RV.
Conservative.
THE SOUTH AFRICAN NATIVE AND
THK WAR.
To most Englishmen South Africa is
one of the great divisions of England's
Colonial Empire. This is misleading ,
because it assumes that South Africa
bears a family resemblance to Canada
and Australasia , which is not correct.
She has all the main features of a British
colony with the vast native population
of a tropical province ; and herein lies
the origin of nearly all her sorrows. It
has been her great problem in the past ,
it is the problem of the present , and it
will be the problem of the future. For
South Africa is not , as we are inclined
to conceive it , a white man's country
with a black fringe ; it is , like India , a
black man's country with a white ruling
caste. In Capo Colony the Kaffirs are
in the proportion of three to one of the
European population ; in Natal twelve
to one ; in the republics two to one ; in
all the other territories of South Africa
under British rule hundreds to one. It
must be remembered , too , that the
natives are steadily increasing ; they are
not dying out like the Maori of New
Zealand , the Bed Indian of British
North America , or the black of Australia.
Forty years ago Natal was a wilderness ;
today it has a coloured population
700,000 strong. Even more disquieting
than their numbers is their warlike
character. So recently as the 'seventies
the military organization of the Zulus
was so thorough as to render them the
terror of their neighbors. The Basutos ,
the Matabele , the Bechuanas , and the
Swazis have all fought either with our
selves or with the Boers during the past
fourteen years. With the war now in
progress between the two white races in
South Africa there looms up the danger
of a native rising , whose horrors can
hardly be realized even by old and ex
perienced colonists , certainly not by
average Englishmen , with their dislike
of war in the abstract. Should it be
averted , the credit will be due , not to
President Kruger and the Dutch , but to
the British , who , in spite of their many
mistakes , govern the Queen's native
subjects with justice and humanity.
For , up to the discovery of gold on
the Rand , the main point at issue
between England and the Boers was
their cruelty to the natives. Indeed ,
since the "Great Trek , " the only defi
nite aim to be found in our colonial
policy is a generous desire to obtain fair
treatment for the Kaffir. It was not
colonial government which drove the
Dutch from Cape Colony to Natal , and
thence across the Yool , but a hatred of
English law ; it was not injustice that
sent them into the wilderness , but their
Old Testament ideas on subject races.
It is , therefore , absolutely false to assert ,
as Little Englanders are in the habit of
doing , that they fled from British rule
because they were wronged. As a mat-
pf fact , they fled because British rule
would not allow them to wrong the
natives. The Boer road from Cape
Town to Pretoria , and from British
citizenship to the repudiation of British
supremacy , has been one long struggle
between Old Testament doctrine and
New Testament doctrine , between
humanitarian civilization and medieval
ism. Even the annexation of the
Kimberley diamond fields , to which
moralists partly ascribe Dutch distrust
of the suzerain power , was due to the
hopeless inability of the Dutch to
govern a motley mining population of
diggers and natives. For the policy
pursued at that time ample justification
is to be found in the condition of
Johannesburg at the present moment.
England and the Transvaal are thus
sharply defined in South Africa on two
main issues. British rule is based on
equal rights for white races without
distinction of nationality , and fair treat
ment for the native ; Boer rule is based
on political rights for the few , oppres
sion for the many , and practical slavery
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respected ; the latter is hated and feared.
On the west of the Transvaal are the
Bechuanas , which , in defiance of the
convention of Pretoria , were raided by
the Boers. In revenge for their loyalty
to England during the war of 1880-81 ,
Montsioa and Mankaroane's people and
cattle were carried off in scores , their
property destroyed , and atrocities com
mitted on their women and children.
Other chiefs were similarly treated , and
so bold did the Boers become that they
actually occupied the most valuable
portions of the territory , setting up two
republics , which they called Stellaland
and Goshen. Owing to the exertions of
the Rev. John Mackenzie , the attention
of the home government was directed to
these lawless proceedings , with the re
sult that an expedition was sent to
Bechuanaland under Sir Charles War
ren , and the Boer filibusters had to
retire. But it can be readily imagined
that the Beohuanas have not forgotten
what they suffered from 1881 to 1885 ,
and would be only too glad to avenge
their wrongs if they saw a convenient
opportunity. On the east are the Swazis ,
whose grudge against the South African
republic is a thing of yesterday. Their
independence was also guaranteed by
the convention of Pretoria ; but owing
to the encroachments of the Boers and
the weakness of the home and colonial
governments , it has become a shadow.
In spite of the prayers of the Swazis ,
and their proved loyalty , it was agreed
between Lord Loch and President
Kruger that the Transvaal should exer
cise jurisdiction over Swaziland , subject
to the consent of the native government.
The Swazis , being in full possession of
their senses , absolutely refused to give
it , and another convention was drawn
up in 1898 , which practically handed
them over to the tender mercies of the
Boers , but fortunately provided that
their territory was not to be annexed to
the Transvaal. This has been a sore
point with president Krnger ever since ,
and is one of the many differences
between ourselves and the republic. Of
all the native foes on the border , then ,
the Swazis are the most likely to give
the Boers trouble. Not only are they
subject to a power they both hate and
despise , but they have lively remem
brances of the cruelties practiced on
them by Abel Erasmus , the Boer repre
sentative in their midst , described by
Lord Wolsoley , then Sir Garnet , as "a
fiend in human form. " An instance of
the many heartrending circumstances
connected with Boer encroachments on
their territory was thus related by Sir
Henry Bnlwer : "They ( the Boerd ) also
took the children belonging to nineteen
kraals and refused to give them up ,
though their parents prayed for their
restoration. The inhabitants of these
kraals then followed the Boers who had
their children , and have never re
turned. "
In Zululand the Boers played exactly
the same game , and so successfully , that
they acquired a large slice of territory
in the new republic. On the north they
were kept in check by the numbers and
military organization of the Matabele.
The Orange Free State has an hereditary
foe in the Basutos , who have fought the
burghers at intervals for two generations.
Moshesh , their chief , was for half a
century one of the great figures in South
Africa , and it was only when his people
were threatened with destruction that
he appealed to Great Britain for protec
tion. At present , Basutoland is ad
ministered by an English resident. The
two republics will thus have to reckon
on the possibility of having to face a
hostile force of not less than sixty
thousand Basuto warriors , not less than
fifteen thousand Swazis , who were
strong enough to defy Ohaka and
Dingoan , and not less than twenty
thousand Bechuanas. Naturally , Eng
land , for her own sake , will do all in her
power to restrain the natives under her
rule , but the Dutch know very well that ,
with British energies directed elsewhere ,
there is no telling what may happen.
Nor is this the worst. Like the slaveholding -
holding states in the American civil war ,
they have a danger within even more
menacing than the danger without.
The Transvaal natives , with the support
of the Zulus , are neither warlike nor
brave. But scattered as they are over
every farm in the country , they have
opportunities for mischief which can
hardly be estimated. They are cruelly
ill-treated , and receive no more con
sideration than the beasts of the field.
Yet they come of a fighting race , and
know something of the art of war.
Moreover , lately a chief was in rebellion ,
and crushed only with the greatest
difficulty ; so that a considerable force
must be able to take the field. There