Imperialism in South Africa

Transcribed from the 1879 James Clarke & Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
J. EWING RITCHIE.
London: JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14, FLEET STREET. 1879.
Price Sixpence .
It is vain to dispute the fact that those Puritan Fathers—who, upon one occasion, held a meeting, and resolved first that the earth was the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; secondly, that it was the heritage of the saints; and that thirdly, they were the saints, and were, therefore, justified in depriving the natives of their grounds, and in taking possession of them themselves—had a full share of that English faculty of appropriation which has made England the mistress of the seas, and for a while, almost, the ruler of the world; and, as Englishmen, we cannot say that on the whole that wholesale system, which has planted the British flag in every quarter of the globe, has been disastrous to the communities ruled over, or dishonourable to the nation itself. In some cases undoubtedly we have acted unjustly; in some cases the lives and happiness of millions have been placed in incompetent hands; in some cases we have had selfish rulers and incapable officers; but India and Canada and the West Indian Islands and Australia and New Zealand are the better for our rule. An Englishman may well be proud of what his countrymen have done, and it becomes us to review the past in no narrow, carping, and censorious spirit. We have spent money by millions, but then we are rich, and the expenditure has not been an unproductive one. We have sacrificed valuable lives, but the men who have fallen have been embalmed in the nation’s memory, and the story of their heroism will mould the character and fire the ambition and arouse the sympathies of our children’s children, as they did those of our fathers in days gone by; and yet there is a danger lest we undertake responsibilities beyond our means, and find ourselves engaged in contests utterly needless in the circumstances of the case, and certain to result in a vain effusion of blood and expenditure of money. As far as South Africa is concerned, this is emphatically the case. Originally the Cape Settlement was but a fort for the the coast. The country is subject to drought, and seems chiefly to be inhabited by diamond diggers, ostrich farmers, and wool growers. Its great agricultural resources are undeveloped, because labour is dear, and all carriage to the coast is expensive. The English never stop in the colonies, but return to England as soon as they have made a fortune. Living is quite as dear as in England, and in many parts dearer. In the Cape Colony, the chief amusements of all classes are riding, driving, shooting, and billiards. In the interior there are fine views to be seen, and in some quarters an abundance of game. The thunderstorms are frightful, the rivers, dry in summer, are torrents in winter. The droughts, the snakes, the red soil dust, and the Kaffirs, are a perpetual nuisance to all decent people. “Although South Africa is a rising colony,” writes Sir Arthur Cunynghame, “I hardly think it offers to the emigrant the chances which he would obtain in Australia or New Zealand. South Africa is not a very rich country. Labour is hard to obtain, and it will be years before irrigation can be carried on a sufficient scale to make agriculture a brilliant Success. Nevertheless, land is so abundant that the energetic colonist is sure, at least, to make a living, and provided he does not drink, has a good chance of becoming a rich man.” A great deal of money is made by ostrich farming and sheep grazing, but they are occupations which require capital. As to cereals, it pays better to buy them than to grow them. A cabbage appears to be a costly luxury, and the price of butter is almost prohibitive. “South Africa,” wrote a Saturday Reviewer recently, “is the paradise of hunters, and the purgatory of colonists.” The remark is not exactly true, but for all practical purposes it may be accepted as the truth. If this be so, how is it, then, it may be asked, we English have been so anxious to get possession of the country? The answer is, We hold the Cape of Good Hope to be desirable as a port of call and harbour of refuge on our way to India; but the opening of the Suez Canal has changed all that, and the reason for which we took it from the Dutch in 1806 does not exist now. Whether the country has ever made a penny by the Cape remains to be proved.