plot 262 XVII. The Plot Explodes . . . .282 XVIII. What is to Follow? .... INTRODUCTORY. It is an old and approved saying in South African Colonies, that no High Commissioner — the func tionary who, in the highest sense, represents the British Government — can acquire an independent knowledge of the country in which he is so impor tant a factor in less than three years.

Chapter I. The Transvaal Annexation

Late on the evening of Wednesday, the 18th of April, 1877, the steamer Caldera, which had been temporarily chartered by the Castle Packets Com pany as a mail-boat, dropped anchor in Table Bay. When the port-boat came alongside, in response to the usual inquiries for news, the answer was passed up — " The Transvaal has been annexed." That act of annexation had taken place on the 12th of April, six days previously, and the news, sent by special express from Pretoria to Kimberley, had been wired from Kimberley to Capetown. There is some importance attaching to these dates. On the 31st of March the Castle Packets mail-steamer, Balmoral Castle, which had sailed from Dartmouth on her first voyage a fortnight before the Caldera, had landed the late Sir Bartle Frere at Capetown, to enter on that term of office as Governor and High Commissioner which was so vigorous in its beginning and so disastrous in its end.

There have been two theories held with regard to the act of the annexation of the Transvaal. One theory is that it was more or less an accidental blunder committed on the responsibility of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, which, being committed, could not be undone, but which was an embarrassment to Sir Bartle Frere. The other theory is that the annexa tion was part and parcel of a settled scheme for the remodelling of the map of South Africa, closely con nected with the appointment of Sir Bartle Frere to the highest post of responsibility under the British Government. Those who accept the latter theory have contended that the annexation, planned some time before, only waited for Sir Bartle Frere's arrival to be carried into effect. What are the probabilities ? Undoubtedly they are strongly in favour of the latter theory.

The appointment of Sir Bartle Frere to the High Commissionership had been known months before. His name had been coupled, on a public occasion in London at which Cabinet Ministers were present, with a policy of Imperial expansion. When Sir Theophilus Shepstone started from Natal on his special mission to Pretoria towards the close of the preceding year, troops had been moved up, at great expense, from Pietermaritzburg to a point near the Transvaal border — an operation that could not have taken place without express sanction from the War Office. It seems, therefore, difficult to believe that Sir Theophilus Shepstone, when he hoisted the British flag in Pretoria on the 12th of April, 1877, could have been acting save with the highest sanction of and in consultation with the highest repre sentative of British authority then in South Africa, i.e., Sir Bartle Frere.

As against this probability, those who are justifiably anxious to relieve Sir Bartle Frere of the odium attaching to this untoward event, have contended that, as the annexation took place on the 12th of April, and Sir Bartle Frere had only landed in Capetown on the 31st of March, there was not time for him, between those two dates, to have communicated with Sir Theophilus Shepstone. It is unfortunate that the value of this argument is entirely destroyed by the fact that the news of the annexation, occurring on the 12th of April, was known in Capetown on the evening of the 1 8th, or only six days later. It seems, then, reasonable to pay attention rather to the probabilities of the case, and the more so by reason of what had gone before and what came after. It is not now to be denied that, with the advent of the Beaconsfield Administration into office, one of the principal articles in the official portmanteau was a scheme of Imperial extension and expansion.

How that scheme worked in India there is here no need to say ; though it is distinctly pertinent to the present discussion that the official justification for the movements on the north-western frontier of India was supplied by Sir Bartle Frere, in a memorandum drawn up in 1873. The policy of expansion, so far as Colonial matters were concerned, found a ready sympathiser in the late Lord Carnarvon, who had undertaken the management of Colonial affairs when the Beaconsfield Administration was first formed in 1874. A Colonial Secretary, looking round for some opportunity of adding his contribution to the policy of expansion, found the field before him exceedingly narrow. There was nothing to be done in Canada, which had accepted, with apparent success, the principle of confederation nearly ten years before.

The prospect of expansion in Australasia was limited first by the claims of other European Powers in the same region, and next by the sterling and brusque independence of Colonial Ministries and Legislatures. There was, in fact, only one field for Colonial expansion left open, and that was South Africa. The simple idea of expansion, however, was con ditioned by Lord Carnarvon's former experiences in connection with Colonial affairs. It had been during his previous enjoyment of the same office that the North American Colonies, at their own instance, had agreed to a federated form of government. There was sufficient iclat resulting from this event to give a bright and promising aspect to the idea of federation. What had been so successful in Canada — albeit in Canada it was a natural result of previously existing conditions — might be successful in South Africa.

One can imagine this idea seizing on a Colonial Secretary with the force of an inspiration. The initial steps were not very long delayed, and, being taken hastily, were marked by an initial blunder. A few years previously, while the Liberals were in office, a popular form of constitution had been accepted by the Cape Colony in lieu of the form known as "representative institutions," which had come into force under Sir George Grey in 1854. It may have occurred to an enthusiastic Secretary of State in London that in a Colony which had been so short a time in the enjoyment of full constitutional freedom, ministers and parliaments would not be very quick at perceiving or insisting on their constitutional rights. At any rate, owing to whatever com bination of causes, an Imperial Commissioner, in the person of the late Professor Froude, was despatched to South Africa in 1875, charged with the duty of submitting to the Governments and Legislatures of both the British Colonies the scheme for a South African Federation.

The despatch of this Imperial Commissioner was not the only step taken towards paving the way for Lord Carnarvon's coveted success. In the same year advantage was taken of recent native disturb ances in Natal to alter the constitution of that Colony in a direction favourable to the projected changes. Lord Wolseley, of whom it may be con venient to speak by the name under which he was then known, was about the same time sent on a special mission to Natal, accompanied by a staff of military officers whose talents have never been dis puted. The object of that mission was, indeed, twofold. The constitution of Natal was to be altered ; the state of feeling in the two Republics — the Free State and the Transvaal — was to be ascertained. Since the year 1856 Natal had enjoyed a constitution which, though not rising above the level of " representative institutions," was of a very liberal kind.

The legislative work of the Colony was entrusted to a council of twenty members, five of whom held official positions and were responsible to the Governor of the Colony, while the remaining fifteen were freely elected by the European population. The colonists thus had the power, which was not unfrequently exercised, of defeating Government measures. To get rid of the possibility of con federation proposals being rejected, it became Sir Garnet Wolseley's duty to persuade the Natal Legis lature to assent to the addition of eight members to the Legislative Council, who should not be elected but nominated by the Governor of the day. It will readily be understood that if, in a Legislature of twenty-eight members, a Governor could depend on the votes of five officials and eight nominees, the prospect of securing a majority for Government proposals would be greatly improved.

With some little difficulty, and perhaps by the exercise of a considerable amount of personal pressure, the Natal Legislature was induced to consent to this change. Meantime leading members of Sir Garnet Wolseley's staff had visited the capitals of the Free State and the Transvaal, for the purpose of ascertaining, if possible, the feeling in those States with regard to a general scheme of confederation. In the case of the Transvaal, it is said, the report was favourable ; in the case of the Free State, it was the reverse. Lord Carnarvon's project, however, met with an unexpected check in Capetown. The head of the Ministry then in office in Capetown was Mr. (subsequently Sir John) Molteno, who, apart from his own natural independence, was accustomed to rely to no small extent on the judgment of Mr. Saul Solomon, a man of exceptional ability and force of character, whose influence in the Cape Parliament almost eclipsed that of the Premier himself.

Lord Carnarvon's despatch, coupled as it was with the uninvited appointment of an Imperial Commissioner, was viewed by Mr. Molteno and his supporters as a slight to the constitutional independence of the Colony. If there were to be proposals for confederation, it was contended, they should have been left, so far as the Cape Colony was concerned, to the initiative of the Cape Ministry. On this ground, which it must be admitted has much in its favour, the Molteno Ministry declined to consider the question, and officially ignored the Imperial Commissioner, who, after a tour through Natal and the Free State, left South Africa without having in any respect furthered the cause he was sent to promote. Having failed to secure the co-operation of the Cape Ministry — admittedly a powerful and important factor in such a question — Lord Carnarvon endeavoured to do without it.

The several Governments in South Africa were invited in 1876 to send delegates to a conference to be held in London for the purpose of discussing a confederation policy. It was a foregone conclusion that, after what had happened in 1875, the Cape Ministry would decline the invitation, which was declined also by the Governments of the two Republics. The only South African community which responded to the invitation was Natal, which appointed an official delegate in the person of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, and two unofficial delegates, one of whom is now the Premier of the Colony. The conference, which met at the Colonial Office, was a very singular affair. The two unofficial delegates from Natal were practically ignored, and whatever real consultations took place were carried on be tween Lord Carnarvon, Sir Garnet Wolseley, and Sir Theophilus Shepstone.

The conference, however, was important in this respect- — that it was the immediate prelude to the annexation of the Transvaal. If Lord Carnarvon had received the active support and sympathy of the Cape Government, it is quite possible that this step would not have been resolved on. As it was, it must have been plain to those who were officially interested in the matter that the confederation policy would break down unless some special steps were taken to avert such a calamity. It was about this time that the appointment of Sir Bartle Frere to the dual office of Governor of the Cape of Good Hope and High Commissioner for South Africa, with powers far in excess of those enjoyed by any predecessor in those offices, began to be talked of, and it was about the same time that Sir Theophilus Shepstone, making a somewhat hurried departure from England, was sent on a special mission to the Transvaal, his arrival in Pretoria being accompanied by the moving up of an infantry regiment from Pietermaritzburg to a point near the Transvaal border.

Taking all these facts into consideration, it seems difficult to believe that the hoisting of the British flag in Pretoria on the 12th of April, 1877, had not a close connection with the arrival of Sir Bartle Frere at Capetown on the 31st of the previous month. Sir Bartle Frere was not a man who was accustomed to let the grass grow under his feet ; indeed, before he had been a fortnight in Capetown, he had gained an acquaintance with the municipal and personal affairs of its inhabitants, which caused both surprise and amusement. Meantime, there can be no question that the act of the annexation of the Transvaal, unexpected though it was, was regarded with satisfaction by the great majority of British residents in South Africa, and all the more so because it had been made to appear as though it had been brought about with the consent of a majority of the European inhabitants of the State.

Indeed, it seemed to not a few impossible to believe that the thing had come about in any other way. Those who knew to the contrary, and who resented this extinguishing of independence solemnly gua ranteed a quarter of a century before — that is to say, the Dutch population of the whole of South Africa — were without means of making their feelings known. Even where they were represented by newspapers published in Dutch, those newspapers were rarely read by Englishmen. There can be no question, too, that the annexation was very much SOUTH AFRICA AS IT IS. helped by the weakness and unpopularity of the then President of the Transvaal, Mr. Thomas Francois Burgers, a man of considerable education and intelligence, but who had come to be singularly out of touch with the great majority of the Transvaal farmers.

That the finances of the country were not in a satisfactory state may be admitted ; but they were by no means in so hopeless a condition as has been popularly believed, and would have been in a far better condition had it not been for the pressure purposely exercised by certain financial institutions. By the great majority of English residents in South Africa, then — the section of the population which most readily found means for giving expression to its views — the annexation was regarded with approval. It appeared to them in the light of a desirable thing well done, and all the better done because it had been done with the assent of those most affected by the change. The official justification, however, took another shape, as began to be seen when the official despatches were studied in blue-books.

It then came to be perceived that the whole idea of confederation was officially founded, whether genuinely or not, on a native scare. The doctrine was inculcated that, unless the European populations of South Africa could be bound together by some form of federated government, they were in danger of being obliterated by a general and combined rising of natives. That any single resident in South Africa accepted this idea is not to be believed for a moment. Whether the conviction was genuinely and sincerely held in high official circles in England, or whether it was only officially accepted for a certain purpose, will probably remain an unsolved problem. But those who were acquainted with the country, whether they were British or Dutch by descent, were never under alarm of any kind until, as may be seen later on, alarm began to be created through the continual persistence of officials in indicating danger.

A consideration of the history and the position of the native races of South Africa will serve to show that the alarmist views held in high official places were without justification. To begin with, that general banding together of natives against Europeans, which was the favourite official bugbear, was an impossibility. The European population, it was often urged, lived widely apart. That is true, no doubt, for South Africa is a large country and the European population is not very numerous. But if the Europeans live widely apart, so do natives live widely apart, and they are, moreover, separated by differences of race and by ancient hatreds which are even more difficult to overcome than geographical distances. Zulus would never make common cause with Swazies, and neither Swazies nor Zulus would ever act in concert with Basutos.

In the same way neither the Pondos nor the Fingoes would ever enter into a combination with the tribes along the eastern border of the Cape Colony. The same may be said with regard to the native tribes in the northern and north-eastern districts of the Transvaal. They are separated by immense distances from the natives nearer to the coast, and have little in common with each other. Beyond this, there is not a native race of any im portance in South Africa that was not thoroughly well beaten years before Lord Carnarvon fell in love with the idea of confederation, and beaten, too, with weapons far inferior to those in more modern use. SOUTH AFRICA AS IT IS. The branch of the Zulu race under Mosilikatze was routed, subdued, and driven northward in the very earliest days of Transvaal settlement.

The Basutos, in many respects the most formidable of native fighters, were completely defeated by the Free State burghers in 1869. The Pondos had been known as a peaceable and pastoral people for nearly half a century. When trouble has happened during more recent years with any native tribes, it has not been by reason of native invasions, but through the necessity of turning natives out of the fastnesses from which they carried on marauding raids against individual homesteads. That has been the case in the majority of South African wars with natives, and perhaps more especially in the Transvaal. A great deal has been made, by apologists for the Transvaal annexation, of the failure of the Transvaal burgher forces, in 1876, to deal with Sekukuni. What they failed to do was what a British expedition failed to do a year or two later — they failed to turn Sekukuni out of his strongholds among the rugged mountain ranges in the north-east of the Transvaal.

But, though they failed to do this, the Republic was in no kind of danger from Sekukuni any more than it was in danger from Mapoch, who till 1883 occupied mountain fastnesses only 150 miles from Pretoria. Again, the operations against the native tribes on the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony in 1877 anc-- 1878 were operations not to drive the natives back from Colonial territory, but to drive them out of the difficult country in which they had taken refuge. The case of the Zulus, whose power has been so frequently used as a justification for the annexation of the Transvaal, demands perhaps special considera tion. The theory has been put about till it is in many places accepted as expressing the actual fact that, but for the annexation of the Transvaal by the British Government, that country would have been swept and devastated by the Zulus.

There is not the smallest real justification for such a theory, nor was it ever for a moment seriously held by persons practically acquainted with South Africa. The defeat of the whole Zulu power by the emigrant farmers in 1838, at the historic battle of the Bloed River, is the oldest of old stories. One of the results of that battle was the dethronement and subsequent assassination of the Zulu chief Dingaan ; another result was the installation of Panda, by the victorious Transvaal burghers, as Dingaan's successor. During the thirty-five years of Panda's chieftainship, from 1838 to 1873, the Zulus and the burghers of the South African Republic lived on reasonably good terms, and there cannot be any shadow of doubt that if the Zulus, who still kept up their military organisation, had attempted any invasion of the Transvaal, they would have been dealt with as Dingaan's armies were dealt with in 1838.

It is necessary that this should be understood, because the main official justification both of the Transvaal annexation and its sequel, the Zulu war, has been found in the theory that the Zulu power was a threat to European supremacy in South Africa, and specially to European supremacy in the Transvaal. It may be conceded that there was a certain element of danger in the maintenance of the military system in Zululand, where the traditions of former conquests of the Zulu race — conquests usually of extermination — were still cherished. The Zulus, however, knew very well the limits of their power, especially in any direction in which they were likely to be brought in contact with the sons of the Dutch settlers who had overthrown both Mosilikatze and Dingaan, and they also had a very shrewd notion that the apparently weak Government in Natal was representative of a vast power across the sea.

Beyond this there can be little doubt that Cetywayo, in spite of the bloodthirsty character so often attributed to him, was as sincerely anxious for peace as had been his father Panda. The very request which has been so often quoted as testifying to his ferocious nature is really evidence the other way. That request was for permission for his regiments to " wash their spears " in the blood of their old hereditary enemies the Swazies. The facts that he requested permission, that he did not, as he might easily have done, act without permission when it was withheld, and that he distinctly limited the request to a neighbouring native tribe, are very significant. The reason for the request, properly considered, was even more significant. According to Zulu tradition, a man was not acceptable as a husband until he had proved his worth as a warrior, and it was really the desire of Cetywayo to see his people settling down peaceably that led him to wish for an opportunity of indulging in a little war.

The request, from a civilised point of view, was an impossible one ; to grant it, even with a sure guarantee that the Swazies only would suffer, would have been a serious danger to the general peace of the country. Nevertheless, the whole circumstances fully justify the conclusion that from the aggressive power of the Zulus, as against Europeans, there was nothing to fear. When their own country was invaded it was a different matter. Were those who were responsible for the "forward" policy which Sir Bartle Frere represented, and which was so forcibly expressed in the annexation of the Transvaal, sincere in their professed belief in the existence of a general threat to European civilisation from a combination of native races ? That is a question which it would be difficult to answer ; but it may at least be said that the presence of this danger had become so much a matter of popular acceptance in England that officials might well have been led at last to believe in the danger which they had themselves first of all exaggerated.

The man who has become convinced that " the hobgoblins will have him," inevitably comes to see hobgoblins where none really exist. But whether they sincerely believed in this justification or not, the chief issue remains the same. The Transvaal was annexed in defiance of a settled policy that had been found satisfactory and workable for a quarter of a century ; it was annexed in the following out of a scheme of Imperial expansion ; it was annexed, as there is much reason for believing, because more moderate plans for furthering this scheme of expansion had fallen through ; it was annexed, as has been since freely admitted, contrary to the wishes of the great majority of its population ; and it was annexed under a justification which was not genuine and which was at variance with the real facts of the situation.

It is this act of the annexation of the Transvaal — an act that brought after it so bitter a Nemesis — that stands on the front page of the history of South Africa during the last twenty years. Directly or indirectly it is responsible for all the trouble, all the friction, that has since followed ; for it stirred up that antagonism between the two dominant European races which finds its extremest expression on one hand in the smoking-rooms of Cape mail-steamers, and on the other hand in the bitter words that spring to the lips of Dutch farmers in the remoter corners of the great South African tableland. It revived animosities that were dying out, and gave to old stories of oppression a significance that made them new again. All this, however, it was difficult for the majority of British residents and colonists in South Africa to realise at the time.

The very novelty and dimensions of the act dazzled them, and disabled them in most cases from investigating as carefully as they might otherwise have done the alleged consent of the majority of the Transvaal population. Beyond this, the natural delight in action, the belief in an impetus to trade, the high reputation of the new representative of the British Empire in South Africa — all these things together helped to blind the majority as to the real nature of the thing that had been done, and induced them to accept it as indicative of a coming tide of prosperity and progress. There were a few men, experienced in the history and the circumstances of the country, who saw the wrong from the first and never ceased to protest against it. There were also without doubt a few who also saw the wrong from the first, but who found in it opportunities for land speculation by which they hoped largely to profit.

There is, however, one thing to be said. The annexation might have had some kind of a success, some chance of being less of a failure, if it had been backed up by steps tending to display a real and living interest in the welfare of the country. The addition to the British Empire of a territory with an area not much less than that of the Kingdom of Prussia, might surely have been expected to stir up some enthusiasm in the minds of the supporters of a Conservative and adventurous British Cabinet. It might have been thought, too, that a people who, as it was believed, had professed their preference for British rule, deserved to receive some sort of en couragement. Unfortunately the traditional economy of the Treasury stepped in to chill the ardour of the Colonial Office. There was no kind of financial provision made even for the administration of the new province, still less for the execution of any of those public works which are usually regarded as typical of the advent of British rule.

It has been stated, and has never been contradicted, that the first expenses of administration came from a loan pri vately made to the official who, when the British flag was hoisted, published his commission as Ad ministrator. Taxation was not to be thought of ; even the collection of taxes which had been authorised under the Republican Government was judiciously suspended. After considerable delay and under strong pressure, the Chancellor of the Exchequer consented to ask the House of Commons to sanction a loan of -£100,000, out of which money already expended was paid back, and which served for the necessities of the immediate moment. Mean time the same distrust of the people, the same secret knowledge of their opposition to the annexa tion, that stood in the way of taxation, stood also in the way of any attempt at the establishment of a representative form of government.