XII IN THE QUEEN'S NAME
The example of one gallant-minded, stout cadet, was maybe with Carlyle when he pictured the Queen in Council to pick out some other, still unoccupied, and adjure him in royal words:
'Young fellow, if there do be in you potentialities of governing, a gradual finding, leading, and coercing to a noble goal, how sad it is that that should be all lost. I have scores on scores of colonies. One of these you shall have. Go and grapple with it in the name of Heaven, and let us see what you will build of it.'
To Carlyle Sir George Grey might have gone, and laid at his feet South Australia and New Zealand. He had been their fairy autocrat during fourteen years; and the rugged outlooker at Chelsea would have admitted them to be healthy brats. New Zealand having been fitted with her Parliament, Sir George turned his face homeward, on leave of absence, Selwyn a fellow voyager. Mother's boy and mother hoped to meet once more, but it was not, to be. The Motherland had kept the servant too long on duty, but he grudged her not even that.
'My mother,' said Sir George softly, 'had been in frail health for some time, and I was always hoping to get home on her account. She heard that our ship had been signalled in the English Channel, then that I had landed, and she waited my appearance with loving expectation. My young step-brother entered her room, and mistaking him for me, she grasped his hand in thankfulness. The thing excited her, so very weak was she, and her death took place before I could reach her. Happily, I had at least the consolation that she believed she had seen me.'
The danger spot, in our over-sea territory, was now South Africa, where British and Dutch were at odds with each other, and both at odds with the natives. Affairs were a chaos. The region, grown historic as the Transvaal, had been told to arrange its future as it would. The Orange Free State had been kicked outside the British line of empire, with a solatium in money, in the manner that an angry father bids adieu to a ne'er-do-well son. A white man in South Africa hardly knew what flag he was living under, or, indeed, if he could claim any. Panda, on the Zululand frontier, growled over his assegai and knobkerry. Moshesh, the Basuto, hung grimly on the face of Thaba Bosego, a Mountain of Night in very truth. The embers of a Kaffir war still glowed.
Who was to hold the arena? Its hazards were thrown to Sir George Grey. At the moment, he would, perhaps, rather have returned to New Zealand, but he was told that somebody with the necessary qualifications must hie to the Cape, and that the Government had selected him. He packed his baggage and sailed from Bristol, Sir James Stephen going down there to see him embark. Bristol, as he explained, was then endeavouring to establish relations with the Cape and Australasia, which were coming into note.
'When I reached Cape Town,' Sir George pursued, 'they had just got their first Parliament, but it was hardly in operation. Under the constitution that had been granted, the Governor remained, to all purposes, the paramount force in the country. His ministers had practically no power over him, and thus everything was more or less in his hands. On urging them, as I often did, to go in for a system under which the ministers should be directly responsible to the people, not to the Governor, I would be told, "Oh, we can always get rid of you, if you do anything wrong, by an appeal to the Colonial Office." It was not until after I left the Cape that popular government was brought into effect.
'What sort of South Africa did I find? The bulk of the whites were Boers, who were most conservative in their ideas. There were no railways, and I had great difficulty in making that innovation acceptable to the Boers. Effort was requisite for the construction of harbours, a matter of equally vital importance, which I took in hand. It was desirable to give South Africa every possible element of a high civilisation, as, farther, universities, schools, and libraries. A mixture of Saxon and Dutch, she had to work out her destiny on her own lines, untrammelled by the Old World. Also, she must enlighten that cloud of a barbarous Africa which was pressing down from the north.
'How South Africa has changed since then! To illustrate that, Bloemfontein was quite a small place in the far wilds. Nobody knew where the capital of the freshly created Orange Free State was to be. No wonder either, since, for a while, many of the people refused to accept the new form of government, and would not vote for a President. They were angry, at having been thrust forth from their heritage as British subjects. What nation, they demanded, had the right so to treat a section of its people, who had done nothing to disqualify themselves from citizenship?
'You have to remember that the movement for throwing over the Colonies, was rising as an force active in England. They had come into being almost unbidden; they were regarded with a cold interest. The notion that it would be a good thing to lop them off altogether, was being accepted among English statesmen. You could feel the heresy in the air—gusts that brushed your face like a chill.'
The South Africa thus put foot upon by Sir George Grey, was re-created to him long after, in a cablegram that he received in New Zealand. The South African railway system, which he tended in its infancy, had crawled north to Bloemfontein, as it has since gone farther, and still goes on, the iron-shod tramp. That auspicious day, Bloemfontein remembered the author of its Grey College, and gripped his hand across the sea. It made him very happy. Providence had set him to garden three countries of the Southern Hemisphere in rapid succession. That 'God bless you' from Bloemfontein, showed, perhaps, that he had not tilled in vain.
'There can be no harm,' said Sir George, 'in relating another incident, which kept up the kindly link between the Orange Free State and myself. Before my friend Mr. Reitz accepted its Presidency, he wrote and asked me would I be willing to consider the offer, provided it were made to me? I was then, I think, in the quiet of Kawau Island, and I suppose Mr. Reitz believed I might be more actively employed.
'One did not need to be already a burgher of the Free State, for President Brand had not been; at all events, that was not an obstacle. I did not see my way to regard the offer, but the making of it manifested a beautiful trait in Mr. Reitz's character. How many men, being tendered the highest post that their country could confer, would have turned to another, asking, "Will you accept it?"'
The manner in which Sir George tackled the South African embroilment, appears in his treatment of that mongrel race, the Hottentots. They recruited largely to the Queen's Colonial service, but had a grievance in that, on leaving, they did not get, as they had been led to expect, the pension of white troopers. The 'Totties,' so christened in the Colony, might be loyal and brave, but they were not whites, and anything was good enough for them, if only it meant an Imperial saving. The Governor determined, 'This must be wiped out; its effect has already been disastrous; the Queen's uniform has but one colour.' He applied to Downing Street, only to be informed that it was not possible to reward native troopers, on retirement, as whites were. This did not content him.
'I went to the Cape Parliament, which, recognising the simple justice of my proposal, adopted it with a wise liberality. There was immediate satisfaction among the Hottentots, and on no subsequent occasion did they give trouble. It was ever my endeavour to bind the natives to us by esteem, to convince them that British rule was the most desireable rule they could have.'
How winsomely Sir George made the Queen a living personality as well as a mighty name to the native races! 'Ha-ha!' cried Maori; African, Australian, 'the Queen is indeed our mother, for Governor Grey shows it by his acts. But the eloquent word on that, came from an old Kaffir woman, whom nobody owned, Lot Hrayi. This was her epistle, through the Governor to the Queen:
'I am very thankful to you, dearest Queen Victoria, that you have sent, for me, a good doctor, a clever man. I was sixteen years blind, Mother and Queen, but now I see perfectly. I see everything. I can see the stars, and the moon and the sun. I used to be led before; but now, Mother, O Queen, I am able to walk myself. Let God bless you as long as you live on earth; let God bless Mother! Thou must not be tired to bear our infirmities, O Queen Victoria.'
To Sir George, Lot Hrayi's despatch was a State paper. 'Native races,' he laid down, 'understood personal rule, and the great thing was to make the Queen vivid, a reality, to them. England? Yes, it was a place far distant, where there were no dark-skinned peoples. The Queen of England? Ah, yes, they could comprehend her! She sat on a throne, so beautiful that its place must be where all was beautiful and good. Her heart beat for her folk, irrespective of their colour; she would minister to their happiness. Nothing could more delight her, than to secure the well-being of those who claimed her powerful protection. That was intelligible!
'Thus, when I had a measure of mercy, of justice, or of guidance to announce, I did it directly, in the Queen's name, and in the native languages. It was the Queen's utterance, though spoken by me, and it would be difficult to indicate how well the charm worked. Go into a cottage, in almost any part of England, and you will, I judge, find a portrait of the Queen hanging on the whitewashed walls. There were no portraits in the Kaffir kraals, yet the Queen entered them, a beneficent influence in many a crisis.'
Striving to attach the Kaffirs, Sir George granted them written titles to their lands. They could not at first perceive the object of the parchment, and he would express it thus: 'If you have any trouble with your lands, it is only necessary for you to go to a judge with this document. He will read it, and if there is a real grievance, he will have it put right. Even the Queen's army might be ordered away from a place, by a few policemen, if a judge so directed.'
The chiefs would often say afterwards: 'Oh, Sir George Grey explained to us, all about the advantages under which we held the land. He told us that the Queen, herself, could not turn us off the ground, without going to the supreme courts which dispensed justice in her name. If a claimant were found not entitled to a piece of land, he would be removed by the Queen's officers. But if he had right behind his claim, why, he would be maintained in it by those officers.'
'Some people,' Sir George made comment, 'declared it absurd that I should instil those ideas into the minds of the natives, but, in reality, it resulted in their having far more respect and regard for the Queen.' Assuredly, his policy made the Kaffirs eager to get land titles, and these were always another link binding them to good behaviour. It was the contrivance of the silken thread, wound here, there, everywhere, as against the other method, of a horse-hair halter.
Should some swashbuckler have contrary views on native administration, he could relieve his fierceness by tracing the word 'Hottentot' to its origin. Sir George had an amusing story of Cape Town in controversy on this term, which the Hottentots had always insisted did not belong to their forefathers.
'With a desire to solve the problem,' he related, 'I suggested that people in Cape Town should be asked to write papers on the name. This proposal was carried out, and a small sheaf of essays came in response. Well, I was looking over an old Dutch dictionary, and there I found "Hottentot" described as meaning "Not speaking well; a stammerer." The name, apparently, had been conferred by the early Dutch settlers, in South Africa, upon the natives first met, on account of the stuttering noise these caused in speaking. All the competitors wanted to have their papers back, in order, as they pleaded, to make a few corrections.'
Again, that was a process which Sir George was ever willing to apply to himself. Yet, being very human, he loved to make the corrections in his own fashion, like the essay-writers at Cape Town. There, at the foot of Africa, he sat, bold and cautious, leading the What-Was onward to the What-Ought-To-Be. He might be compared to a charioteer driving two horses, one white in two shades, jibbish at a corner, the other black as Satan, unbroken to the bit. But the chariot must move forward steadily, evenly, to its greater glory.
Kaffraria had to be put on a peace footing. The ideas, at the root of the tribal system, were averse to the growth of civilisation, but instead of pruning these violently, and so causing friction, Sir George would adapt them. The chiefs were largely dependent for their wealth in cattle and other chattels, on the punishments which they meted out to the tribesmen for offences, or imaginary offences. Let a Kaffir prosper, and he was certain to be charged with witchcraft. That was sudden death, and the cattle went to the kraals of him who ordered it.
The chiefs had every incentive to create witchcraft cases, thus keeping the land dark. Sir George met that, and farther bonded them fiefs of the Queen, by giving them small salaries as magistrates. He established regular courts, and in these the chiefs had their seats and a white man's guidance, while the fines went to the Government. A scarred warrior exchanged his dripping assegai for the Queen's commission as a J.P. He swaggered mightily at his bargain.
'It had,' Sir George brought up an apt anecdote, 'been promised the natives that their laws and customs should not be interfered with. After I introduced the courts, a chief was discovered to have put one of his tribe to death for witchcraft. I had the affair gone into, whereupon the chief contended, "You are aware of the undertaking we got, and trial for witchcraft is part of our customs."
'He fancied there could be no answer to this, and the other chiefs within hearing grinned approval. "Very well," I addressed him, "let us take it that way. But as you have killed this man you must support his widow. That has nothing to do with any question of custom." 'All the chiefs rolled on the ground, splitting with laughter. Knowing the penalty they might incur, the heads of tribes henceforth thought twice, before sending any man to death on a charge of witchcraft. They knew I had the means of compelling them to maintain the widow and family. I could stop the necessary amount out of their salaries. It was cheaper, and more effective, to give a bonus to a native chief than to keep a large standing army in Kaffraria.'
Sir George had worn the red coat, but he was never anxious to have it picturesquely dotting a country-side, when other measures were possible. He had bartered with Downing Street for the allowance to his chiefs. Paring down on a Budget, Disraeli bethought himself of saving half of the grant for Kaffraria. Sir George Grey entered protest. He was answered, that when difficulties had to be met at home, sacrifices must be made in the Colonies.
From tribulation, Sir George built authority. 'The fact that I was fighting the battle of the chiefs with the Home Government, naturally increased my prestige among them. They saw that I was sincere in all I had done, and that I accepted them absolutely as good friends and loyal subjects of the Queen.'
What happened? From his private means, Sir George made up, to the full amount, the instalment of salaries next due. It was a stroke which he had to repeat on a larger scale.
England raised a German legion for service in the Crimea, and, the war over, did not know what to do with the men. It was not considered wise to let them loose in England, and if they went back to Germany they might have to face the music of a drumhead court-martial. Cape Colony agreed to receive the Germans as military settlers; they would be planted, a row of defence, along the borders of Kaffraria. But the condition was attached that German families, into which the men might marry, should also be sent out.
When asked to perform the second part of the bargain, Downing Street said, 'Yes, we should like very much to do so, but we can't, for Parliament won't grant the money.'
This left the matter in an unfortunate state altogether. The German firm, managing the emigration of the families, reported to Sir George, 'The scheme must fall through, unless we have twenty thousand pounds at once.'
'I was in London,' Sir George mentioned, 'at the break between my two Governorships of South Africa. I went carefully into the matter, realising all that was at stake, and I gave the assurance, "You shall have the money this afternoon." I had never raised a large amount before, but I concluded that the place to go to was the City of London. I had several thousands with my bankers, on which I could lay hands, and I supposed they would enable me, by some method of interest, to get the remainder.
'On the road to the City I met a connexion of mine, also a banker. He asked me what I was about, and I told him. "Why don't you come to us?" he said. "I have no money with you," I replied; "and never had." "No," was his response; "but you need not pass us by in this matter. I should like to help you; come and draw a cheque for twenty thousand pounds."'
That cheque was drawn, and South Africa extracted from a grave social difficulty. The emigrants became an admirable settlement, and most honourably made good the outlay which they had occasioned. 'It wasn't banking, it wasn't business, that cheque,' Sir George was bantered long years after; 'but perhaps it was better.'
'Ah!' he laughed back, 'I'm benefiting myself now, for it seems that I returned thirty-eight shillings more than was due, and that therefore I have a balance to draw upon.'