No one can read the protests sent to the Colonial Office by the great self-governing colonies that fought in the war, without realizing the gravity with which such a breaking away from the traditions of the Empire has been received by these colonies. Had we known it was to be war for the Chinese miners, the appeal made to Australia for men and arms would have had a very different effect. This is the substance of Australia's protest. Sentiment is a thing easily destroyed. Not even the Government, I think, can realize the indignation felt in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand by the Indentured Labour Ordinance. It should have been the policy of the Imperial Government to foster the tie that binds all the units of the Empire together. Mr. Chamberlain has voiced this opinion times out of number; our Imperial bards have sung it. The Government, which has always boasted that it was more Imperial than the Opposition, more wrapped up in the honour and the greatness of the Empire, has made this sentiment a commonplace in every election speech. And yet they have done more to destroy this bond than any other party in the state.
Again, some attention should have been paid to the Dutch problem in the Transvaal. No attention was paid to it. We hear little now of the war. The Transvaal might have been ruled from the beginning by the British Government. Now and again the English papers mention casually the once familiar name of General Botha as having addressed the Het Volk. But the Dutch problem is never considered at all in England by the great men of the people. And yet it is a very vital and important question. Next to the native question it is, perhaps, the most vital question with which South Africa has to deal.
Throughout South Africa the Boers are to-day the most thrifty, the most industrious, and almost the most agricultural section of the community. Of their ability in war we have had a long experience. Of their courage and patriotism we gained a knowledge at a great cost. They outnumber the English population in the Transvaal and Cape Colony. And South Africa will never be absolutely secured to the British Empire until the proportion of Boers to the total white population is reduced.
It should have been the object of the Government, immediately after the war, to pack the Transvaal with Englishmen, to act as a counterbalance to the Boer population. This would have been a dangerous experience if there was no excuse for introducing such a large number of Englishmen. But the excuse was to hand. A splendid opportunity of reducing the population of the Boers to the total white population occurred at the re-opening of the mines. Increased use of white labour in the mines would have given to the Transvaal that preponderating majority of Britons which the safety of the Empire demands. The home Government did not take that opportunity, and South Africa has been left in exactly the same dangerous condition as she was after the war.
Instead of performing this obvious duty to the country, the Government listened to the objections of the mine owners to swarming the country with white labour, upon the grounds that they would prove a disturbing element socially and politically, and agreed to the importation of the Chinamen.
There is yet another grave political aspect of this deplorable problem. As the British people are apt to forget that the Boers outnumber the Britons in the Transvaal, so they forget, when considering the problem of South Africa, that there is a vast population of natives within our territory.
These black tribes are utterly demoralized, and, it is recognized, by the war of the white man against the white man, and certain causes which could not have been foreseen, have increased the unrest and lawlessness.
From Lagos to the Cape the same story has been told for the last two years: that the black man is growing restive under the white man's rule, that the white man is losing rapidly that superstitious authority which up till then he had always carried with him. The cause of this is the utter failure of the Germans to bring the war in Damaraland to a successful conclusion. The continued successes scored by the Hereroes have undoubtedly set aflame the ambitions of the black tribes throughout the south-west coast and inland. In some cases it has been fomented and worked up by Mahommedan and Ethiopian missionaries. In addition to these disturbing elements the death of Lerothodi, the paramount chief of Basutoland, has increased the natives' restlessness. The spectacle of Chinese bands roaming the country, looting farms, killing white men and raping white women has added to these symptoms of native disaffection.
A rising among the Basutos—which more likely than not would be followed by a general rising of natives throughout Swaziland, Zululand and the Transvaal—would engage all our strength to suppress. We should have to make use of the constabulary which is now with great difficulty keeping under control the Chinese labourers. It is not hard to imagine the terrible state of affairs that would result from such a rising. While we suppress the black man the Chinaman would be left unguarded and unpoliced free to desert and to commit outrages. Indeed, should the Chinaman rise with the black man the safety of both Briton and Boer would be in the gravest jeopardy.
These are the deplorable risks which are being run by maintaining in the Transvaal some 50,000 Chinamen.