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South Africa

From the Dominion of New Zealand we turn to the most recently united of our colonies, to South Africa. Neither the poet nor the historian has yet arisen to do justice to its varied and romantic story. But the Union of South Africa, achieved in 1909, marks the end of a period during which South Africa, to a degree perhaps unexampled in the annals of any other country, has been "the sport of circumstance", and enables the historian to survey that story with a more impartial mind than was perhaps previously possible.

The Cape oj Good Hope was first discovered by the Portu­guese in 1486. At first it was regarded merely as a port of call on the way to the Far East, and it was chiefly because of its value as a halfway house to its Eastern -possessions that the Dutch established a station there in 1652. The Dutch, however, then began to settle in Cape Colony, and at the close seventeenth century these Dutch settlers were reinforced by Huguenot exiles from France. In the last years of I lie eighteenth century, when Holland was occupied by the French, Great Britain captured and held Cape Colony, but she gave it back at the Peace of Amiens in 1802. Later on, however, Great Britain recaptured it, and in 1814 her title was formally recog­nized, on a certain sum being paid for its purchase.

In order to make the complicated story of South Africa subse­quent to 1815 clearer, three points should be borne in mind. In Great Britain for some time, like Holland. former years, regarded the Cape chiefly as a halfway house to India, as a place where ships bound for India could obtain water and victuals. She was jealous of retaining exclusive control over the sea borders of South Africa, but she was ex­tremely reluctant to increase her territory or her responsibilities in the interior; she was anxious, indeed, to draw in the horns of Empire rather than to extend them.

Secondly, the Dutch at the Cape, or Boers as they came to be called, had altered little in character since their first settlement in the country. Upon them, as with the Puritans of the seven­teenth century in England, whom indeed they resembled in many respects, it was the teaching in the Old Testament rather than that in the New that had the greater hold. They had the same intense conviction as the Puritans that God was with them in all their decisions, and the supreme self-confidence and self-righteous­ness that such a conviction engendered. And the rugged, ob­stinate, simple Boer farmer, incurably suspicious of everything new, and ardently tenacious of his rights, had little in common with the eager sympathies, progressive ideas, and, it must be added, the somewhat ignorant sentimentality which characterized a large portion of the British public during the nineteenth century.

Thirdly, there was an enormous coloured and semi-barbarous population in South Africa; part belonged to the Hottentot race, but the great majority of tribes, such as the Kaffirs, Zulus, and Basutos, belonged to the race of the Bantus. Even at the present time, in the territories comprising the Union of South Africa, the Kaffirs outnumber the people of European descent by six to one, and, of course, a hundred years previous to the Union the dis­proportion was much greater, the total number of Europeans in South Africa in 1815 being only some thirty thousand.

It was the native question which first produced friction be­tween Boer and Briton. Allusion has already been made to the growth of humanitarian sentiments in Great Britain during the nineteenth century. It was natural that these sentiments should affect the opinion of Great Britain as to the relations which ought to exist between the white and coloured races. Gradually it was felt that slavery and the slave trade could continue no longer in British territories. Great Britain, owing largely to the influence of Wilberforce, had made a beginning, in 1807, by prohibiting the slave trade, the horrors of which it is impossible to exaggerate; and at the Congress of Vienna (1814) she had persuaded the other European nations to follow her example. In 1833 Great Britain went a step further and prohibited slavery in the British dominions. The British planters in the West Indies were the chief people affected by this law. They had hitherto depended upon the slaves who had been exported at various times from Africa for the working of the sugar plantations. To compensate them for their loss a sum of twenty millions was voted to them by the British Parliament. At the same time the slaves were to remain for a period of years as apprentices to their old masters. But the apprentice system was a failure, and led to the complete emancipation of the slaves in 1838. There was considerable friction between the Jamaican planters and the British ministry over this and other questions, which finally led to the suspension of the Jamaican constitution (1839).

But the Dutch at the Cape also possessed slaves, chiefly imported from the Malay States and parts of Africa, and they were affected by the law of 18^. They received compensation, it is true, but only to about one-third of the real value of their slaves. The abolition of slavery, however, did not so much rankle in the Dutch mind as the conferment, five years previously, in 1828, upon the native races in Cape Colony of the same political rights as Europeans possessed. The natives were regarded by the Boers as belonging to an inferior race, and so destined to be for all time hewers of wood and drawers of water for the white race. Besides, their numbers and turbulence made them a constant source of danger to the colonists, and the Boer treatment of them, though perhaps not often unjust, was not tempered with much mercy. Many people in Great Britain, on the other hand, looked upon the natives as peaceful tribes persistently bullied by the Boers, a belief due in a large measure to the reports of British missionaries in South Africa.

It was this difference in view, besides other smaller grievances, that led, in 1836, to what is known as the Great Trek. A large number of Boers, with their wives and children, their Bibles, their oxen and wagons, left Cape Colony and went north and east to seek some place where they would be left in peace to do as they pleased. In ten years' time it is said that as many thousands of people departed from British territory. Some went across the mountains into Natal, in which district a few British emigrants had already settled; but when the Boers tried to reach the sea coast the British Government was alarmed, and in 1843 Natal was annexed to the Empire. The Boers resisted, and on their failure many left the colony. In the years to come Natal was settled chiefly by British colonists, and became predominantly British in race and sentiment. Other Boers settled in the land between the Orange and the Vaal rivers. After a time this was also annexed by Great Britain, but in 1854 the independence of the Boers in that country was recognized by Great Britain, and the land became known as the Orange Free State, having its capital at Bloemfontein. Other Boers, again, went even farther north beyond the Vaal River, and their inde­pendence was also recognized, in 1852, by Great Britain under what is known as the Sand River Convention. The country which they inhabited was called the Transvaal, and its capital, before long, was Pretoria.

The Boers in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State fondly hoped that they were free from British interference; and indeed the British Government had no desire for any responsibility beyond the Orange River. Circumstance!, however, forced the British boundary forward, IIos tilities between the Orange Free State and the Basutos caused t/x-British Government to declare Basutoland a British protectory »• in 1868. The discovery of diamonds near what is now known as Kimberley, led to an enormous rush of people, chiefly of British origin, and the British Government, to preserve order and prolix I, the interests of their own subjects, annexed the whole country round Kimberley, to the great disappointment of the two Republics, who thought they had a better claim to it (1871).

Meantime, in Cape Colony itself considerable progress has been made. About 1820 a great many British immigrants arrived, and settled, for the most part, in the eastern part of the colony round Grahamstown. Periodic hostilities with the Kaffirs—there were no less than five wars between 1815 and 1878—led to the territories of Cape Colony being extended up to the Orange River. As the colony prospered, both Dutch and British colonists demanded more control of the government; they obtained partial control in the fifties, while in 1872 Cape Colony became self-governing.

The thirty-two years preceding the Union of South Africa, from 1877 to 1909, have been years crowded with incidents, and these have been the subject of such acute controversy that it is difficult to explain them clearly in brief outline. The first of the incidents was the annexation of the Transvaal in Transvaal, 1877. The Transvaal had not prospered since this independence had been recognized. Divided leaders and an empty exchequer had paralysed its government. Its weakness had Income a danger to the whole European population in South Africa, more especially as it was on the verge of war with the natives on its boundaries, and such a war, if successful for the natives, as it might have been, would have unsettled all the tribes elsewhere. Under these circumstances a British commissioner, who had been sent out with full powers, decided to annex the Transvaal to I In British dominions, and his decision was supported by the Home Government.

This annexation had two effects. In the first place, it angered the Zulus who bordered on the Transvaal. They had organized by Cefewayo, and possessed forty thousand warriors, and they had hoped to invade the Transvaal.

The relations between the British and Zulus had hitherto been friendly, but, in the imagery of the latter, the English cow, as the result of the annexation, had neglected her own calf – Zululand and was giving milk to a strange calf—the Transvaal. Various disputes led finally to war in 1879. The British suffered a disaster at Isandhlwana, where a detached force was surrounded and killed almost to a man; but this was followed by a British victory at Ulundi and the capture of Cetewayo, which led to the sub­mission of the Zulus.

The second result of the annexation was the rising of the Transvaal Boers. The great majority had been opposed to the incorporation of the Transvaal in the British dominions, but it is improbable that any rising would have taken, place if the British Government had carried out its expressed intention of granting self-government. Instead of that, both the ministry of Disraeli and that of Gladstone, which succeeded it, pursued a policy of what has well been termed " loitering unwisdom", and nothing was done. Then suddenly, in 1881, the Boers rose. The British commander, Sir George Colley, had only been in the country five months, and with a " scratch " force of one thousand two hundred men had to attempt the release of some isolated garrisons in the Transvaal. He underestimated the fighting capacity of the Boers and the strength of their position near Laing's Nek, and he was repulsed in two attempts to dislodge them. Then came the crowning disaster. The Boers, attacking in their turn, stormed Majuba Hill, a hill with a top like a saucer, the rim of which was held by part of the British forces; they forced the British back from the rim into the basin below, with the result that Colley himself was killed, and the defenders of the hill either shared his fate or were taken prisoners.

Just before Majuba, Gladstone's Government had been nego­tiating for a settlement with the Boers; it continued to negotiate after this disaster, and finally agreed to recognize the independence of the Boers, though they recognized, were to be under British suzerainty (1881). Whether Gladstone's ministry was right in this policy has been matter of fierce dispute. It has been urged in its defence that it was bound to continue the negotiations begun before Majuba was fought, and to carry them, if possible, to a successful issue. On the other hand, the fact remains that Gladstone's ministry, on entering office, had resolved to maintain the annexation; and the abandonment of this policy a few months later, after three British reverses, led the Boers to believe that their independence was won by force of arms and to belittle the fighting powers of the British race.

Three years later, in 1884, the British Government, at the urgent request of the Boers, dropped the title of "suzerain power'' and accorded to the Transvaal the title of South African Republic, though it preserved a veto on all treaties which the republic might make with foreign powers, and insisted on freedom of trade and residence for all Europeans (1884). By the same convention the boundaries of the Transvaal were strictly defined. But Paul Kruger, who as a boy of ten had taken part in the Great Trek, and was now president of the re­public, had visions of a Boer Empire, which might dominate South Africa. Fortunately, however, for Great Britain, an Englishman who had settled in South Africa, Cecil Rhodes, had still wider visions of an empire under the British flag, which might match the mighty Dominion of Canada on the other side of the Atlantic. Largely through his efforts the successive attempts of the Trans­vaal Republic to extend its sway were foiled. Thus the republic's aggression in the west led the British Government to declare Bechuanaland a British protectorate in 1885; her activity was checked in the east by the British annexation of Zululand in 1887, and in the north by the creation in 1889 of the British South Africa Company, which obtained the control of the country now known as Rhodesia.

Meanwhile the internal conditions in the Transvaal had been entirely altered by the discovery of the goldfields in 1886. The goldfields People swarmed into the republic, and the town of Johannesburg sprang into being. In a few years the newcomers outnumbered the Boers. What was to happen? The policy of President Kruger was uncompromising. He imposed various restrictions which hampered the development of the mines, and, at the same time, proceeded to extract from their produce nineteen-twentieths of the taxes which he desired for the administration of the republic. Moreover, by various laws, he practically excluded the newcomers from having a vote or any share in the political control of the country.

The situation, there is no doubt, was an exceedingly diffi cult one. Between the old-fashioned, conservative, slow-moving Boer farmers in the country, and the bustling, active, somewhat cos­mopolitan European gold hunters who lived in the town Uitlanders as they were called—there coma be little sympathy. It was natural that the former should be ap­prehensive of their nationality being stifled by the ever-increasing invasion of the newcomers, and should oppose any concession to them. On the other hand, it was impossible that educated Euro­peans, who formed a majority of the population and possessed more than half the land and nine-tenths of the wealth, should remain in the position of "helots", subject to the caprice of a government over which they had no control, and which was, in addition, notoriously corrupt.

In 1895 matters came to a head. Preparations were made for an armed rebellion. Cecil Rhodes, who was premier of Cape Colony, supported the movement. He felt that the position of the Uitlanders was intolerable. Moreover, Kriigers policy blocked his great scheme of uniting South Africa; for Kruger tried to detach the republic commercially from the other states in South Africa by favouring in all possible ways the railway to the Portuguese harbour of Delagoa Bay, thereby rousing great resentment in Cape Colony and Natal. But the movement for rebellion ended in a complete fiasco; its leaders could not agree as to the best policy to be pursued, and gave up the idea. Dr. Jameson, however, who had collected some six hundred horsemen on the eastern frontier of the Transvaal, auda­ciously invaded the republic at the end of 1895, and had igno-miniously to surrender with all his men four days later;

The Jameson raid had evil consequences. It led to Rhodes resigning the premiership of Cape Colony—in Rhodes's own words3 "it upset his apple-cart"; it embittered feeling between Dutch and British throughout South Africa; it encouraged Presi­dent Kriiger to make elaborate preparations for war; and the col­lapse of the raid caused the German emperor to send a telegram of congratulation to Kriiger which aroused great resentment in Great Britain. Moreover, as the result of the raid, the lot of the Uitlanders became harder instead of easier, and the prospect of remedying the grievances by peaceful means more remote. But Mr. Chamberlain, the British secretary of state for the colonies, and Sir Alfred (afterwards Lord) Milner, the British high commissioner at the Cape, were determined that something must be done. Protracted negotiations with Kriiger led to no result, and war became inevitable. In October, 1899, Kriiger issued an ultimatum, and shortly afterwards war was declared. The Orange Free State threw in its lot with the South African Republic, and Great Britain found herself involved in a formid­able struggle, a struggle upon which depended not merely the future political privileges of the Uitlanders, but the existence of the British Empire in South Africa.

It is perhaps not a matter for surprise that the initial suc­cesses in the South African War should have gone to the Boers. They had made secret preparations for some time, African War, whilst the British arrangements were incomplete. the Boers were all born fighters, campaigning in a country the conditions of which were familiar to them, and they possessed a mobility through all being mounted on hardy ponies, which made them for some time extremely baffling foes for the British forces. Consequently, one Boer force was able to invade Natal and to shut up the British commander, Sir George White, in Ladysmith; another invested Kimberley, while a third crossed the Orange River and invaded Cape Colony.

The British misfortunes culminated in the Black Week of December, 1899, when three reverses were suffered in six days. In Natal, Sir Redvers Buller, trying to cross the Tugela River in order to relieve Ladysmith, was repulsed, losing ten guns and nearly one thousand men killed and wounded. In the west, Lord Methuen attempted a night attack on the Boer position at Magersfontein,) which barred the way:'to Kimberley, and failed, the Highland regiments suffering most severely. In Cape Colony, a night march made by Gatacre, with intent to surprise the enemy, resulted instead in the surprise and defeat of the British at Stormberg.

The Boers, however, had made three miscalculations. In the first place, they expected that the Dutch in Cape Colony would join them; but though a certain number did so, the great majority remained neutral. Secondly, they relied on assistance from European powers; but though the sympathies of Euro­pean peoples, perhaps not unnaturally, were strongly with the Boers, the incontestable superiority of the British navy made any armed intervention too hazardous, for any European Government to attempt it. Thirdly, previous experience had caused the Boers to belittle the fighting capacity of the British race and the determination of British statesmen. But Great Britain felt she was on her trial. Regulars and volun­teers, militia and yeomanry, were poured into South Africa from Great Britain. The Uitlanders and British in various parts of South Africa formed themselves into corps which did invaluable service. Most significant of all, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand sent volunteer regiments to aid the mother country. By the end of 1900 Great Britain had more than a quarter of a mil­lion of armed men in South Africa. Moreover, Great Britain's two most trusted soldiers, Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener were sent out as comrnander-in-chief and chief of the staff.

The clouds then soon lifted. Lord Roberts relieved Kimberley, and captured at Paardeberg, in February, 1900, the Boer force under Cronje, which had previously barred the way, and was then trying to escape. The day following Cronje's capture, Ladysmith was at last, after various unsuc­cessful attempts, relieved by .1 killer. Lord Roberts occupied Bloemfontein in March and Pretoria in June, and both republics, of which these two places were the capitals, were then annexed to Great Britain.

But the Boers held on with grim tenacity. They had, both before and after the capture of their two capitals, harassed Lord Roberts's communications, captured some of his supplies, and won various small successes. The Boers were excellent guerrilla fighters; their generals, Botha and De Wet, were ubiquitous; whilst the ex-president of the Orange Free State, Steyn, inspired the Boers with his own untiring zeal. Lord Roberts left South Africa in November, 1900, and then Lord Kitchener, his successor, gradually wore the Boer resistance down. Finally, in June, 1902, peace was made. By its terms the two republics were formally annexed to Great Britain; but the Dutch language was allowed in schools and courts of justice; the question of granting the natives a vote was left to each state to deal with;1 and self-government was to be granted as soon as circumstances would permit.

Excluding those who died from disease, a not inconsiderable number, the British had lost six thousand lives and the Boers four thousand in the fighting, and the war had cost the British nation £ 2 00,000,000 in money. But the war had preserved South Africa for the British flag, and it made possible its subsequent union. No power could have acted with greater generosity than Great Britain did alter the war. She spent five millions of her own money in resettling the Boers on their own lands, and she pledged her credit for loans amounting to forty millions to assist her new colonies, whilst Lord Milner for nearly three years supervised their re­construction. At the end of that time representative government was introduced, followed by the grant of full self-government in 1906, only four and a half years after the end of the war an experiment which, though apparently rash, has been wonderfully justified by its success.

Meanwhile the movement for the union of the South African States grew quickly. A national convention to consider its practicability began to sit in 1908, and concluded its , labours in 1909. A wise spirit of compromise and toleration pervaded all parties and overcame all diffi­culties. General Botha was selected by the governor, Lord Gladstone (Mr. Gladstone's son), as the first prime minister, and in October, 1910, the new Parliament of South Africa, represent­ing the Transvaal and the Orange River Colonies, Cape Colony, and Natal, was formally opened by the Duke of Connaughtnot the least remarkable of the many remarkable events in South Africa during the past century.

We have dealt with the story of the self-governing colonies, and a word may be said in conclusion as to their present con­stitutions and their relations to the mother country. Each of the five dominions Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New , Zealand, and South Africa—has a Parliament consisting of two houses: the popular chamber, upon whose support the ministry is dependent, and which has the chief control in finance; and the other, called a Senate or Council, consisting either of nominated or of elected members. " Every law has to be passed through both these assemblies. The degree of power allowed to the provinces composing Canada, Australia, and South Africa respectively varies; in Australia the provinces are given a great deal of independence, in Canada and South Africa not very much. With regard to their rela­tions to Great Britain, each of the self-governing colonies has a Governor appointed by the Crown. He plays a part in each colony similar to that played by the sovereign in Great Britain. He selects the prime minister and acts as adviser in times of crisis; in addition to this he has the power of vetoing laws or of referring them to the British Government, though he would only do so if he held that they conflicted with imperial interests. Various attempts have been made of late years to bring the colonies and the mother country closer together. The first Colonial Conference was held in 1887, and others followed at intervals. They were attended by the prime ministers of the various colonies and by representatives of India. In future these conferences — Imperial Conferences, as they are to be called are to be held every four years, the prime minister of Great Britain being the ex-officio president.1 Moreover, a special con­ference dealing with imperial defence was held in 1909, whilst many people hope that a system of preferential tariffs may yet more closely unite the colonies and the mother country.

The British Empire in 1911 had a population of some four hundred and ten millions. It included twelve and a half million square miles, or, in other words, it was ninety-one The British times the size of Great Britain and Ireland, and EmPire> I911 thrice the size of Europe. It comprised one-fifth of the world's surface and over one-fifth of its inhabitants; and it possessed, it is said, nearly ten thousand islands and two thousand rivers. It has helped to develop Great Britain's enormous prosperity; but it has also brought upon Great Britain vast responsibilities. The problems of the future, the problems of trade and of defence, the many problems connected with the government of the coloured races, are difficult of solution, but we may hope that the Empire's future leaders may possess sufficient foresight and statesmanship to deal wisely and patiently with them. The change that has come over the British race in its attitude towards its huge possessions makes it certain at any rate that Great Britain will not in the future be guilty either of indifference or want of sympathy in dealing with the manifold difficulties that lie before her in governing the vastest and most beneficent empire yet known to history.

Chronology
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